Academics Areas of Study

Human Rights

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In the fight against injustice and inequality at home and abroad, human rights lawyers can be powerful advocates for equal economic opportunity, criminal justice reform, racial justice, gender equality, immigrants’ rights, and fair housing.

Through its comprehensive human rights curriculum, Cornell Law School prepares future lawyers with the commitment and skills to defend human rights and collaborate with civil society and institutions to impact, law, policy, and practice. The curriculum focuses on the theory and practice of human rights law and consists of courses in the fundamentals of international human rights law, human rights lawyering, and clinics that address important contemporary issues. With a range of clinics and programs to choose from, students have the opportunity to handle a wide array of projects in several countries (including the United States) that address prisoners’ rights, women’s rights, the death penalty, truth and reconciliation in post-conflict societies, the right to self-determination, and cultural rights.

In this clinical course, students will work on projects that will expose them to diverse forms of human rights advocacy. The clinic is litigation-oriented, although clinic students may also be exposed to legislative advocacy and may have the opportunity to engage in fact-finding and research regarding human rights violations abroad. A current sampling of projects includes: (1) appellate advocacy on behalf of prisoners in Malawi who have been denied the right to counsel, and collaboration with lawyers in Malawi to reduce prison overcrowding and protect the rights of pre-trial detainees (in the past, a number of clinic students have traveled to Malawi to work directly with prisoners there); (2) representation of a prisoner at Guantanamo who was tortured by U.S. interrogators; and (3) working with lawyers around the world to promote the implementation of international norms regarding the application of the death penalty.
This seminar examines the questions surrounding international criminal law as a separate discipline and the sources of and basic principles underlying the subject. Particular attention will be paid to the question of jurisdiction over international crimes. It will consider international crimes such as aggression; war crimes, crimes against humanity, terrorism, and torture. It will also consider the treatment of past human rights violations in post conflict situations. It will further consider procedural aspects of international criminal law and the forums that deal with international crimes. In that context, it will look at the structure, jurisdiction and jurisprudence of Truth Commissions; the International Criminal Court (The Rome Statute); the former Yugoslavia Tribunal; Rwanda Tribunal and mixed tribunals such as Cambodia Tribunal and Sierra Leone Tribunal.
This course examines human rights issues that frequently arise within the context of catastrophic disaster. Assigned topics may include evacuation protocols that pose risks to persons with disabilities, incidents of gender-based violence in displacement camps, discrimination in the distribution of food aid, disease outbreaks caused by negligent international actors, and related issues. We will examine key human rights instruments pertaining to disaster, and consider advocacy interventions at the international, regional and domestic level. Each of these issues will be examined against the backdrop of major incidents, such as Cyclone Idai, Hurricane Maria, the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and others. Significant events that occur during the semester will be integrated into the discussion.
The course is comprised of two segments: (a) international organizations and (b) International Human Rights. In the international organization segment, the course aims at providing a comprehensive legal analysis of problems concerning membership, the structure of the United Nations organization, and its functions in the context of the United Nations Charter. It also considers the use of force under international law with specific reference to the United Nations Charter. The course further considers the structure, jurisdiction and functions of the International Court of Justice. In the human rights segment, the objective is to introduce the theory, norms, and institutions central to the international human rights legal regime. The course will explore the emergence and the enforcement of international human rights norms, the international machinery for the protection of human rights in the world community including the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the International Criminal Court. Relevant decisions of these courts and of municipal courts are studied as well as basic documents.
This course explores the evolving relationship between U.S. immigration policy and our national purposes. Immigration plays a central role in contemporary American life, significantly affecting our foreign relations, human rights posture, ethnic group relations, labor market conditions, welfare programs, public services, and domestic politics. It also raises in acute form some of the most basic problems that our legal system must address, including the rights of insular minorities, the concepts of nationhood and sovereignty, fair treatment of competing claimants for scarce resources, the imperatives of mass administrative justice, and pervasive discrimination. In approaching these questions, the course draws on diverse historical, judicial, administrative, and policy materials.