Advocay Memo Fall 2005
MEMORANDUM
To: Interested and Invested Parties
From: Sarah Parady and Jessica Chicco, Co-Chairs
RE: Summary of Advocacy Committee Activities, Fall 2005
Date: January 16, 2006
Law Students for Human Rights – Advocacy Committee
Mission and Organization
The Advocacy Committee of Law Students for Human Rights is charged with developing rights-based advocacy skills of the student membership and serving the needs of specific populations by collaborating with NGO initiatives at home and abroad. As law students, we are uniquely positioned to provide certain services towards the promotion of human rights, including:
§ Legal research and writing in the form of internal memos, contributions to scholarly articles, or material for amicus briefs
§ Policy advocacy in the form of legislative drafting or compiling position statements for issue-based lobbying coalitions
§ Public education and training in the form of fact sheets, op-eds, posters/flyers
§ [In]direct action – the collection of signatures for certain petitions, training of legal observers, and calling on policy makers to take an official stand
§ Direct action, for example, protests and silent demonstrations (before political offices, corporations, embassies, and/or any other institutions subject to popular pressure)
None of these remedies can operate exclusively. Either the advocacy committee will struggle through its own issues of strategy and balance, or it will figure into a larger plan of a particular NGO or coalition that is struggling through them.
The Advocacy Committee is one of five committees that make up Law Students for Human Rights. The Advocacy Committee Co-Chairs direct and oversee all the activities of the Committee. They are responsible for logistics of meetings and programming that develops the rights-based advocacy skills of the membership. Sarah Parady (sjp315@nyu.edu) and Jessica Chicco (jessicachicco@nyu.edu) serve as the 2005-06 Co-Chairs of the Advocacy Committee.
The bulk of the Advocacy Committee body is composed of 1Ls, although this academic year has been marked by substantial participation by 2 Ls who often take on leadership roles within the Committee. While the Committee offers opportunities for students at each stage of the law school education, the distinct advantages for first-year students (exposure to the human rights field and access to skills training specific to international law, which is, for the time being, grossly lacking in the first-year curriculum) compel many of them to stay involved with LSHR. LSHR embraces this trend, and seeks to harness their energy and intellectual passion. At the same time, we will continue to recruit and welcome the active and ongoing participation of LLMs, and graduating 3Ls.
Each Advocacy Committee project is assigned to a particular Project Team, made up of one or more Project Leaders, and a varying number of Project Team Members depending on the size and organization of the project. In addition, each project will be supervised by one of the Committee’s Co-Chairs, and at times by a Faculty Sponsor. Finally, the majority of Advocacy Committee Project Teams work for or with an NGO Partner and develop contacts at the organization.
Projects come to LSHR through contacts made by our members; by the co-chairs in the summer before the school year; by NGOs for whom we have worked in the past or who have heard of our work; by conversations with speakers at LSHR Education Events; and often, from Profs. Meg Satterthwaite and Smita Narula of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and the Human Rights Clinic (often including work that is beyond the capacity of the Clinic itself).
The Co-Chairs of the Advocacy Committee, in collaboration with the Project Leaders, ensure that reasonable progress is made according to an agreed upon timeline. They serve as the focal point of communication between Faculty Sponsors and the rest of the Project Team. They should also be copied in all correspondence between Faculty Sponsors, NGO Partners, Project Directors, and any other member of the Project Team, and make themselves available to provide input and direction if needed.
The bulk of substantive responsibility of projects is concentrated in the Project Leaders. Each project should have at least one Project Leader. Project Leaders are typically students who either come up with the idea for a project or are able to commit themselves significantly. They will be responsible for developing NGO contacts and relationships, assessing needs, drafting concrete goals, and coordinating the completion of substantive tasks. Some of this may be initiated by the Committee Co-Chairs early on in a semester, but projects should be handed over to Project Leaders as soon as practicable.
Project Directors should be supported by Project Team Members, who assist in carrying out the substantive work of the team. Aside from the fact that Project Leaders may have more organizational roles and larger time commitments, Project Team Members should all feel ownership over a project – working relationships should remain egalitarian. We expect there to be and welcome varying levels of experience within a team – there is no single path to a career in human rights, and every individual brings something different to the table. Members may also want to work on more than on project. However, once a student has committed to being a member of a Project Team, she is expected to follow the project through to completion.
LSHR Advocacy Committee considers producing quality work a top priority. As such, any important communication or paper for external purposes should undergo a review process. At a minimum, each external substantive communication will be reviewed by the Project Leader. While LSHR does not intend to “censor” the work of the Project Teams, the Steering Committee of LSHR must be generally aware of what gets the “LSHR” name on it. In addition, any final work product to be submitted to NGOs, especially those that will eventually be circulated beyond the NGO, should undergo an additional level of review by a an Advocacy Committee co-Chair. This is necessary to cultivate the reputation of LSHR as producing high-quality work, which will hopefully speak for itself in the longer run, and draw more NGOs to solicit help from our members.
