Overview

The Stanford International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, launched in 2011, will address a range of situations of rights abuse and violent conflict around the world. By providing direct representation to victims and by working with communities that have suffered or face potential abuse, the Clinic seeks both to train advocates and advance the cause of human rights and global justice. The Clinic’s supervisors, Professor James (Jim) Cavallaro and Clinical Lecturer Stephan Sonnenberg, have worked on torture, summary executions, indigenous rights, civil conflict and transitional justice in more than twenty countries in North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia, including Argentina, Brazil, Panama, the United States, France, Russia, Nigeria, South Africa, China and Bangladesh. Students in the Clinic will engage in projects in a similar, though more limited, range of countries.

The Clinic will engage students in sophisticated and multi-disciplinary advocacy to advance the basic human rights and dignity of victimized individuals and communities globally. Students will divide their time between an intensive clinical seminar and ongoing clinical advocacy projects. They will thus be exposed to a range of tools and strategies to promote respect for rights and dignity, including factual documentation, elaboration and distribution of reports describing rights abuse, traditional litigation before national and international institutions, community empowerment strategies, and conflict transformation techniques.

“This Clinic will teach students the skills they’ll need to be human rights lawyers, as well as the critical perspective necessary to ensure that they are thoughtful advocates who empower communities. At the same time, we hope that these students and our Clinic will contribute to these stakeholders’ fights for justice.”

Professor James (Jim) Cavallaro, Director, International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic