2005-2006 Annual Report Summary
Law Students for Human Rights (LSHR) is an active student organization at New York University School of Law whose mission is to promote global human rights lawyering through training, discussion, and direct service on strategic human rights issues. For more information, please visit LSHR’s blog at 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 work of LSHR is divided into the following committees, each led by one or two student chairs:
Education Committee
The Education Committee serves to inform members of LSHR, the Law School, and the community at large about human rights issues. To this end, the Education Committee plans speaker events, film screenings, discussion groups, brown bag lunches, and other formal and informal gatherings designed to raise awareness about human rights. LSHR sponsored over 15 events at the law school, including talks on Darfur, Nepal, human and sex trafficking, and child soldiers. For a list of the 2005-2006 Education events, please see page 18.
Symposium Committee
The Symposium Committee develops and organizes an annual Symposium, typically in the spring semester, on an issue in global human rights relating to the organizing principle chosen by members that year. LSHR’s 2006 Symposium occurred on February 28th and focused on the organizing principle of displaced persons with a special emphasis on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Symposium consisted of three panels and took place at a nearby venue instead of on the NYU campus in respect of the NYU graduate students’ strike. Despite venue difficulties, the Symposium was well-attended.
Careers Committee
The Careers Committee provides students with the information and resources to access careers in international and domestic human rights. LSHR offered several career panels each semester featuring other law students and human rights practitioners. These aimed to give 1Ls guidance on their summer job search, course selection, career planning, and journal and clinic options.
Alternative Spring Break
LSHR worked with the Student Hurricane Network (SHN) to provide the opportunity for 30 NYU Law students to participate in hurricane relief and rebuilding efforts in the Gulf Coast region over their spring break. NYU trip participants served at nine different organizations in New Orleans and Gulfport, Mississippi. Participants assisted along a broad spectrum of relief and rebuilding efforts, from advocating for voters rights to investigating allegations of police misconduct in the weeks following to disaster. The law school granted $9,900 to reimburse students for their expenses, and SBA hosted a fundraising event for the trip. For more information, please see page 5.
Advocacy Committee
The Advocacy Committee aims to directly promote the advancement of human rights. The committee focuses on developing the rights-based advocacy skills of the student membership, while meeting the legal or policy research needs of NGOs and other human rights institutions. It also engages in broader advocacy techniques, such as public education and direct action. Below is a synopsis of Advocacy’s research projects and direct action efforts. For more detailed information, please see the section beginning on page 7.
Research Projects: During the fall and spring semesters, over 130 active Advocacy Committee members contributed to 15 successful projects:
Collaboration with the Center for Constitutional Rights: Students analyzed the status of the Guantanamo Bay detainees cases, tracking 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 format.
Collaboration with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice: Students searched 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.
Collaboration with the World Organization for Human Rights: Students looked at recent legal efforts to prevent rendition of Guantanamo detainees pending resolution of the In Re Guantanamo Detainees case before the D.C. Circuit Court. The group also looked more broadly at how habeas petitions and injunctions have been used to prevent government attempts to avoid judicial scrutiny.
Collaboration with Human Rights Watch: Counter-Terrorism Laws in Europe: Students researched 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.
Due Process Rights of National Security Detainees: Several LSHR members also did a quick research project for an HRW researcher in Western Europe into how international law treats the due process rights of detainees in trials with national security implications, for an amicus brief in a major Canadian terror trial.
Research on Wal-Mart Lawsuit for International Labor Rights Fund: A subcommittee formed in January to conduct research for ILRF related to a labor-rights suit against Wal-Mart on behalf of third world workers (facing a motion to dismiss).
Truth Commissions in Peru: Research for PRAXIS: LSHR members did wide-ranging research for PRAXIS (founded by an NYU graduate) synthesizing the huge body literature related to the theoretical foundations of Truth Commissions, and several members remained with the project through the summer.
Hurricane Katrina Legal Relief Efforts
Advocacy members participated in three projects with the Lake to the River Foundation (a nationwide network of attorneys and law students also known as “Katrina Legal Aid,”) aimed at helping hurricane survivors navigate the morass of legal problems arising from the disaster:
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.
- 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.
Insurance law research: 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.
- Katrina Legislative Tracking: Another group of students worked with the Brennan Center for Justice, the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and other legal public interest organizations on an email update series to track local, state and federal legislation related to Hurricane Katrina. During the special session, email updates were published daily. These updates were widely distributed on the internet and posted by numerous organizations on their websites. The group also created its own blog, available at http://katrinalegislation.blogspot.com/.