One of the foundational purposes of the Advocacy Committee is to support the work, and build the capacity, of NGO Partners. For this reason, we welcome the proposal of projects from NGOs, even those with no prior experience working with LSHR or any law student group before. Collaborating on a project is a fruitful way of generating interest in your organization or a specific issue you believe deserves more attention by the human rights community, and also for recruiting students for term-time and summer internships with the confidence that they are reliable and committed. We ask only that an individual at the NGO be available for the students the way someone would be available to supervise a single part-time internship. It is discouraging for students, once mobilized and ready to be of service, to have barely any contact and guidance from advocates in the field.
In the second semester, student leaders will be identified by the membership of the Advocacy Committee as a whole to transfer responsibilities of the co-chairs so that a fluid learning process can take place for the next academic year. This year, the organization will elect 1L Co-Chairs to all the committees in the month of January. Elections for the 2006-2007 Steering Committee will take place toward the end of the semester.
There are situations, particularly with respect to short-term projects or those with particularly limited scope, where this proposed structure will be less appropriate. It may be that no additional team members are necessary. Project Leaders and Advocacy Committee Co-Chairs will consult with the various parties, consider human resource limitations, and deviate from this proposal where it makes sense to do so.
Meetings
The Advocacy Committee will generally meet as an entire group once a month. Meetings are announced, and meeting minutes and agendas are circulated, over the Advocacy listserve.
All-Committee meetings will be used as time to come together and learn about each other’s projects, exchange lessons learned, and brainstorm how to proceed. Project Leaders might be prompted to submit brief updates on projects with points for discussion prior to the meeting to facilitate productive and efficient meetings. As co-chairs, we will try to introduce articles or exercises to challenge and develop your understanding of human rights advocacy. More important than the specific piece of research we happen to be doing is the building of a community where discussion of human rights is kept vibrant, critical, and relevant.
Blog and Listserve
Towards the end of the 2004-2005 academic year, the Steering Committee created an online blog to supplement LSHR’s website (http://www.lshr.blogspot.com/). The blog is meant to be a repository for institutional history, as well as a place for members to share information, learn about upcoming events, and post completed work.
The Advocacy Committee also maintains an invitation-only listserve (run by the co-chairs) for purposes of coordinating our work. It is smaller than the larger self-subscribing LSHR listserve, so that we don’t clutter the inboxes of the many people who subscribe to the larger listserve to receive information about human rights news and events. The Advocacy listserve address is law-lshr-advocacy@forums.nyu.edu.
Training and Career Advice
The Advocacy Committee offered a training in international research early in the Fall semester, led by Mirela Roznovschi (reference librarian for international and foreign law). The training was particularly focused to enable students working on the Human Rights Watch project (see below) to begin their research promptly, and thus used counterterrorism measures in Europe as an example. Future trainings, i.e. one on direct action, will be planned as needed and announced at Committee meetings and over the listserv.
In collaboration with the Careers chair, the Advocacy Committee also held a human rights career panel to help members assess the pros and cons of NYU’s international fellowship program (which accepts students several months before most summer internships begin hiring). 2L and 3L members discussed how they chose and obtained their summer positions, the pros and cons of working abroad, and the features of various types of human rights work.
Ongoing Projects
As the organizing principle for LSHR this year is Displaced Persons, many of the Advocacy Committee projects will use this as a starting point for analysis. From the millions of people displaced by the Indian Ocean tsunami to those driven from their homes in Darfur, from the detainees at Guantanamo Bay who have been confined for four years to the three million left homeless by the earthquake in South Asia, the topic of “Displaced Persons” focuses LSHR's attention not on particular disasters but on the human consequences of losing one's home and community. What duties do governments and the international community have towards displaced persons, and what remedies, if any, do the displaced have against those who caused or who are ignoring their plight? In addition to our Symposium on the rights of displaced persons during and after natural disasters, LSHR is focusing its advocacy work and educational events this year on the displaced, and on their economic, social and cultural rights in particular.
The projects undertaken during the fall semester were:
Collaboration with the Center for Constitutional Rights:
This group was led by a second year student, Tiasha Palikovic. LSHR’s relationship with CCR was ongoing, but the contact for this project came through Annie Lai, last year’s Advocacy Co-Chair, who put us in touch with Tina Monshipour Foster of CCR.
About a dozen students participated in this project, providing a minimum of 15 hours of work a week. The project consisted of analyzing the status of the Guantanamo Bay detainees cases. The aim was to track the actions that each of the judges in the US District Court for D.C. had taken in regards to the detainees habeas corpus cases, and compile the information into an easily accessible memo or chart. The final product included the name of the judge, a list of Guantanamo habeas cases pending before that judge, and the rulings divided in major motion categories, including Orders to Show Cause motions, motions for advance notice of transfer/rendition, counsel access motions, conditions of confinement motions, discovery motions, and motions related to health/medical records, among others.
This project provided researchers with a big picture of what has been filed in the various cases, and the legal rulings made by each of the judges in the US District Court. It provided students with interest in Guantanamo intimate knowledge of the various issues, including habeas corpus practice in federal courts, the Department of Defense positions related to the war on terror, and the various approaches taken by the judiciary. The project constituted research on real live cases on PACER as motions were filed and rulings passed down.
