Clinical Professor Jayne Huckerby, director of the International Human Rights Clinic, and Clinical Professor Aya Fujimura-Fanselow, supervising attorney for the clinic, talk about the clinic's work, how students get involved, the skills that students learn, and their favorite part about leading the clinic. The clinic is a core component of the Human Rights Program at Duke Law. Through an extensive curriculum, Duke Law's international and comparative law faculty equips students to deepen their knowledge and critical assessment of human rights laws, institutions, advocacy, and scholarship.

As part of the Human Rights in Practice series, join the Center for International and Comparative Law and the International Human Rights Clinic for this program featuring Meg Satterthwaite, Professor of Clinical Law; Faculty Director, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice; Director, Global Justice Clinic; Faculty Director, Robert L. Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU Law & UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers. Professor Satterthwaite will discuss human rights and legal empowerment.

As part of the Human Right in Practice series, join the Center for International and Comparative Law and the International Human Rights Clinic for this special International Week program. We will discuss the opportunities and challenges of engaging with supranational institutions, including the UN, in doing human rights advocacy, specifically with respect to racial justice.

As part of the Human Rights in Practice speaker series, join Eva Okoth (Natural Justice), and Kristin Casper (Greenpeace International), for a discussion of the use of litigation and other legal strategies to secure human rights and climate and environmental justice in Kenya and around the world. The discussion is moderated by Monica Iyer (Duke Law School). The event is organized by the Center for International and Comparative Law and the International Human Rights Clinic.

A conversation with Karen Musalo, the founding director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) at U.C. Hastings College of Law. Drawing on her leadership in landmark gender-based asylum cases, Ms. Musalo discussed the barriers currently facing asylum-seekers at the border and inside the United States. She also addressed the ways in which these barriers reflect historical trends in restricting access to asylum.

While much attention has been paid to the human rights fallout of national security measures post-9/11, one area that is consistently overlooked is the impact of such measures on the family-both as a unit and for individual family members. This is the case with administrative and criminal measures that impact the family unit or members.

The Human Rights in Practice speaker series presents discussions with noted practitioners on a wide range of current human rights issues. Our second program for the fall semester features Kate Barth, Legal Advisor, International Center for Not-For-Profit Law, and Domingo Lovera-Parmo, Professor, Department of Public Law & Co-Director, Public Law Program, Universidad Diego Portales. The event is organized by the Center for International and Comparative Law and the International Human Rights Clinic.

The Human Rights in Practice speaker series presents discussions with noted practitioners on a wide range of current human rights issues. Our first program for the fall semester features Kaaren Haldeman (Former Vice-Chair, Durham Racial Equity Task Force), Dreisen Heath (Researcher/Advocate, US Program, Human Rights Watch), Yuvraj Joshi (Asst. Professor, Univ. of British Columbia Allard School of Law), and, Virginie Ladisch (Sr.

Tina Huang, Research Analyst, World Resources Institute, and Kurt Tjossem, Regional Vice President, Horn and East Africa, International Rescue Committee, discuss food security and climactic factors. The program is moderated by Aya Fujimura-Fanselow, Clinical Professor of Law (Teaching) and Supervising Attorney, International Human Rights Clinic.

Talita Dias, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Blavatnik School of Government, Junior Research Fellow & Lecturer in Criminal Law, St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, and Gowri Ramachandran, Counsel, Election Security, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law discuss voting security. Aya Fujimura-Fanselow, Clinical Professor of Law (Teaching) and Supervising Attorney, International Human Rights Clinic, moderator.

This discussion features Aruna Kashyap, Senior Counsel, Business and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, and Achal Prabhala, Coordinator, AccessIBSA project and Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation. The program is moderated by Aya Fujimura-Fanselow, Clinical Professor of Law (Teaching) and Supervising Attorney, International Human Rights Clinic.

Carolina Solano, Researcher, Colombian Truth Commission, and former International Litigation Coordinator at the Colombian Commission of Jurists, and Claret Vargas, Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), discuss litigating civil human rights cases in U.S. federal courts, primarily under the Torture Victim Protection Act, against U.S.-based perpetrators for atrocity crimes perpetrated abroad. Using the example of litigation on behalf of Colombian clients, extradited human rights perpetrators currently in U.S.

Fábio Amado De Souza Barretto, Brazilian public defender and head of the human rights department at the public defense office in Rio de Janeiro (Defensoria Publica do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) & Irmina Pacho, Associate Legal Officer, Litigation Team, Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) discusses the right to health care in prisons in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. De Souza Barretto will discuss a case filed in Brazil on behalf of prisoners, and Ms.

