Human Rights Institute | Columbia Law School

News & Features

• Naureen Shah testified at the May 8 congressional hearing on United States drone policy in D.C.  She joined a group of human rights experts whose testimonies are also available.
   
• Associate Director of our Counterterrorism & Human Rights project Naureen Shah presents at the Oxford Union debate on Drone Warfare, April 25, 2013.  
   
• On April 26, 2013, HRI hosted our annual domestic human rights focused CLE on "Bringing Economic & Social Rights Home: The Right to Adequate Housing in the U.S."
   
• The Human Rights Clinic submitted a statement to Senate Judiciary hearing on drones, April 23, 2012
   
• Sarah Cleveland, Harold Koh and Ryan Goodman submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in Hollingsworth v. Perry. The brief provides the Court with foreign and comparative law to support same-sex marriage equality under the 14th Amendment.
   
• HRI made the following submissions to the UN Human Rights Committee to inform its review of US compliance with the ICCPR in 2013.   These submissions address the following issues:  Access to Justice, the Role of the Federal Government in Respecting and Ensuring Covenant Rights, Diplomatic Assurances/Renditions and Targeted Killings through Drone Strikes.   
   
• Naureen Shah urges John Brennan to commit to ending the CIA's involvement in the U.S. drone program.
   
• Risa Kaufman's article on "Framing Economic, Social & Cultural Rights at the U.N" is now available online in Northeastern Law Journal's October edition. This volume came out of the 2011  "Institute on Framing Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights for Mobilization and Advocacy: Towards a Strategic Agenda in the United States" co-sponsored with Northeastern's Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy.
   
• HRI releases a report on state and local human rights initiatives across the U.S. on International Human Rights Day.  JoAnn Kamuf Ward highlights some of these initiatives in a Politico op-ed as well as recommending strategies for state and local governments to implement human rights.
   
• HRI joined the ACLU to call for the US to integrate human rights standards into governmental responses to domestic violence in the United States in a submission to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
   
• In a recent Huffington Post piece, HRI's Executive Director Risa Kaufman & Human Rights Clinic students discuss Access to Justice & Human Rights at Home.
   
• HRI is excited to announce the release of our 2011-2012 Annual Report!
   
• HRI releases two reports on U.S. covert drone strikes program.  The first discusses the unexamined costs and questions raised by the drone program.  The second report examines media reporting of drone strike casualties. Human Rights Clinic students wrote opinion pieces for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Fletcher Forum and The Dominion Post in conjunction with the reports.
   

• HRI joined partner organizations including the USF International Human Rights Clinic in filing an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in affirmative action case, Fisher v Texas.

• In an Op-ed for The Guardian, HRI's Counterterrorism and Human Rights project director Naureen Shah examines John Brennan’s recent comments on U.S. drone strikes.

• Europe’s highest court, the European Court of Human Rights, repeatedly cited and discussed the Human Rights Institute’s intervenor brief in its landmark decision Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy. In what observers have called a “historic judgment,” the court recognized the human rights abuses suffered by migrants from Somalia and Eritrea who were intercepted by Italian ships. The Human Rights Institute commented on Inter-American Commission caselaw and comparative practice—areas the court used as a benchmark for its analysis of Italy’s practices.
   
• HRI’s Risa Kaufman & JoAnn Kamuf Ward outline the use of U.N. human rights mechanisms to advance economic justice in the United States in the Fall 2011 issue of the Clearinghouse Review.
   
• Human Rights Clinic students visit Naval War College International Law Department.
   
• Video: Domestic Violence & Human Rights: Lenahan vs. USA

   

• With research and assistance from Human Rights Clinic students, Carter Center launches website mapping Katanga mining sector in DRC.
   
• HRI is pleased to announce the publication of the new toolkit, Implementing Recommendations from the Universal Periodic Review: A Toolkit for State and Local Human Rights and Human Relations Commissions.
   
• Jessica Lenahan wins landmark domestic violence case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. For more information, please visit HRI's case page or read the decision.
• Human Rights Institute cited and thanked in precedential decision from the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in national security case, Yusupov v. Attorney General.
• Human Rights Clinic students presented their research on targeting operations with drone technology and humanitarian law at ASIL’s annual meeting. The session received praise from leading experts in this field. Video of the presentation and panel discussion was broadcast on C-SPAN.
• Read about the recent conference on “Gender Justice in the Americas: A Transnational Dialogue on Sexuality, Violence, Reproduction & Human Rights,” that HRI co-hosted at the University of  Miami School of Law. The conference brought together leading scholars and advocates from over 20 countries in North, South, Central America and the Caribbean.

• Read Naureen Shah's recent column in Jurist discussing the return of Guantanamo detainees to their home countries despite the risk of torture.

• HRI releases report on Diplomatic Assurances, Dec. 20, 2010. This report, authored by Naureen Shah, is the culmination of several years of research by the Human Rights Institute. The report presents the evolving evidence and jurisprudence of assurances and presents elements necessary to make such assurances plausible: judicial review, public scrutiny, and systematic monitoring. In a recent piece for The Age, HRI’s Shah urges stronger monitoring and enforcement guarantees in diplomatic assurances recently accepted by the Australian government for the transfer of prisoners detained in Afghanistan to the Afghan National Directorate of Security, an agency known for torture.