Collaboration with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice:
Eight first year students collaborated with two CHRGJ interns as well as two LLM Human Rights Clinic students, Andrew Hudson and Jane Huckerby, who coordinated the project. Students were asked to search media, NGO, government, and any other available sources to find information about the disappearances of specific individuals about whom CHRGJ may have had little information other than a name. The final work product was a report published by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, to which students contributed considerable information on the facts of specific disappearances.
Collaboration with the World Organization for Human Rights:
Ying Chi, a second year law student and a returning LSHR member, acted as the contact with the World Organization for Human Rights and led a team of about a dozen students, mostly 1Ls. In the spring it will be co-led by three of these members, Charlie Wait, Rebecca Bers, and Kristin Connor.
The group worked on several pieces of research and met frequently to discuss any obstacles encountered and plan for future research strategy. One part of the subcommittee looked at recent legal efforts to prevent rendition of Guantanamo detainees pending resolution of the In Re Guantanamo Detainees case (which was pending before the D.C. Circuit Court at the time). Another part of the group looked more broadly and from a historical perspective at how habeas petitions and injunctions have been used to prevent government attempts to avoid judicial scrutiny by defeating jurisdiction, or prevent government actions that are somehow illegal (e.g. arbitrary detention, knowledge/complicity in torture).
The group drafted several research memos for the organization. The group also worked to piece together theories on how the U.S. government could be held accountable for actions taken by its partner countries. As the students delivered memos, new questions arose that the project group plans to tackle during the spring semester.
Collaboration with Human Rights Watch: Counter-Terrorism Laws in Europe
Twenty Advocacy researchers, including several European LLM students, worked with HRW’s Office of Counsel and Europe and Central Asia Division to research two areas where the law has changed throughout Europe in response to perceived threats of terrorism: Renditions to states with a record of torture, with or without diplomatic assurances, and criminalization of speech acts that fall short of imminent incitement to crime.
Students consulted with in-country experts and researched caselaw, administrative law, legislation, and news sources to write comprehensive reports on how both the law, and enforcement thereof may have changed. The renditions issue was researched as to France, Germany and Italy; the speech issue, as to France, Germany and Spain (with a small group of about 3 students forming to address each subtopic/country combination).
The research was extremely broad, as well as being multi-lingual and involving legal systems very different than that of the U.S., so students relied greatly on the law library’s foreign law experts and on each other’s language skills. Students turned in informal (but lengthy) reports as a final product in November 2005 and are awaiting next steps (more formal memo-writing, production of website materials, or follow-up research) from HRW. The work was overseen and compiled by two 1L Advocacy members, Tafadzwa Pasipanodya and Jessica Sonnenscheinen. The project came to LSHR because of work done for HRW General Counsel Dinah PoKempnor in past years.
Hurricane Katrina Legal Relief Efforts
Through contacts with “From the Lake to the River Foundation,” a nationwide network of attorneys and law students also known as “Katrina Legal Aid,” Advocacy members participated in three projects aimed at helping hurricane survivors navigate the morass of legal problems arising from the disaster:
1. Operation Feedback: Members identified Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Disaster Recovery Centers in the NYC area and interviewed users of the Centers about the service provided. Their work identified several plaintiffs for a class action against FEMA which resulted in a court order for a one-month extension of FEMA housing benefits to victims beyond FEMA’s intended cutoff date.
2. Hotline calls: Members replied to over 50 messages left on KLA’s legal assistance hotline to screen and categorize calls for attorneys to return them. The hotline has since been shut down.
3. Insurance law research: Under the supervision of an insurance law professor at the University of Connecticut, members wrote short, accessible summaries of several insurance law questions likely to be important to hurricane survivors, to be posted online at unitedpolicyholders.org. This work will likely continue in the spring.
These efforts were coordinated by LLM Peter Prows, who has been involved with “From the Lake to the River” since its inception, and 1L Rebekah Beth Cook-Mack. LSHR held a special organizing meeting for students from all over the law school who were interested in helping with these efforts, which have been coordinated through a Google Group, NYU-Katrina-Reasearch@googlegroups.com.
Collaboration with Nigeria UNIFEM Office: CEDAW Implementation Models
About a dozen members have just begun compiling information on various countries’ models of piece-by-piece domestication of human rights treaties on behalf of Nigeria’s UNIFEM office. UNIFEM plans to develop a specific model CEDAW law and propose its adoption by Nigeria’s National Assembly, so that the ways in which Nigerian law is more protective of women’s rights than CEDAW itself will not be lost and so that the law will pass quickly without divisive debate. This work builds on a fellowship at UNIFEM’s West Africa Regional Office in Nigeria by Jennifer Tancredi in summer 2005.
Collaboration on Immigrant Voting Rights
LSHR continued its ongoing collaboration with the New York Coalition to Expand Voting Rights and the Immigrant Voting Project at the World Policy Institute. Students researched the practice of non-citizen voting in foreign jurisdictions and summarized their findings for use in the IVP's public education campaigns. Students also supported the campaign to introduce non-citizen voting rights in New York City by preparing materials for and participating in Coalition rallies.
Collaboration with Fusion International: Assessing Expansion Possibilities
Mimi Franke and Peter Devlin assisted NYU 2L Jon Balcom in choosing a country in which to locate the second office of his NGO, Fusion International, currently operating in Colombia. Their work should provide background information on IDP issues, including the scope of the problem, what NGOs are currently operating, and the government policy environment, in a variety of countries. The researchers will be meeting with Jon and his partner in February to decide which country is the best fit for Fusion.
