NOTRE DAME LAW SCHOOL
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS CLINIC
Year In Review
ABOUT Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic
The Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic (NDLS GHRC) is the experiential learning unit of the Notre Dame Law School Human Rights Program that is open to all Notre Dame Law School students (Juris Doctor, LL.M., and J.S.D.). NDLS GHRC builds on the Human Rights Program’s half-century track record of experience in the formation of human rights lawyers from all over the world, while drawing from our established pedagogy in Natural Law, Jurisprudence, and International Human Rights Law.
The Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic engages in three core functions essential to the professional formation of our students — representation, education, and advocacy — in collaboration with our network of alumni and partner organizations around the world. Under these three core functions, the Clinic provides Notre Dame Law students with:
Representation
Real-world lawyering experiences in representing individuals, organizations, and groups combating human rights violations worldwide
Education
Human rights training and education with national courts and judiciaries, international organizations, and HR LL.M. alumni partners
Advocacy
Opportunities to assist with advocacy for legislative implementation of human rights and human rights driven-legal reform in States throughout the world
“We are truly witnessing the strength of community and collaboration, as nothing galvanizes our human rights lawyers more than the prospect of working together in the much-needed global defense of human rights, anchored in the best pedagogic and intellectual traditions developed and cultivated at Notre Dame Law School.”
–Diane Desierto, Founding Faculty Director, Notre Dame Global Human Rights Clinic
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Legal representation, client counseling and legal advising on international law and human rights litigation in adjudicative proceedings before all international, regional, and foreign courts, international arbitral tribunals, UN human rights treaty bodies and special procedures. Legal assistance on international law and human rights in support of clients’ policy advocacy, legislative proposals, and human rights education initiatives.
In its inaugural year, the Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic includes among its clients leading human rights organizations, individual victims of human rights deprivations and mass atrocities, as well as developing States. NDLS GHRC works on collaborative international cases and projects affecting the most vulnerable and least visible constituencies in international law and human rights, including, among others:
1. Leading human rights organizations and religious orders besieged by authoritarian governments and dictatorships in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, where religious orders, educators, students, and civil society leaders are persecuted, detained, expelled or otherwise rendered stateless through false ‘terrorism’ charges;
2. Small island developing States facing climate change, human rights, and development challenges;
3. Nobel Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa and multiple women journalists around the world who are attacked, harassed, and threatened through online platforms and experience continuing offline harms;
4. Women and children in situations of forced displacement, whether due to armed conflicts, climate change, mass violence or State persecution, among others;
5. Human trafficking in global supply chains in eleven countries in Southeast Asia; and
6. Challenges of implementing the right to education, including educational pluralism, in Latin America and Europe.
The Notre Dame Law School Global Human Rights Clinic also collaborates on continuing research and field investigation projects with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF Innocenti, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Organization of American States, as well as other agencies and offices within the United Nations.
Nobel Prize-winning journalist
Maria Ressa
CASES AND PROJECTS
A. Cases and Matters of GLOBAL SCOPE:
1. Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa and the International Center for Journalists, on behalf of women journalists around the world attacked, harassed, threatened, and violently persecuted through online platforms as reported in the November 2023 UNESCO Report, The Chilling
The Clinic is preparing its initial legal opinion detailing legal remedies to address harms experienced by Ms. Ressa and other women journalists around the world subject to online violence and offline harms.
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2. UNICEF Innocenti collaboration on child protection in situations of forced displacement
The Clinic is working long-term with UNICEF Innocenti to conduct evidence-based and case-based research on deficits in child protection in situations of forced displacement around the world, including from climate change, armed conflicts, State authoritarianism and dictatorship punitive measures, among others.
3. UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva
The Clinic is collaborating with UN OHCHR on multiple continuing projects involving:
(1) Continuing research studies on sustainable development, climate change, and the human right to development, which included co-hosting the Official Side Event to the 4th Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Conference held in May 2024 in Antigua, where the Clinic presented its co-authored research accepted for publication (Diane A. Desierto, Jean Marc Brissau, Laura Allaben et al., Realizing Rights to Development and Healthy, Safe, Sustainable Environment in Global and Local Climate Actions Affecting Small Island Developing States, 22 Santa Clara Journal of International Law, Fall 2024);
(2) Assisting UN OHCHR on creating its Knowledge Hub on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as mandated by the UN Human Rights Council; and
(3) Assisting UN OHCHR’s Corruption and Human Rights arm on its research, focusing on the Methodology of analysis of cases of human rights violations caused by corruption offenses and anticorruption responses.
4. UN Development Programme Regional Hub for Asia and the Pacific
The Clinic is collaborating on assisting UNDP with field investigation and desk study analysis of judicial integrity, and independence to issue human rights decisions in the Asia-Pacific.