- Hurricane Relief & Rebuilding Spring Break Trip: LSHR’s most notable effort towards hurricane relief was a weeklong trip by some 30 students to the Gulf region.
Collaboration with Nigeria UNIFEM Office: CEDAW Implementation Models: Members compiled information on how various countries have domesticated human rights treaties to prepare UNIFEM to develop a specific model CEDAW law and propose its adoption by Nigeria’s National Assembly.
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: Members are working to assist an NYU 2L in choosing a country in which to locate the second office of his NGO, Fusion International, currently operating in Colombia.
Collaboration with Prof. Mary Holland and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative: Vaccine Safety and Health Rights: Two students acted as research assistants to Prof. 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: The Advocacy Committee decided to take on a Direct Action campaign in addition to its research activities. Direct Action activities LSHR members undertook included:
· National Lawyer’s Guild (NLG) Detainee Working Group (DWG): LSHR members Reena Arora and Angela Yen founded the New York City chapter of the Detainee Working Group through the National Lawyers' Guild. The project is part of an ongoing effort to launch a national campaign for increased awareness of and greater adhesion to legal process guarantees in the hearings of detained immigrants by having project participants attended proceedings at the Varick Street Immigration Court to observe and document the process being provided and denied to immigrant detainees.
· Uzair Paracha Case: Students drafted letters and tabled to collect signatures from and to educate NYU law students about the case of Uzair Paracha (a 26 years old man, got caught up in the post-9/11 dragnet and faced up to 75 years in solitary confinement for making two phone calls to the INS in order to get information about a visa). At the sentencing hearing in early July, the judge said that he had received 61 letters from NYU law students and sentenced Parach to 30 years, the minimum allowed by the federal sentencing guidelines.
· Letters to the Editor: Sudan: Students wrote letters to the editor of their local newspapers as well as the New York Times regarding the situation in Sudan and in response to an advertisement published in the Times encouraging investment in Sudan.
· Global Public Service Law Program: LSHR spearheaded a signature collecting campaign in support of the Global Public Service Law program at NYU, which faced major budget cuts. LSHR collected hundreds of signatures from both students and faculty members.
The work of LSHR is divided into the following committees, each led by one or two student chairs:
Education Committee
The Education Committee serves to inform members of LSHR, the Law School, and the community at large about human rights issues. To this end, the Education Committee plans speaker events, film screenings, discussion groups, brown bag lunches, and other formal and informal gatherings designed to raise awareness about human rights. LSHR sponsored over 15 events at the law school, including talks on Darfur, Nepal, human and sex trafficking, and child soldiers. For a list of the 2005-2006 Education events, please see page 18.
Symposium Committee
The Symposium Committee develops and organizes an annual Symposium, typically in the spring semester, on an issue in global human rights relating to the organizing principle chosen by members that year. LSHR’s 2006 Symposium occurred on February 28th and focused on the organizing principle of displaced persons with a special emphasis on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Symposium consisted of three panels and took place at a nearby venue instead of on the NYU campus in respect of the NYU graduate students’ strike. Despite venue difficulties, the Symposium was well-attended.
Careers Committee
The Careers Committee provides students with the information and resources to access careers in international and domestic human rights. LSHR offered several career panels each semester featuring other law students and human rights practitioners. These aimed to give 1Ls guidance on their summer job search, course selection, career planning, and journal and clinic options.
Alternative Spring Break
LSHR worked with the Student Hurricane Network (SHN) to provide the opportunity for 30 NYU Law students to participate in hurricane relief and rebuilding efforts in the Gulf Coast region over their spring break. NYU trip participants served at nine different organizations in New Orleans and Gulfport, Mississippi. Participants assisted along a broad spectrum of relief and rebuilding efforts, from advocating for voters rights to investigating allegations of police misconduct in the weeks following to disaster. The law school granted $9,900 to reimburse students for their expenses, and SBA hosted a fundraising event for the trip. For more information, please see page 5.
Advocacy Committee
The Advocacy Committee aims to directly promote the advancement of human rights. The committee focuses on developing the rights-based advocacy skills of the student membership, while meeting the legal or policy research needs of NGOs and other human rights institutions. It also engages in broader advocacy techniques, such as public education and direct action. Below is a synopsis of Advocacy’s research projects and direct action efforts. For more detailed information, please see the section beginning on page 7.