Collaboration with Prof. Mary Holland and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative: Vaccine Safety and Health Rights
Erin Warner and Kayla Gassman acted as research assistants to Prof. Mary Holland in her work with NESRI to produce “a well-documented background paper analyzing the governmental role in authorizing mercury in children’s vaccines from a human rights perspective.” Their research covered the moral and legal doctrine of informed consent and the extent to which current U.S. vaccination law and policy reflect that doctrine. They will continue this work (and move into an examination of international norms on consent to vaccination, and U.S. compliance therewith) into the spring.
Direct Action plans
In February 2005, Jessica Chicco, as Advocacy 1L Co-Chair, organized a Direct Action training led by John Breitbart, of the War Resisters League and a local charter school teacher. The small group brainstormed both about areas in which Law Students for Human Rights would have interest and leverage in engaging in direct action, as well as practical considerations, such as different types of protest and action.
In the Fall, Advocacy Committee members discussed the possibility of a sustained Direct Action campaign at several at-large meetings. Towards the end of the semester, students voted between the two options that had gained the most support: issues regarding Guantanamo Bay detainees, and issues surrounding New York City Detainees. Ultimately, students voted to pursue the latter.
Many people, particularly immigrants, Muslims, and people of color, were detained in NYC post-9/11 and many remain in detention. Several LSHR members have expertise and connections in this area and could help educate us and find a good focal point for our action. These detentions have not gotten the attention they deserve in local or national media and perhaps LSHR could affect that (and connect ourselves better to the city while doing so). We are planning to start off the semester by creating a sub-committee to produce a proposal for a sustained direct action campaign to be proposed to and set in action by the Advocacy Committee.
We are also exploring the possibility of organizing a visit to one of New York’s largest detention facilities and of collaborating with NYU’s Immigrant Rights Clinic and/or with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) chapters at NYU and Cardozo (who have already done some work addressing this issue).
Finally, on a different issue, we are exploring possibilities of a Darfur divestment campaign in collaboration with the NYU-undergraduate STAND chapter.
***
In sum, in the fall semester of 2005, over 100 active Advocacy Committee members contributed to 11 successful projects, most ongoing. Regrettably, we also failed to complete one project, a series of questions from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (who contacted us through Meg Satterthwaite), because of a failure of communication and subcommittee structure.
In the spring semester of 2006 we anticipate at least 3 new projects (research for the International Labor Rights Fund; for Praxis on a range of theoretical questions related to the use of truth commissions; and for NESRI on legislation related to Hurricane Katrina), and we will continue our work for HRW, WOHR, UNIFEM, Fusion, and Prof. Holland. We will also continue our hurricane relief efforts by collaborating with KLA and the new Student Hurricane Network organized among law students nationwide (including the planning of a trip to New Orleans for hurricane relief over spring break).
Partnership-Building
During the 2004-05 school year, LSHR was contacted by Teresa Loken, a student at New York Law School and founder of a human rights student group there (which has since become a branch of Lawyers Without Borders). Sarah Parady, William van Esveld and Jessica Chicco met with representatives of the NYLS group and decided to start a mutually supportive relationship between the two groups, sharing ideas, project overflow, and so on. LSHR “passed on” a research question for the International Labor Rights Fund to NYLS LWB’s research committee, and LWB researchers will join at least one, and possibly more, of our project teams this spring. A formal agreement between the two groups to solidify the relationship is in the works.
Peter Prows, who has coordinated LSHR’s hurricane relief work, attended several meetings and conference calls of the citywide Student Hurricane Network (studenthurricanenetwork.org). We will continue to send representatives to SHN meetings and hope that at least one LSHR member might become LSHR’s formal representative on an SHN committee. 1L Mimi Franke will be coordinating with SHN and other organizations to organize a spring break trip to New Orleans.
LSHR EVENTS, FALL 2005:
September
Darfur Still Burns, featuring Peter Takirambudde, director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 40
Courage to Think: Displaced Intellectuals in the US, featuring voices from Scholars at Risk
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 20 (brown bag lunch in seminar room)
Human Rights and the Media: A Conversation with Stalin K., Co-Founder of the Drishti Media Collective
Co-sponsor: NLG
Attendance: ?
