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Seminar on Strategic Litigation in International Human Rights

The Center's Impact Litigation Project offers a seminar on Strategic Litigation in International Human Rights where ĢƵWCL students have the opportunity to analyze international litigation as a tool for advancing human rights. The Project, through the seminar, focuses both on litigation and factors outside litigation that are necessary to create an environment where the desired legal change can take place. The seminar has a theoretical and a practical component. Students, therefore, study cases and analyze scholarship related to impact litigation in international human rights law. At the same time, students are assigned a case/project related to work in strategic impact litigation.

As part of the Impact Litigation Project, students have had the opportunity to engage in a wide range of hands-on legal work that advances international human rights. Their contributions include in-depth legal analysis, research, litigation support, and the drafting of amicus briefs submitted before international and regional human rights bodies. Please see below for the types of cases students have worked on, as classified by regional systems and domestic jurisdictions:

STUDENTS HAVE WORKED ON THE FOLLOWING PROJECTS:

International Human Rights Cases

African Human Rights System

  • Due Process & Human Rights Violations
    • Amicus Brief on Ethiopia before the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights

Inter-American Human Rights System

  • Due Process & Detention
    • Legal brief on alternatives to pretrial detention
    • Litigation support in a due process case against Panama
  • Gender & LGBTI Rights
    • Legal opinion on gender identity & name change (Inter-American Court)
    • Oral arguments on gender identity legal standards (Inter-American Court)

United Nations System

  • Arbitrary Detention & Due Process
    • Preliminary report on UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions
    • Analysis of UN jurisprudence on arbitrary detentions
  • Labor & Public Health Rights
    • UN report on chronic kidney disease in Nicaraguan sugarcane workers

Domestic Cases

Caribbean

  • LGBTI Rights
    • Litigation support in an LGBTI rights case

Chile

  • Reproductive Rights
    • Amicus Brief on abortion regulation before the Constitutional Court

Colombia

  • Disability Rights
    • Drafting an introduction for a disability rights bill
  • Gender & Sex Work Rights
    • Amicus Brief on gender stereotypes and sex worker profiling (Court of Appeals)

Guatemala

  • Death Penalty
    • Amicus Brief against the death penalty before the Constitutional Court

Latin America (Regional Scope)

  • Sex Work & Legalization
    • Legal analysis of options for sex work legalization in Latin America

United States

  • Executive Powers & Immigration
    • Analysis of U.S. presidential pardon powers in the Arpaio case
    • FOIA request on treatment of undocumented migrant children turning 18 in detention

“The Center’s work in impact litigation embodies the law school’s commitment to advancing human rights and dignity.”

Robert Goldman, faculty advisor