| |
Legal Advocacy and Research
Clinical Human Rights Course at DU
Development of Clinical Programs
Abroad--Clinical
Legal Aid Initiatives
Human Rights Internships Abroad
Legal Advocacy and Research
Students working with the Advocacy Center assist human rights
attorneys and organizations and advocates in other countries with
factual and legal research. The research is organized in the form
of "litigation reports" setting out a complete factual
background of the issues identifying the pertinent domestic and
international law, and making recommendations for remedial action.
Some of the work is available on line, both in formal Reports by
the Center and in a series of Student Advocacy Papers produced under
the auspices of the Center or its Director. Recent work of the Center
has included:
Selected reports of the Center can be accessed through the
Advocacy Papers page.
The Center currently undertakes focused human rights projects in
three specific areas:
Students can work with the Center in a number of different ways:
-
Academic Credit: GSIS and
law students can earn independent Study Credit for work undertaken
with the Center. GSIS students earn one hour of credit for 25
hours of work and law students earn one credit for every 50
hours of work. GSIS, law and other graduate students taking
the Clinic Course in International Human Rights Advocacy earn
5 credit hours (or, in the case of law students, 3 credit hours).
Law students can earn unpaid internship credit by working with
the Center. Law students earning internship credit attend weekly
internship classes at the law school.
-
Work Study: In both GSIS
and the Law School, students may earn work study money for work
done on behalf of the Center, depending on financial eligibility.
- Volunteer: Come over to the Center and volunteer.
[BACK
TO TOP]
Clinical Human Rights Course at DU
Each year Center's Director, Robert Golten, teaches the Policy
Clinic in International Human Rights Advocacy (INTS 4945). The course
is offered through the Graduate School of International Studies
and it is also open to students in the College of Law and other
graduate programs at D.U. Students taking the course have the opportunity
to gain hands-on experience by researching and preparing litigation
memoranda on actual human rights violations.
Students in the program work on developing international human rights
cases for remedial action, either through the use of domestic legal
systems in countries where the abuse is occurring, or in selected
international forums such as the Inter-American Human Rights Commission,
or various agencies of the United Nations. Alternative dispute resolution
options are also considered.
The students in the program are expected to meet individually
with the course professor outside of class on a regularly scheduled
basis to discuss work on their particular case. Students also meet
each week collectively for a seminar with the course instructor.
Subjects taken up in the seminar include a review of major human
rights instruments, the methods for bringing complaints through
each of the three regional human rights bodies (European, Inter-American
and African) and the use of United Nations complaint mechanisms.
The course also focuses on selected topics such as refugee and asylum
law, indigenous rights, the rights of women, children and minorities,
as well as the use of U.S. law and courts to address international
human rights violations. Students review actual cases brought in
U.S. courts and international forums and present ideas for the resolution
of their own issues.
Optimally, students follow their "litigation reports"
oversees, seeking to collaborate with human rights activists and
NGOs on the ground in implementing their reports.
The seminar portion of the course takes place during the winter
quarter but the writing component of the course need not be completed
until the end of the spring quarter. GSIS students earn five credit
hours for the course and law students earn three credit hours. Students
whose projects require more than 150 hours of work may take an independent
study during the spring quarter.
GSIS students receive one credit hour for 25 additional hours of
work, and law students receive one credit hour for one hour of credit
for every 25 hours of work and law students earn one credit for
every 50 hours of additional work.
[BACK
TO TOP]
Development of Clinical Programs
Abroad
Clinical Legal Aid Initiatives
The Advocacy Center assists universities in developing countries
in setting up clinical programs to deliver, via law students under
faculty supervision, legal aid at no cost to indigent citizens seeking
to remediate human rights abuses, or to challenge laws or practices
that infringe on recognized human or civil rights.
Bob Golten, the Advocacy Center's Director, has assisted in
developing clinical programs in Slovakia, Azerbaijan and Uganda
as a "volunteer" with the ABA/CEELI and ABA African Law
initiative programs. In Uganda, Golten put together a local advisory
board comprised of law faculty, students, judges and government
officials for a clinical program he designed to provide aid to homeless
children, juvenile offenders and petty criminals incarcerated for
lengthy periods before trial.
He also assisted in making client referral arrangements, and in
soliciting funding for the program from governmental and non-governmental
agencies and organizations. In Slovakia, Golten assisted in establishing
an externship program whereby law students from the Slovak university
were able to gain placement with international organizations such
as the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees. He also helped
launch in the fall 2000 a clinic on women's issues and prisoner's
rights at the University of Azerbaijan law school in Baku; and in
the spring 2001 he conducted clinical legal education workshops
in Almaty, Kazakhstan and Osh, Kyrgyzstan for ABA-CEELI.
[BACK
TO TOP]
Human Rights Internships Abroad
The Advocacy Center works in conjunction with the GSIS Office
of Career Services to facilitate overseas internships and externships
with non-governmental, international, and domestic human rights
organizations. These internships enable students to gain practical
human rights experience that may also be related to their advocacy
and research projects at the Center.
In recent years, DU students have served internships with Amnesty
International, the Center for Legal and Social Studies (a leading
human rights organization in Argentina), the Center for the Study
of Society and Secularization (in Bombay, India), the Mandela Institute
in Palestine, Human Rights Watch, and the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights. In the summer of 2000, the Center placed students
in internships with human rights organizations in Uganda and Croatia.
In the summer of 2001, students from the Advocacy
Center participated in internships with a number of human rights
organizations abroad, including the National Garifuna Council of
Belize, with regard to indigenous land rights issues, the Uzbeki
Human Rights Society, working on issues pertaining to religious
freedom of practicing Muslims, the European Rights Center, addressing
discrimination against Roma children in the Bosnian public school
system, and the Tibetan Center for Human Rights in Dharamsala, India,
preparing a petition to the UN challenging China's denial of religious
freedom to indigenous Tibetan people.
In addition, students traveled to Nepal to collaborate with Nepali
NGOs on the issue of girl trafficking, and Croatia to pursue a litigation
initiative pertaining to the return of the property of ethnic Serbs
displaced during the civil war.
During 2002 students working with the Center spent internships
working with a law school legal aid clinic in Uganda helping to
develop litigation aimed at protecting the rights of homeless children
and juvenile offenders; in Kenya working with a Refugee Rights consortium
in Nairobi; in Bosnia, continuing the work promoting rights of Roma
children being discriminated against in the public schools; and
in Nigeria working with a women's collective on a project attempting
to end discrimination against widows in certain tribal communities.
Some funding for unpaid international internships may be available
through the Paterson International Internship Fund.
Compensation (a "stipend") is also occasionally available,
although the vast majority of internships are uncompensated.
[BACK
TO TOP]
|