Escalating Conflict in Nepal: New Developments and Potential Solutions to the Current Human Rights Crisis
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 50
October
Smoke and Mirrors: Columbia's Demobilization of Paramilitary Groups
Co-sponsor: LALSA
Attendance: 40
Inside the Gages: Guantanamo, featuring Chaplain James Yee and Gita Guitierrez
Co-sponsor: NLG
Attendance: 150-200
Doe v. Unocal: Transnational Corporations and Human Rights Accountability, featuring Dan Stormer
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 80
Human and Sex Trafficking: Global and Modern Day Slavery of Human Lives
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 125
Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons in War-Torn Regions, featuring Margaret Green of the IRC
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 30
November
Child Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Realities and Responsibilities, featuring Beck-Bukeni Tete Waruzi, Director/Filmmaker
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 25
To: Interested and Invested Parties
From: Sarah Parady and Jessica Chicco, Co-Chairs
RE: Summary of Advocacy Committee Activities, Fall 2005
Date: January 16, 2006
Law Students for Human Rights – Advocacy Committee
Mission and Organization
The Advocacy Committee of Law Students for Human Rights is charged with developing rights-based advocacy skills of the student membership and serving the needs of specific populations by collaborating with NGO initiatives at home and abroad. As law students, we are uniquely positioned to provide certain services towards the promotion of human rights, including:
§ Legal research and writing in the form of internal memos, contributions to scholarly articles, or material for amicus briefs
§ Policy advocacy in the form of legislative drafting or compiling position statements for issue-based lobbying coalitions
§ Public education and training in the form of fact sheets, op-eds, posters/flyers
§ [In]direct action – the collection of signatures for certain petitions, training of legal observers, and calling on policy makers to take an official stand
§ Direct action, for example, protests and silent demonstrations (before political offices, corporations, embassies, and/or any other institutions subject to popular pressure)
None of these remedies can operate exclusively. Either the advocacy committee will struggle through its own issues of strategy and balance, or it will figure into a larger plan of a particular NGO or coalition that is struggling through them.
The Advocacy Committee is one of five committees that make up Law Students for Human Rights. The Advocacy Committee Co-Chairs direct and oversee all the activities of the Committee. They are responsible for logistics of meetings and programming that develops the rights-based advocacy skills of the membership. Sarah Parady (sjp315@nyu.edu) and Jessica Chicco (jessicachicco@nyu.edu) serve as the 2005-06 Co-Chairs of the Advocacy Committee.
The bulk of the Advocacy Committee body is composed of 1Ls, although this academic year has been marked by substantial participation by 2 Ls who often take on leadership roles within the Committee. While the Committee offers opportunities for students at each stage of the law school education, the distinct advantages for first-year students (exposure to the human rights field and access to skills training specific to international law, which is, for the time being, grossly lacking in the first-year curriculum) compel many of them to stay involved with LSHR. LSHR embraces this trend, and seeks to harness their energy and intellectual passion. At the same time, we will continue to recruit and welcome the active and ongoing participation of LLMs, and graduating 3Ls.
Each Advocacy Committee project is assigned to a particular Project Team, made up of one or more Project Leaders, and a varying number of Project Team Members depending on the size and organization of the project. In addition, each project will be supervised by one of the Committee’s Co-Chairs, and at times by a Faculty Sponsor. Finally, the majority of Advocacy Committee Project Teams work for or with an NGO Partner and develop contacts at the organization.
Projects come to LSHR through contacts made by our members; by the co-chairs in the summer before the school year; by NGOs for whom we have worked in the past or who have heard of our work; by conversations with speakers at LSHR Education Events; and often, from Profs. Meg Satterthwaite and Smita Narula of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and the Human Rights Clinic (often including work that is beyond the capacity of the Clinic itself).
The Co-Chairs of the Advocacy Committee, in collaboration with the Project Leaders, ensure that reasonable progress is made according to an agreed upon timeline. They serve as the focal point of communication between Faculty Sponsors and the rest of the Project Team. They should also be copied in all correspondence between Faculty Sponsors, NGO Partners, Project Directors, and any other member of the Project Team, and make themselves available to provide input and direction if needed.
The bulk of substantive responsibility of projects is concentrated in the Project Leaders. Each project should have at least one Project Leader. Project Leaders are typically students who either come up with the idea for a project or are able to commit themselves significantly. They will be responsible for developing NGO contacts and relationships, assessing needs, drafting concrete goals, and coordinating the completion of substantive tasks. Some of this may be initiated by the Committee Co-Chairs early on in a semester, but projects should be handed over to Project Leaders as soon as practicable.
Project Directors should be supported by Project Team Members, who assist in carrying out the substantive work of the team. Aside from the fact that Project Leaders may have more organizational roles and larger time commitments, Project Team Members should all feel ownership over a project – working relationships should remain egalitarian. We expect there to be and welcome varying levels of experience within a team – there is no single path to a career in human rights, and every individual brings something different to the table. Members may also want to work on more than on project. However, once a student has committed to being a member of a Project Team, she is expected to follow the project through to completion.
LSHR Advocacy Committee considers producing quality work a top priority. As such, any important communication or paper for external purposes should undergo a review process. At a minimum, each external substantive communication will be reviewed by the Project Leader. While LSHR does not intend to “censor” the work of the Project Teams, the Steering Committee of LSHR must be generally aware of what gets the “LSHR” name on it. In addition, any final work product to be submitted to NGOs, especially those that will eventually be circulated beyond the NGO, should undergo an additional level of review by a an Advocacy Committee co-Chair. This is necessary to cultivate the reputation of LSHR as producing high-quality work, which will hopefully speak for itself in the longer run, and draw more NGOs to solicit help from our members.