Research Projects: During the fall and spring semesters, over 130 active Advocacy Committee members contributed to 15 successful projects:
Collaboration with the Center for Constitutional Rights: Students analyzed the status of the Guantanamo Bay detainees cases, tracking 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 format.
Collaboration with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice: Students searched 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.
Collaboration with the World Organization for Human Rights: Students looked at recent legal efforts to prevent rendition of Guantanamo detainees pending resolution of the In Re Guantanamo Detainees case before the D.C. Circuit Court. The group also looked more broadly at how habeas petitions and injunctions have been used to prevent government attempts to avoid judicial scrutiny.
Collaboration with Human Rights Watch: Counter-Terrorism Laws in Europe: Students researched 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.
Due Process Rights of National Security Detainees: Several LSHR members also did a quick research project for an HRW researcher in Western Europe into how international law treats the due process rights of detainees in trials with national security implications, for an amicus brief in a major Canadian terror trial.
Research on Wal-Mart Lawsuit for International Labor Rights Fund: A subcommittee formed in January to conduct research for ILRF related to a labor-rights suit against Wal-Mart on behalf of third world workers (facing a motion to dismiss).
Truth Commissions in Peru: Research for PRAXIS: LSHR members did wide-ranging research for PRAXIS (founded by an NYU graduate) synthesizing the huge body literature related to the theoretical foundations of Truth Commissions, and several members remained with the project through the summer.
Hurricane Katrina Legal Relief Efforts
Advocacy members participated in three projects with the Lake to the River Foundation (a nationwide network of attorneys and law students also known as “Katrina Legal Aid,”) aimed at helping hurricane survivors navigate the morass of legal problems arising from the disaster:
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.
- 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.
Insurance law research: 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.
- Katrina Legislative Tracking: Another group of students worked with the Brennan Center for Justice, the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and other legal public interest organizations on an email update series to track local, state and federal legislation related to Hurricane Katrina. During the special session, email updates were published daily. These updates were widely distributed on the internet and posted by numerous organizations on their websites. The group also created its own blog, available at http://katrinalegislation.blogspot.com/.
- Hurricane Relief & Rebuilding Spring Break Trip: LSHR’s most notable effort towards hurricane relief was a weeklong trip by some 30 students to the Gulf region.
Collaboration with Nigeria UNIFEM Office: CEDAW Implementation Models: Members compiled information on how various countries have domesticated human rights treaties to prepare UNIFEM to develop a specific model CEDAW law and propose its adoption by Nigeria’s National Assembly.
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: Members are working to assist an NYU 2L in choosing a country in which to locate the second office of his NGO, Fusion International, currently operating in Colombia.
Collaboration with Prof. Mary Holland and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative: Vaccine Safety and Health Rights: Two students acted as research assistants to Prof. 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: The Advocacy Committee decided to take on a Direct Action campaign in addition to its research activities. Direct Action activities LSHR members undertook included:
· National Lawyer’s Guild (NLG) Detainee Working Group (DWG): LSHR members Reena Arora and Angela Yen founded the New York City chapter of the Detainee Working Group through the National Lawyers' Guild. The project is part of an ongoing effort to launch a national campaign for increased awareness of and greater adhesion to legal process guarantees in the hearings of detained immigrants by having project participants attended proceedings at the Varick Street Immigration Court to observe and document the process being provided and denied to immigrant detainees.
· Uzair Paracha Case: Students drafted letters and tabled to collect signatures from and to educate NYU law students about the case of Uzair Paracha (a 26 years old man, got caught up in the post-9/11 dragnet and faced up to 75 years in solitary confinement for making two phone calls to the INS in order to get information about a visa). At the sentencing hearing in early July, the judge said that he had received 61 letters from NYU law students and sentenced Parach to 30 years, the minimum allowed by the federal sentencing guidelines.
· Letters to the Editor: Sudan: Students wrote letters to the editor of their local newspapers as well as the New York Times regarding the situation in Sudan and in response to an advertisement published in the Times encouraging investment in Sudan.
· Global Public Service Law Program: LSHR spearheaded a signature collecting campaign in support of the Global Public Service Law program at NYU, which faced major budget cuts. LSHR collected hundreds of signatures from both students and faculty members.
posted by lshr at 5:49 PM
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