The Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic has three main goals:  to provide students with the opportunity to gain practical experience that reflects the range of activities in which lawyers engage to promote respect for human rights; to help students build the basic knowledge and skills necessary to be effective human rights lawyers and advocates; and to contribute to current efforts to protect human rights through valuable, high-quality assistance to appropriate organizations and individual clients.  This year’s projects reflect the diversity of issues and approaches the Clinic’s work involves.

• A group of Clinic students initiated an advocacy campaign to address the current conflict in Darfur, Sudan, which has been called a genocide by the U.S. State Department.  The Clinic produced a report, An Analysis of Select Companies’ Operations in Sudan:  A Resource for Divestment, that was instrumental in Yale Corporation’s decision to divest from companies operating in the Sudan.  The team also worked together with the Connecticut State Treasurer’s Office to develop legislation requiring state divestment.
  
• Together with the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, and the TransAfrica Forum, the Clinic submitted a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concerning violations arising out of the overthrow of Haiti’s democratically-elected government.
  
• The Clinic filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the legality of immigration detention without procedural safeguards that allow the detainee to meaningfully challenge the source and substance of adverse evidence.
  
• The International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) asked the Clinic to conduct legal and factual research on the intersection of HIV/AIDS, gender, and property rights in Zambia.  Based on a mission to Zambia in the fall of 2005, the Clinic produced a report for IAWJ that documented barriers faced by Zambian women who seek access to the legal system in the HIV/AIDS context.  The team presented the report’s findings at a briefing organized by IAWJ in conjunction with the March 2006 session of the UN Commission for the Status of Women in New York.
  
• The Clinic researched and prepared a section of an amicus brief on international standards concerning proportionality of punishment that was submitted by the Center for Justice and International Law to the Colombian Constitutional Court challenging a law that provides paramilitaries with generous benefits in exchange for demobilization.
  
• The Clinic provided legal research assistance to a litigation team arguing a case involving discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
  
• The Clinic provided the Human Rights Law Network in India with research assistance on international law and comparative national practices concerning the accommodation owed to squatters who are evicted from public land.
  
• The Clinic prepared a memorandum on standards for victim indigence to aid the International Justice Project of Human Rights Watch in its advocacy efforts concerning the International Criminal Court.
  
• The Clinic provided the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah) with legal and factual research assistance to help it evaluate and prepare for a possible legal challenge to a particular practice of the Israeli government in the West Bank.  The team traveled to the West Bank in early 2006 to collect information relevant to this evaluation.
  
• The Clinic drafted motions for EarthRights International to use in its litigation against Chevron for human rights abuses associated with Chevron’s operations in Nigeria.
  
• The Clinic is conducting research on the international human rights implications of bilateral investment treaties.
  
• In addition, the Clinic is researching and analyzing international and comparative law on a number of other issues, including women’s reproductive rights; torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; freedom of movement; and the forced relocation of the Bushmen in Botswana.