One of the foundational purposes of the Advocacy Committee is to support the work, and build the capacity, of NGO Partners. For this reason, we welcome the proposal of projects from NGOs, even those with no prior experience working with LSHR or any law student group before. Collaborating on a project is a fruitful way of generating interest in your organization or a specific issue you believe deserves more attention by the human rights community, and also for recruiting students for term-time and summer internships with the confidence that they are reliable and committed. We ask only that an individual at the NGO be available for the students the way someone would be available to supervise a single part-time internship. It is discouraging for students, once mobilized and ready to be of service, to have barely any contact and guidance from advocates in the field.
In the second semester, student leaders will be identified by the membership of the Advocacy Committee as a whole to transfer responsibilities of the co-chairs so that a fluid learning process can take place for the next academic year. This year, the organization will elect 1L Co-Chairs to all the committees in the month of January. Elections for the 2006-2007 Steering Committee will take place toward the end of the semester.
There are situations, particularly with respect to short-term projects or those with particularly limited scope, where this proposed structure will be less appropriate. It may be that no additional team members are necessary. Project Leaders and Advocacy Committee Co-Chairs will consult with the various parties, consider human resource limitations, and deviate from this proposal where it makes sense to do so.
Meetings
The Advocacy Committee will generally meet as an entire group once a month. Meetings are announced, and meeting minutes and agendas are circulated, over the Advocacy listserve.
All-Committee meetings will be used as time to come together and learn about each other’s projects, exchange lessons learned, and brainstorm how to proceed. Project Leaders might be prompted to submit brief updates on projects with points for discussion prior to the meeting to facilitate productive and efficient meetings. As co-chairs, we will try to introduce articles or exercises to challenge and develop your understanding of human rights advocacy. More important than the specific piece of research we happen to be doing is the building of a community where discussion of human rights is kept vibrant, critical, and relevant.
Blog and Listserve
Towards the end of the 2004-2005 academic year, the Steering Committee created an online blog to supplement LSHR’s website (http://www.lshr.blogspot.com/). The blog is meant to be a repository for institutional history, as well as a place for members to share information, learn about upcoming events, and post completed work.
The Advocacy Committee also maintains an invitation-only listserve (run by the co-chairs) for purposes of coordinating our work. It is smaller than the larger self-subscribing LSHR listserve, so that we don’t clutter the inboxes of the many people who subscribe to the larger listserve to receive information about human rights news and events. The Advocacy listserve address is law-lshr-advocacy@forums.nyu.edu.
Training and Career Advice
The Advocacy Committee offered a training in international research early in the Fall semester, led by Mirela Roznovschi (reference librarian for international and foreign law). The training was particularly focused to enable students working on the Human Rights Watch project (see below) to begin their research promptly, and thus used counterterrorism measures in Europe as an example. Future trainings, i.e. one on direct action, will be planned as needed and announced at Committee meetings and over the listserv.
In collaboration with the Careers chair, the Advocacy Committee also held a human rights career panel to help members assess the pros and cons of NYU’s international fellowship program (which accepts students several months before most summer internships begin hiring). 2L and 3L members discussed how they chose and obtained their summer positions, the pros and cons of working abroad, and the features of various types of human rights work.
Ongoing Projects
As the organizing principle for LSHR this year is Displaced Persons, many of the Advocacy Committee projects will use this as a starting point for analysis. From the millions of people displaced by the Indian Ocean tsunami to those driven from their homes in Darfur, from the detainees at Guantanamo Bay who have been confined for four years to the three million left homeless by the earthquake in South Asia, the topic of “Displaced Persons” focuses LSHR's attention not on particular disasters but on the human consequences of losing one's home and community. What duties do governments and the international community have towards displaced persons, and what remedies, if any, do the displaced have against those who caused or who are ignoring their plight? In addition to our Symposium on the rights of displaced persons during and after natural disasters, LSHR is focusing its advocacy work and educational events this year on the displaced, and on their economic, social and cultural rights in particular.
The projects undertaken during the fall semester were:
Collaboration with the Center for Constitutional Rights:
This group was led by a second year student, Tiasha Palikovic. LSHR’s relationship with CCR was ongoing, but the contact for this project came through Annie Lai, last year’s Advocacy Co-Chair, who put us in touch with Tina Monshipour Foster of CCR.
About a dozen students participated in this project, providing a minimum of 15 hours of work a week. The project consisted of analyzing the status of the Guantanamo Bay detainees cases. The aim was to track the actions that each of the judges in the US District Court for D.C. had taken in regards to the detainees habeas corpus cases, and compile the information into an easily accessible memo or chart. The final product included the name of the judge, a list of Guantanamo habeas cases pending before that judge, and the rulings divided in major motion categories, including Orders to Show Cause motions, motions for advance notice of transfer/rendition, counsel access motions, conditions of confinement motions, discovery motions, and motions related to health/medical records, among others.
This project provided researchers with a big picture of what has been filed in the various cases, and the legal rulings made by each of the judges in the US District Court. It provided students with interest in Guantanamo intimate knowledge of the various issues, including habeas corpus practice in federal courts, the Department of Defense positions related to the war on terror, and the various approaches taken by the judiciary. The project constituted research on real live cases on PACER as motions were filed and rulings passed down.
Collaboration with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice:
Eight first year students collaborated with two CHRGJ interns as well as two LLM Human Rights Clinic students, Andrew Hudson and Jane Huckerby, who coordinated the project. Students were asked to search media, NGO, government, and any other available sources to find information about the disappearances of specific individuals about whom CHRGJ may have had little information other than a name. The final work product was a report published by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, to which students contributed considerable information on the facts of specific disappearances.
