Led by Professor David Scheffer, the former U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues (1997-2001), the Center for International Human Rights (CIHR) provides a comprehensive range of classroom courses on the norms and mechanisms of international human rights law, international criminal law, and international humanitarian law, as well as provides valuable clinical experiences for students interested in the protection of human rights on a global scale and projects researching and addressing emerging human right norms and related issues.

CIHR faculty members, including Professors Scheffer, Sandra Babcock (clinical director), Bridget Arimond (LLM director), and Steve Sawyer (senior counsel), supervise students in several areas of clinical work (including advocacy and preparation of filings before federal courts, international criminal tribunals, and human rights bodies). They also teach core and elective courses for students in the LLM, JD-LLM, and Masters of Legal Studies (for non-law students) programs in International Human Rights.

CIHR faculty assist in placing students in international externships (for academic credit) and post-graduate staff positions with international courts and human rights organizations.

Summary of CIHR Projects

CIHR sponsors events throughout the year on cutting edge issues in the fields of international human rights and international criminal law. During the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years, CIHR held major conferences on atrocity crimes in Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, corporate human rights responsibility, the responsibility to protect and the International Criminal Court, atrocity crimes litigation during 2007, Alien Tort Statute litigation, the legal authority of humanitarian aid organizations in hostile territories, and freedom of expression.

CIHR faculty are engaged in myriad forms of advocacy, including litigation, human rights monitoring, and the formulation of policy on a wide variety of substantive issue areas. For example, CIHR is engaged in research and advocacy relating to emerging norms such as the responsibility to protect civilian populations at risk from atrocity crimes; corporate human rights responsibility; and the jurisprudence of the international criminal tribunals (including an annual review conference).

Clinical faculty have worked with students on projects including Alien Tort Statute and the Alien Victims Protection Act litigation; statement-taking for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia; representation of pre-trial detainees in Malawi to reduce prison overcrowding and increase access to justice; litigation before the International Court of Justice, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Mexican nationals condemned to death in the United States; preparation of amicus and client briefs before the United States Supreme Court and other federal and state courts; preparation of briefs and memos for the international criminal tribunals; and research and drafting of legislation to modernize the federal criminal and military codes by incorporating modern definitions of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes (with the goal of enabling federal and military courts to more effectively prosecute such crimes).

In collaboration with the Documentation Center of Cambodia and thanks to the financial support of the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation, CIHR operates the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor (www.cambodiatribunal.org). This web site provides daily coverage of and expert commentary about the trial proceedings of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia before which senior Khmer Rouge leaders and others most responsible for the atrocity crimes of the Pol Pot era are being brought to justice.

More on Some of CIHR’s Current Projects

Advocacy on behalf of prisoners facing the death penalty in Malawi. CIHR faculty and students traveled to Malawi in March 2007 and 2008, where they worked directly with prosecutors, legal aid lawyers, and prisoners in order to facilitate plea bargains that reduced severe prison overcrowding, conserved scarce judicial resources, and enabled many prisoners to walk again as free men or to receive sentences that were proportionate to the crimes they had committed.

International and Domestic Litigation on Behalf of Mexican Nationals Condemned to Death. Over the last two years, the clinic has engaged in litigation before the International Court of Justice, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Supreme Court, and domestic courts in Texas regarding the rights of Mexican nationals who were deprived of their rights to consular notification and access upon their detention in the United States.

Preparation of Supreme Court Amicus Brief in Kennedy v. Louisiana. In February 2008, clinic students researched and wrote an amicus brief on behalf of more than 50 British law associations, law lords, Queens Counsel and law professors in the Supreme Court case of Kennedy v. Louisiana. The brief focused on international standards relating to the application of the death penalty for child rape. During oral arguments, Justice Stevens twice referred to the clinic brief in challenging the positions taken by Louisiana and Texas state attorneys. On June 25, 2008, the court vacated the death sentence of Patrick Kennedy and held that the death penalty was a disproportionate penalty for the crime of child rape that did not result in death—a result consistent with the clinic brief.

Expansion of international human rights law and international criminal law curricular and extra-curricular offerings. These recent accomplishments are emblematic of the Human Rights Clinic program, which allows JD and LLM and JD/LLM International Human Rights students to participate in cases and projects raising human rights norms within domestic courts, foreign legal systems, and international tribunals. CIHR oversees the international externship program for JD and JD/LLM students to obtain law school credit while working full-time for an academic term with designated international tribunals and international organizations. To date, CIHR has placed JD students with the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

Continuing development and expansion of the LLM program in International Human Rights Law, through which American lawyers and foreign human rights lawyers are able to undertake a comprehensive one-year curriculum in international human rights law. Over the past five years, the International Human Rights LLM program has welcomed students from 26 countries, including Mexico, Ghana, Philippines, Uganda, Ethiopia, Italy, Tanzania, South Africa, Turkey, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Iraq, Indonesia, South Korea, China, Pakistan, and Puerto Rico. CIHR also supervises the only four-year JD/LLM joint degree program in International Human Rights offered by any law school in the United States.

Provision of assistance to international and hybrid criminal tribunals. Clinic students, under the guidance of CIHR faculty, have prepared memoranda for these tribunals on legal issues raised by particular cases pending before the tribunals. CIHR’s director has been engaged as a mediator in the negotiations which led to the operation of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, with frequent travel to Cambodia and relevant publications.

Advocacy on Guantanamo cases before the United States Supreme Court, lower federal courts, and the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva regarding violations of international human rights law arising from the military commissions prosecuting detainees at Guantanamo.

Participating as plaintiffs’ counsel and as amicus curiae in federal court cases brought under the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act to hold accountable multinational corporations and government officials for atrocities committed in violation of the law of nations.

Who We Are

Sandra Babcock, Clinical Director
Clinical Associate Professor

Stephen Sawyer, Senior Counsel
Clinical Assistant Professor

David Scheffer, Director
Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law

Bridget Arimond, LLM Director
Clinical Assistant Professor

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Center for International Human Rights

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Summary of CIHR Projects

More on Some of CIHR’s Current Projects

Who We Are

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