Cyrus Vance Center for International Justice
New York, NY
Sam Bookman’s work before and during his study at Harvard Law School has focused on human rights and access to justice. Sam received his first law degree from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where he was Director of the Equal Justice Project, the law school’s only Student Practice Organization. As a law student and attorney in New Zealand, Sam worked on a variety of direct service and impact litigation cases, including humanitarian law, prisoners’ rights and social and economic rights. For two years’ Sam served as Judge’s Clerk and Research Counsel to the Chief Judge of the District Court of New Zealand, where he was involved in projects related to online speech, child abduction and indigenous law. At Harvard Law School, Sam was a student clinician in the Human Rights Clinic, working on litigation to fight human trafficking. He was also a Project Leader for Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights, working on corporate accountability issues in the Middle East. As a Kaufman Fellow at the Cyrus Vance Center for International Justice, Sam will help to provide advice to NGOs and lawyers across the world, working in the Center’s programs on Human Rights and Access to Justice, and Good Governance. Sam has also made academic contributions on human rights law, assisting in the revision of New Zealand’s leading human rights textbook and is published in a range of journals in New Zealand and internationally.