Collaboration with the World Organization for Human Rights:
Ying Chi, a second year law student and a returning LSHR member, acted as the contact with the World Organization for Human Rights and led a team of about a dozen students, mostly 1Ls. In the spring it will be co-led by three of these members, Charlie Wait, Rebecca Bers, and Kristin Connor.
The group worked on several pieces of research and met frequently to discuss any obstacles encountered and plan for future research strategy. One part of the subcommittee looked at recent legal efforts to prevent rendition of Guantanamo detainees pending resolution of the In Re Guantanamo Detainees case (which was pending before the D.C. Circuit Court at the time). Another part of the group looked more broadly and from a historical perspective at how habeas petitions and injunctions have been used to prevent government attempts to avoid judicial scrutiny by defeating jurisdiction, or prevent government actions that are somehow illegal (e.g. arbitrary detention, knowledge/complicity in torture).
The group drafted several research memos for the organization. The group also worked to piece together theories on how the U.S. government could be held accountable for actions taken by its partner countries. As the students delivered memos, new questions arose that the project group plans to tackle during the spring semester.
Collaboration with Human Rights Watch: Counter-Terrorism Laws in Europe
Twenty Advocacy researchers, including several European LLM students, worked with HRW’s Office of Counsel and Europe and Central Asia Division to research two areas where the law has changed throughout Europe in response to perceived threats of terrorism: Renditions to states with a record of torture, with or without diplomatic assurances, and criminalization of speech acts that fall short of imminent incitement to crime.
Students consulted with in-country experts and researched caselaw, administrative law, legislation, and news sources to write comprehensive reports on how both the law, and enforcement thereof may have changed. The renditions issue was researched as to France, Germany and Italy; the speech issue, as to France, Germany and Spain (with a small group of about 3 students forming to address each subtopic/country combination).
The research was extremely broad, as well as being multi-lingual and involving legal systems very different than that of the U.S., so students relied greatly on the law library’s foreign law experts and on each other’s language skills. Students turned in informal (but lengthy) reports as a final product in November 2005 and are awaiting next steps (more formal memo-writing, production of website materials, or follow-up research) from HRW. The work was overseen and compiled by two 1L Advocacy members, Tafadzwa Pasipanodya and Jessica Sonnenscheinen. The project came to LSHR because of work done for HRW General Counsel Dinah PoKempnor in past years.
Hurricane Katrina Legal Relief Efforts
Through contacts with “From the Lake to the River Foundation,” a nationwide network of attorneys and law students also known as “Katrina Legal Aid,” Advocacy members participated in three projects aimed at helping hurricane survivors navigate the morass of legal problems arising from the disaster:
1. Operation Feedback: Members identified Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Disaster Recovery Centers in the NYC area and interviewed users of the Centers about the service provided. Their work identified several plaintiffs for a class action against FEMA which resulted in a court order for a one-month extension of FEMA housing benefits to victims beyond FEMA’s intended cutoff date.
2. Hotline calls: Members replied to over 50 messages left on KLA’s legal assistance hotline to screen and categorize calls for attorneys to return them. The hotline has since been shut down.
3. Insurance law research: Under the supervision of an insurance law professor at the University of Connecticut, members wrote short, accessible summaries of several insurance law questions likely to be important to hurricane survivors, to be posted online at unitedpolicyholders.org. This work will likely continue in the spring.
These efforts were coordinated by LLM Peter Prows, who has been involved with “From the Lake to the River” since its inception, and 1L Rebekah Beth Cook-Mack. LSHR held a special organizing meeting for students from all over the law school who were interested in helping with these efforts, which have been coordinated through a Google Group, NYU-Katrina-Reasearch@googlegroups.com.
Collaboration with Nigeria UNIFEM Office: CEDAW Implementation Models
About a dozen members have just begun compiling information on various countries’ models of piece-by-piece domestication of human rights treaties on behalf of Nigeria’s UNIFEM office. UNIFEM plans to develop a specific model CEDAW law and propose its adoption by Nigeria’s National Assembly, so that the ways in which Nigerian law is more protective of women’s rights than CEDAW itself will not be lost and so that the law will pass quickly without divisive debate. This work builds on a fellowship at UNIFEM’s West Africa Regional Office in Nigeria by Jennifer Tancredi in summer 2005.
Collaboration on Immigrant Voting Rights
LSHR continued its ongoing collaboration with the New York Coalition to Expand Voting Rights and the Immigrant Voting Project at the World Policy Institute. Students researched the practice of non-citizen voting in foreign jurisdictions and summarized their findings for use in the IVP's public education campaigns. Students also supported the campaign to introduce non-citizen voting rights in New York City by preparing materials for and participating in Coalition rallies.
Collaboration with Fusion International: Assessing Expansion Possibilities
Mimi Franke and Peter Devlin assisted NYU 2L Jon Balcom in choosing a country in which to locate the second office of his NGO, Fusion International, currently operating in Colombia. Their work should provide background information on IDP issues, including the scope of the problem, what NGOs are currently operating, and the government policy environment, in a variety of countries. The researchers will be meeting with Jon and his partner in February to decide which country is the best fit for Fusion.
