Yale Law Students Address Human Rights on Individual, Community, International Scales

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SKILL SHARPENER

Yale Law Students Address Human Rights on Individual, Community, International Scales [by Erica Winter] Because human rights law often moves beyond the law into the realms of philosophy and politics, it is only fitting that the students working in Yale Law School’s human rights clinic have vocations that include the law—but are not restricted to law alone.

Maria Burnett integrates her dual pursuits

Her work for the clinic goes beyond housing

“I’d like to be a human rights advocate within

of architecture and law to do human rights

issues into broader human rights concerns.

medicine,” says Rajkumar. The Lowenstein Clinic, therefore, is “a natural place for me to

work. This seemingly odd pairing makes perfect sense once she tells of the work she did

Last summer she went to Swaziland with two

before coming to Yale Law and the projects

other Yale law students to do research on

cal practice on infectious diseases, espe-

she does with the Lowenstein Clinic.

labor rights. In Swaziland, the law students

cially HIV-AIDS. Saying he does not have the

be,” he says. He wants to focus his medi-

interviewed factory workers for two weeks

expertise to be a researcher looking for a

Burnett received an undergraduate degree in

on employment conditions. The research was

cure, Rajkumar wants to use his law degree

architecture from Princeton and her Master’s

for a report on workers’ rights in specific

to push for greater healthcare access for

in architecture from the Architectural As-

countries being compiled by an organization

people both in the United States and abroad.

sociation, in London. She then went to West

in Washington, DC. The students asked the

Africa, did some freelance journalism work,

workers about discrimination problems—on

At the Lowenstein Clinic, among many other

and researched city infrastructures to look at

the basis of HIV-status or gender—and also

projects, Rajkumar has worked on a project

housing issues there. After that she worked

asked about general workplace standards,

looking at the ethical questions involved with

at Human Rights Watch in New York. Through

says Burnett.

the recruitment of nurses by U.S. hospitals and medical schools from developing na-

this progression, she realized that there was a legal advocacy component to the problems

Despite her extensive human rights work pri-

tions. The nursing shortage in the United

she wanted to solve and that law school was

or to law school, Burnett says the clinic has

States sparked the recruitment trend, but

the next step.

been “irreplaceable for my legal education.”

this could in turn cause a nursing shortage

Working with the clinic allows law students

in the nurses’ home countries, depriving

“Architectural questions can’t be in a

to connect with people “beyond the four walls

developing nations of medical staff.

vacuum,” says Burnett. “They must have a

of the law school,” she says. Knowing what

legal context.”

others on the outside are doing is “invalu-

Even when political unrest is over, hous-

Rajkumar is interviewing hospital recruit-

able” for those who want to go out and work

ers and recruitment agency staff to find out

in the wide world.

how the international recruitments work and

ing remains a major architectural and legal

to formulate a policy that might become a

issue in many countries. In South Africa, for

After graduation, Burnett will clerk for a year

“Good Housekeeping seal of approval” for

example, many people were, historically, not

with a justice on South Africa’s highest court,

recruiters. This way, hospitals would know if

allowed to have houses. Now, in Cape Town,

the South African Constitutional Court.

recruiting was being done ethically, balancing the needs of the nurse’s home nation

there are one million new homes being built, says Burnett. There is much architectural

After Rahul Rajkumar graduates from Yale

with the nurse’s individual desire to work in

work to be done, but also much legal work,

Law School in spring 2006, he will do a medi-

the Untied States.

such as figuring out how these houses will

cal residency. Of course, it helps that he will

have electricity and water.

also receive a medical degree from Yale at

Rajkumar quotes pathologist Rudolf Virchow

the same time. Like Burnett, getting a law

when talking about how his work with the

Burnett, a third-year law student, is one of

degree will allow Rajkumar, a second-year

Lowenstein Clinic will benefit him in medical

the two Student Directors of the Lowenstein

student, to do the finer points of his interest

practice: “Physicians are the natural attor-

Clinic this year and has been with the clinic

within his primary field.

since the second semester of her first year.

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neys of the poor.” Virchow’s quote goes on to say “…and social problems should largely be

continued on back

SKILL SHARPENER

solved by them.” This, says Rajkumar, is what he wants to put into practice.

Heloisa Griggs is also in her second year at Yale Law and a member of the Lowenstein Clinic. She, too, is pursuing a law degree as the missing piece in her desire to improve the lives of indigenous peoples and their human rights.

Originally from Brazil with dual British-Brazilian citizenship, Griggs sought a liberal arts college education and came to Yale as an undergraduate. She stayed in the United States, working for a human rights advocacy organization in Washington, DC. She realized there that when she wanted to get something done, she had to talk to lawyers. Thus she came to see lawyers “in a hopeful light, as opposed to the general cynicism about lawyers,” she says.

In Griggs’s first semester with the clinic, she landed on a project that had been part of her work prior to law school, involving questions of land restitution to indigenous people. The clinic students developed an amicus brief for a case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, examining the South African Land Restitution Act to demonstrate that land restitution is not necessarily a “Pandora’s box,” she says.

Restitution of land is a controversial issue, says Griggs. “It can make people nervous.”

The issue needs to be addressed through balancing many factors, she says, such as how long the land has been out of indigenous hands, how practical it would be to give it back, and whether an equivalent amount of land elsewhere could be given instead.

Working in the Lowenstein Clinic allows her to apply legal skills to indigenous people’s issues, enabling her to engage directly with possible solutions; this is “tremendously rewarding,” says Griggs.

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