Each fall the Center’s Director, Robert
Golten, teaches an interdisciplinary course on International Human
Rights Law and Advocacy (INTS
4945, 4955). The course is offered through the Graduate
School of International Studies, is cross-listed at the Law School
and is also open to other Denver University graduate students.
The students in INTS 4945 meet collectively in
the fall quarter/semester for 10 weekly 3-hour classes. The subjects
taken up in the classes include a review of major international
human rights instruments, the methods for bringing complaints to
the UN and to each of the three regional human rights systems (Inter-American,
European and African), and various substantive topics — refugee
and asylum law, humanitarian law (genocide, torture, war crimes
and crimes against humanity), special rights of indigenous peoples,
minorities, women and children, and transitional justice. [Click
here for Syllabus]
This 10 week academic course is given for 5 hours
credit to graduate students and 3 hours credit to Law students.
There is a final examination.
Following INTS 4945, students in that course,
and other students with prior training or experience in human rights
law or advocacy, may enroll during the winter and/or spring quarters
in INTS 4955, the clinical component of the human rights advocacy
program. Students are expected to spend at least 150 hours developing
and writing Advocacy (or Litigation) Reports – for graduate
students 5 hours credit, for law students 3 hours credit – on
a current international human rights violation selected by the
student and approved by the instructor.. It is open to students
to also treat this experience as an internship or independent study
credit. If considerably more than 150 hours are expended, students
may opt to claim an additional internship or independent study
credit for each 50 hours of additional work.
These Reports are intended for use in converting
rights violations into cases that can be addressed using the rule
of law, either in the domestic courts of the country where the
violation occurs and/or in an appropriate international tribunal
(e.g., various UN human rights agenices, the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights, the International Labor Organization, etc.) .
Alternative dispute resolution strategies are also considered.
Optimally, students in the program follow their
Reports overseas, seeking to collaborate with human rights activists
and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the ground in implementing
the recommendations in their Reports for stopping or ameliorating
the violations.
The students in the clinic are expected to meet
individually with the course professor on a regularly scheduled
basis to discuss work on their particular cases.
Occasional seminars, with guest speakers and/or
to discuss the various projects on which students are working,
will be held during the winter/spring terms.
[The Advocacy Center’s Asylum Project
has been temporarily suspended, due to a funding shortfall. If
and when that Project resumes, INTS 4955 clinic students will
be given the opportunity to work with, and advocate for, asylum
seekers in the Denver metropolitan area.]
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