Collaboration with Prof. Mary Holland and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative: Vaccine Safety and Health Rights
Erin Warner and Kayla Gassman acted as research assistants to Prof. Mary Holland in her work with NESRI to produce “a well-documented background paper analyzing the governmental role in authorizing mercury in children’s vaccines from a human rights perspective.” Their research covered the moral and legal doctrine of informed consent and the extent to which current U.S. vaccination law and policy reflect that doctrine. They will continue this work (and move into an examination of international norms on consent to vaccination, and U.S. compliance therewith) into the spring.
Direct Action plans
In February 2005, Jessica Chicco, as Advocacy 1L Co-Chair, organized a Direct Action training led by John Breitbart, of the War Resisters League and a local charter school teacher. The small group brainstormed both about areas in which Law Students for Human Rights would have interest and leverage in engaging in direct action, as well as practical considerations, such as different types of protest and action.
In the Fall, Advocacy Committee members discussed the possibility of a sustained Direct Action campaign at several at-large meetings. Towards the end of the semester, students voted between the two options that had gained the most support: issues regarding Guantanamo Bay detainees, and issues surrounding New York City Detainees. Ultimately, students voted to pursue the latter.
Many people, particularly immigrants, Muslims, and people of color, were detained in NYC post-9/11 and many remain in detention. Several LSHR members have expertise and connections in this area and could help educate us and find a good focal point for our action. These detentions have not gotten the attention they deserve in local or national media and perhaps LSHR could affect that (and connect ourselves better to the city while doing so). We are planning to start off the semester by creating a sub-committee to produce a proposal for a sustained direct action campaign to be proposed to and set in action by the Advocacy Committee.
We are also exploring the possibility of organizing a visit to one of New York’s largest detention facilities and of collaborating with NYU’s Immigrant Rights Clinic and/or with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) chapters at NYU and Cardozo (who have already done some work addressing this issue).
Finally, on a different issue, we are exploring possibilities of a Darfur divestment campaign in collaboration with the NYU-undergraduate STAND chapter.
***
In sum, in the fall semester of 2005, over 100 active Advocacy Committee members contributed to 11 successful projects, most ongoing. Regrettably, we also failed to complete one project, a series of questions from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (who contacted us through Meg Satterthwaite), because of a failure of communication and subcommittee structure.
In the spring semester of 2006 we anticipate at least 3 new projects (research for the International Labor Rights Fund; for Praxis on a range of theoretical questions related to the use of truth commissions; and for NESRI on legislation related to Hurricane Katrina), and we will continue our work for HRW, WOHR, UNIFEM, Fusion, and Prof. Holland. We will also continue our hurricane relief efforts by collaborating with KLA and the new Student Hurricane Network organized among law students nationwide (including the planning of a trip to New Orleans for hurricane relief over spring break).
Partnership-Building
During the 2004-05 school year, LSHR was contacted by Teresa Loken, a student at New York Law School and founder of a human rights student group there (which has since become a branch of Lawyers Without Borders). Sarah Parady, William van Esveld and Jessica Chicco met with representatives of the NYLS group and decided to start a mutually supportive relationship between the two groups, sharing ideas, project overflow, and so on. LSHR “passed on” a research question for the International Labor Rights Fund to NYLS LWB’s research committee, and LWB researchers will join at least one, and possibly more, of our project teams this spring. A formal agreement between the two groups to solidify the relationship is in the works.
Peter Prows, who has coordinated LSHR’s hurricane relief work, attended several meetings and conference calls of the citywide Student Hurricane Network (studenthurricanenetwork.org). We will continue to send representatives to SHN meetings and hope that at least one LSHR member might become LSHR’s formal representative on an SHN committee. 1L Mimi Franke will be coordinating with SHN and other organizations to organize a spring break trip to New Orleans.
LSHR EVENTS, FALL 2005:
September
Darfur Still Burns, featuring Peter Takirambudde, director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 40
Courage to Think: Displaced Intellectuals in the US, featuring voices from Scholars at Risk
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 20 (brown bag lunch in seminar room)
Human Rights and the Media: A Conversation with Stalin K., Co-Founder of the Drishti Media Collective
Co-sponsor: NLG
Attendance: ?
Escalating Conflict in Nepal: New Developments and Potential Solutions to the Current Human Rights Crisis
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 50
October
Smoke and Mirrors: Columbia's Demobilization of Paramilitary Groups
Co-sponsor: LALSA
Attendance: 40
Inside the Gages: Guantanamo, featuring Chaplain James Yee and Gita Guitierrez
Co-sponsor: NLG
Attendance: 150-200
Doe v. Unocal: Transnational Corporations and Human Rights Accountability, featuring Dan Stormer
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 80
Human and Sex Trafficking: Global and Modern Day Slavery of Human Lives
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 125
Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons in War-Torn Regions, featuring Margaret Green of the IRC
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 30
November
Child Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Realities and Responsibilities, featuring Beck-Bukeni Tete Waruzi, Director/Filmmaker
Co-sponsor: none
Attendance: 25
posted by lshr at 10:19 PM
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