• HRI founder Louis Henkin and his wife Alice Henkin were awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt award on Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, for their lifelong commitment to advocating human rights at home and abroad.
   
• HRI’s associate director of the Human Rights in the U.S. project, JoAnn Kamuf Ward, wrote a recent piece on Huffington Post, urging the Obama Administration to exercise leadership in treaty ratification efforts as a step towards ensuring protection for the full range of human rights.
   
• In a recent piece for Politico, Risa Kaufman stresses the importance of bringing the UPR process home through federal coordination with state and local government agencies and officials.
   
• Executive director Risa Kaufman's Huffington Post piece says U.S. human rights record is “less than perfect,” and the Obama Administration acknowledging flaws in the Arizona law is an important step. 

• JoAnn Kamuf Ward, Counsel for the Human Rights in the U.S. Project traveled to Geneva this week to participate in advocacy efforts in preparations for the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR).  While in Geneva, JoAnn will brief U.N. delegates and and the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees on the U.S. Human Rights record. Click here to read more about JoAnn's trip and the UPR process.

• Bringing Human Rights Home, the 2008 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award winner, is now available in paperback.

• In conjunction with the United Nations Human Rights Council's review of the United States’ human rights compliance as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, HRI coordinated the drafting and submission of a coalition report on human rights treaty ratification. Civil society organizations submitted 26 cluster reports on a range of issues including migrant rights, the right to adequate housing, the right to work with dignity, LGBT rights, discrimination, criminal justice, and rights of persons with disabilities. The U.S. Human Rights Network published a compilation of these reports, available here.

• HRI’s annual CLE conference took place on June 4, 2010. This year's conference focused on ethics and domestic human rights lawyering. PowerPoints from the conference are available our CLE webpage.

• The BHRH Network held its  Spring 2010 Network Meeting on May 25, 2010. The meeting was preceded by an international legal research training session with Kyle Courtney, Reference/Electronic Services Librarian at Northeastern University School of Law. View Kyle's PowerPoint presentation and research training outline.
   
• The Human Rights Clinic recently submitted written comments in Hirsi v. Italy, a case before the European Court of Human Rights concerning the rights of migrants interdicted on the high seas.

• On Feb. 26, 2010, HRI hosted a consultation between the Obama Administration and civil society, providing individuals and organizations the opportunity to share their perspectve on the administration's human rights record and make recommendations for improvement. More information on the UPR and HRI's involvement in the first periodic review of the United States can be found on our UPR page.
   
• On Feb. 26, 2010, the Columbia Human Rights Clinic, in collaboration with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), Ira Kurzban, and community advocates in Miami, submitted a memo to Roxana Bacon, chief counsel of U.S. customs and immigration aervice arguing for a generous humanitarian parole policy toward Haitians in the wake of the earthquake.
   
• The Human Rights Clinic recently released a manual on domestic violence in anticipation of the the fourteenth annual Domestic Violence Conference at Fordham Law School.
   
• HRI’s Deputy Director Caroline Bettinger-Lopez recently blogged  about the violence in Ciudad Juarez and the recent Inter-American Court of Human Rights decision against Mexico.

• The Human Rights Institute launched a report on climate change and the right to food. Read Columbia Law School's press release here.

• The Human Rights Clinic published “Contracts Confidential: Ending Secret Deals in the Extractive Industries,” a report written in conjunction with the Revenue Watch Institute. Written by Professor Peter Rosenblum and HRI’s Revenue Watch Fellow Susan Maples, the report aims to promote a serious conversation among industry, governments, investors, banks, and civil society organizations about disclosure and confidentiality in extractive industry contracts.

• HRI is pleased to announce the publication of “State and Local Human Rights Agencies: Recommendations for Advancing Opportunity and Equality Through an International Human Rights Framework.”  This report highlights ways in which an international human rights framework can advance the critical work of state and local human rights agencies and recommends reforms at the national level to create a better system of accountability around the United States’ domestic and international human rights obligations and to coordinate and support state and local efforts. The report was produced under the auspices of the Campaign for a New Domestic Human Rights Agenda, and is a joint project of HRI and the International Association of Human Rights Officials, in conjunction with the campaign’s subcommittee on state and local government coordination. See the Campaign's press release.  See Columbia Law School's press release. 

• Risa Kaufman, HRI’s executive director,  serves as a co-coordinator of The Campaign for a New Domestic Human Rights Agenda, which is working to build human rights into the baseline of government. See the campaign’s recent letter supporting a U.S. Commission on Civil and Human Rights, published in the New York Times on Jan. 27,2009.
   
• The three volume Bringing Human Rights Home book set, co-edited by former Bringing Human Rights Home Director Cindy Soohoo, has recently been awarded the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding Book Award. Bringing Human Rights Home can be ordered from the publisher here.