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As human rights violations continue to occur around the globe, law schools are establishing human rights clinics to meet the ever increasing demand for human rights lawyers. These United States based institutions are not only working to strengthen their own communities, but also to train students and professors, organizations and professionals, who are working to strengthen these rights outside of the United States.
Even though the Universal Declaration of Human Rights forms the basis of International Human Rights Law, the Declaration itself is not legally binding. However, civil rights clinics are training lawyers to strengthen the enforcement of such rights and increase adherence to the agreements that several nation-states have signed.
While international law is a relatively young field, many distinguished law schools have created outstanding programs for aspiring civil rights lawyers and professors. At Columbia Law School's Justice Clinic, students and professors focus on the cross cultural implications of international law, and encourage students to immerse themselves in today's human and civil rights battles.
The clinic focuses on providing students with a number of different skills that are necessary in the field. For example, the clinic instructs students on how to conduct investigative research and interviews that are necessary for human rights cases. Unlike many other fields of law, these on the ground skills are necessary for learning how to identify human and civil rights abuses in a number of different settings and how to empower local organizations and lawyers to bring violators to trial.
Similarly in Harvard Law School's International Justice Clinic, students learn about these rights through current events. While the clinic is based in Cambridge, students regularly travel internationally to document human and civil rights abuses and promote respect for international law.
Harvard's program also provides students with connections to dozens of organizations throughout the world that are seeking to bring human and civil rights cases to trial. The clinic provides funding for research during summer and winter breaks and free support to dozens of countries where human rights violations occur on a mass scale.
At Yale Law School, the Lowenstein Human Rights Project enables students to pursue human and civil rights on an extracurricular basis. In this clinic, small groups of students work together with public interest and human rights NGOs, conducting research, designing advocacy activities, and organizing events that bring further attention to human and civil rights violations in the United States and abroad.
Stanford Law School's International Human Rights Clinic also works to integrate classroom learning with experience in the field. In recent years, Stanford has mandated that students' first course is about the clash between International Human and Civil Rights Law and the United States actions in Guantanamo. This course is coupled with subsequent international travel where students help universities abroad establish human and civil rights clinics of their own. Last fall, Stanford's Human and Civil Rights Clinic also started providing free coordination of international doctors and psychologists in order to train local medical professionals to deal with rights violations in their own countries.
While several distinguished universities have established human and civil rights clinics, one of the most promising clinics was launched just last year, in August of 2008. The Sanela Diana Jenkins International Justice Clinic at UCLA is a unique interdisciplinary program that seeks to be focused and dynamic.
Established with a generous donation of $4 million from Diana Jenkins [http://www.dianajenkins.co.uk/] a refugee of the Bosnian war in Sarajevo, the clinic helps students and professors create and implement new advocacy strategies. By focusing on advocacy, the Jenkins International Justice Clinic hopes to teach lawyers how to draw national and international attention to human rights violations, creating the necessary pressure that inspires nation-states to enforce human and civil rights law.
In honor of Diana Jenkins and the schools commencement, students and faculty dedicated their first academic year to the war crimes committed in Bosnia and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
As these human rights clinics continue to grow, their efforts will surely be seen in the coming years. Already their work has deeply influenced individuals and organizations in the United States and abroad and strengthened the implementation of international law. In the fight against human rights violations, these clinics are necessary for training the future's leaders and strengthening international law around the world.
Timothy Hart is based in England and has been a professional writer for more than 15 years. Timothy specializes in writing board level biographies and resumes. Timothy also teaches professional writing and offer professional writing workshops.
Article Source : Timothy_Hart
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