As part of Duke Law's International Week, Nanjala Nyabola, independent consultant and author, "Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Kenya", and Maya Wang, China Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch, discuss human rights, discrimination, and digital political participation.

Moderated by Aya Fujimura-Fanselow, Clinical Professor of Law and Supervising Attorney, International Human Rights Clinic.

As governments respond to the novel coronavirus, the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people are under increasing threat. Some face increased risks from stay-at-home orders when home is not a safe environment or when health care discrimination deters LGBTI people from seeking COVID-19 treatment. Discriminatory measures that stigmatize and blame LGBTI people for outbreaks as well as governments’ crackdown on LGBTI rights defenders, heighten vulnerabilities and violence.

As society grapples with an unprecedented pandemic, the most vulnerable workers and communities bear the brunt of its immediate and long-term devastating effects, even as they provide essential services to our societies. But can the pandemic also present opportunities to address market failures and position workers’ rights as central to a more sustainable, just, and resilient economy?

The impact of COVID-19 on education is tangibly felt across the globe, with school closures, disparities in access to remote education, disruption to free meal and vaccine programs, risk of increased dropout rates, and more. How can we ensure an accelerated recovery that doesn’t widen educational attainment —and related power— gaps between the rich and the poor, between boys and girls, and between the Global North and the Global South?

The global pandemic is exacerbating discrimination against, and challenges faced by, persons with physical and mental disabilities. Some may face increased risk of becoming infected or seriously-ill with COVID-19, including in institutions, and others may face obstacles in accessing healthcare and other necessary services and supplies. How can advocates promote a disability rights-based response to the pandemic, including one that centers persons with disabilities in decision-making on prevention and containment measures?

As COVID-19 threatens to collapse our healthcare system, sexual and reproductive health and rights are in grave jeopardy. Opportunistic policymakers are exploiting the pandemic to restrict or outright ban abortion care and access to contraception. In what ways has the health emergency exacerbated already existing vulnerabilities, and in what other ways has it created new problems? What advocacy strategies are being used to combat the exploitation of a state of emergency to curtail sexual and reproductive health?

Covid-19 has profoundly disrupted how we conduct human rights work. Advocates around the world are adapting to new challenges brought on by lockdowns, including needing to balance responding to new and exacerbated human rights concerns, increased personal and family responsibilities, and the challenges of remote working. Further, many traditional strategies for resilience and wellbeing such as maintaining strong social bonds and organic peer support networks, are being tested as we remain physically apart.

The pandemic is, quite literally, pushing people apart. Physical distancing makes traditional forms of organizing and activism—rallies, protests, Know Your Rights trainings; the people power generated by physical proximity—impossible. The pandemic exacerbates preexisting inequities, disproportionately affecting communities and people already marginalized. How are organizations and social movements shifting tactics to continue to build the power of marginalized communities in this new era? What are the greatest challenges?

As governments respond to the novel coronavirus, asylum-seekers, migrants, and refugees are increasingly being left behind. Housing in overcrowded camps and informal reception centers undermines access to the adequate health care, sanitation, and water needed to protect against COVID-19. And some governments are taking advantage of the pandemic to enact discriminatory prevention and treatment measures, including by rejecting asylum-seekers.

In conflict-affected countries, healthcare systems have been neglected or destroyed, basic services such as water are often lacking, and civilians are already living under extreme stress, often in crowded conditions. As the pandemic spreads, the consequences will likely be devastating, and the UN Secretary General has recently called for a global ceasefire.

Join us for a discussion with leading human rights thinkers on how the pandemic spotlights the need for the human rights field to innovate. Kathryn Sikkink (Harvard) will discuss her new book The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibility, in which she argues that more emphasis needs to be on the responsibilities of all to implement rights. César Rodríguez Garavito (NYU/Just Labs) will discuss his new research, scholarship, and advocacy on forward-looking, hope-based strategies for advancing rights. Moderated by Gulika Reddy (Columbia).

How are justice-seeking movements and organizations adapting to the rapidly-changing environment created by the spread of COVID-19? What tools are proving most effective in their responses? And what role can lawyers and courts play to curb deepened and emerging justice challenges? Join us for conversation with experts and advocates Amna Akbar (Ohio State), Dr. Hassan Jabareen (Adalah Legal Center) and Pamela Spees (Center for Constitutional Rights); moderated by JoAnn Kamuf Ward (Columbia).

Originally recorded on April 14, 2020.