Course Details

Description:

The Human Rights Litigation and International Legal Advocacy Clinic will be offered in spring 2010 for four credits; in future years it will be offered as a year-long Clinic. The Clinic will give students experience in human rights advocacy through direct participation in supervised clinical projects in a cross-section of settings, such as the United Nations, the Inter-American human rights system, federal and state courts, and coalitions of nongovernmental organizations doing human rights legal advocacy.

The process will facilitate discussion of the pros and cons of particular advocacy mechanisms; possible conflicting strategies among different stakeholders; and the use of education, outreach, and the media in advancing a strategy. Potential topics include gender advocacy in the international human rights system, human rights litigation in U.S. courts, and human rights advocacy in Minnesota.

The clinic's two-hour weekly classroom component will train students in the core lawyering skills of interviewing, counseling, negotiation, and legal ethics in practice. Classroom sessions will build skills in such areas as interviewing for human rights documentation, working with clients with post-traumatic stress syndrome, recognizing secondary trauma effects in attorneys, and understanding different types of oral advocacy and writing in human rights advocacy.