CASES AND PROJECTS
B. Cases and Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean
5. NICARAGUA: Society of Jesus Province of Central America and Latin America, and
6. NICARAGUA: Mr. Amaru Ruiz Aleman (Head of NGO in Nicaragua that was among 1,500 NGOs terminated by the Nicaraguan Government)
The Clinic is preparing multiple legal remedies for its clients against the continuing actions of the Nicaraguan dictatorship resulting in the State’s taking of educational institutions and non-governmental organizations and all their assets, the detention and arrest of perceived opponents from these institutions and organizations, as well as torture, and continuing human rights harms against the Nicaraguan population.
7. VENEZUELA: Centro y Justicia y Paz (CEPAZ), Venezuela’s leading human rights organization
The Clinic is providing continuing legal assistance to this organization to create the first Human Rights Documentation Database and evidence for international proceedings for at least 2,400 persons disappeared, tortured, and otherwise detained by State authorities in the aftermath of the 2024 election contested by Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
8. HAITI: Haiti Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), Haiti’s leading human rights organization
The Clinic is representing this organization and providing continuing legal assistance on monitoring and advocacy on the situation of people in detention, with advocacy actions with the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (SPT). The Clinic is assisting in the preparation of legal complaints and followup of cases of victims of insecurity, including massacres and armed attacks, at the level of the Haitian judicial system, with advocacy actions with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights or other UN bodies to be identified.
9. HAITI: Groupe d’Appui aux Rapatriés et Réfugiés (GARR), Haiti’s leading refugee and anti-trafficking organization
The Clinic is representing this organization in its collaborative work with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and will also create the first Human Rights Documentation Database tailored for the provision of evidence in international proceedings for Haitian refugees who have experienced human rights harms such as torture and trafficking during displacement.
10. INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, Observatory of Impact Division focused on compliance with judgments and wider societal impacts of the Commission’s work
The Clinic will be collaborating long-term with the Commission, as well as the Notre Dame Reparations Lab (where Professors Diane
CASES AND PROJECTS
Desierto and Anibal Perez-Linan are Co-Principal Investigators), on evidence-based research, law and jurisprudence analysis, and empirical studies on the wider societal impacts of Commission decisions throughout Latin America.
11. ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES Special Rapporteur on Persons with Disabilities in Latin America
The Clinic is providing legal assistance to the Special Rapporteur on the status of persons with disabilities throughout all OAS Member States.
12. AMICUS BRIEF SUBMISSION TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF ECUADOR
The Clinic, together with Professors Richard Garnett and Jorge Barrera Rojas, submitted an amicus brief in Fall 2023 to the Constitutional Court of Ecuador on the right to conscientious objection in relation to Ecuadorian laws requiring Catholic hospitals to provide abortion services. Case submitted for resolution and pending decision.
13. INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS Advisory Proceedings on Human Rights and the Climate Emergency
The Clinic submitted its Expert Brief in December 2023, and participated in oral arguments held by the Court at its Public Hearing in Barbados in April 2024. Case submitted for resolution and pending decision.
C. Cases and Matters in Asia
14. SOUTHEAST ASIA (11 countries): International Justice Mission in Southeast Asia, leading human rights organization against human trafficking
The Clinic has been requested to provide legal assistance to IJM for its work on human trafficking regional policy advocacy in 11 Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Viet Nam, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Brunei Darussalam, and Timor Leste).
15. PHILIPPINES Department of Justice query on torture and other human rights violations arising from the operation of POGOs (online gaming operations) by China-owned syndicates
The Philippines Undersecretary of Justice requested the Clinic to provide its analysis of international legal remedies available against the torture and human rights violations committed against the urban and rural poor in the Philippines who were impacted by the widespread operation of online gaming operations of China-owned syndicates.
CASES AND PROJECTS
D. Cases and Matters in Africa
16. CHAD: Democracy and Human Rights in Africa (DHRA), US-based NGO focused on human rights in the African continent
The Clinic is providing legal representation and analysis of remedies on matters involving the 2024 killing of Chad opposition leader Mr. Yaya Dillo, and the continuing arrest and detention of 25 of his family members (including women and young children) and colleagues in the maximum security prison in the Boko Toro desert, Chad.
17. CAMEROON: Portraits of the Future, Cameroon-based NGO focused on climate change, development and human rights
The Clinic is providing legal assistance to enable this Cameroon rural NGO to participate in and effectively advocate to bring awareness to environmental, developmental, and human rights challenges in Cameroon at the 29th Conference of Parties to be held this year in Azerbaijan.
18. AFRICAN COURT ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES’ RIGHTS
After her 2023 visit to Notre Dame, President Lady Justice Imani Aboud of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights instructed Registrar Dr. Robert Eno to start collaborations with Notre Dame Law School’s Global Human Rights Clinic for thirdparty independent research studies and/or amicus briefs to be referred by the Court.
E. Cases and Matters in Europe
19. UKRAINE: Ukrainian Greek Redemptorist Catholic Church
The Clinic successfully helped secure the 29 July 2024 release of two Ukrainian priests held by occupying Russian Federation forces on false charges of terrorism.
20. GENEVA: OIDEL is a Geneva-based non-governmental organization focusing on the human right to education, educational pluralism, and sustainability, with consultative status with the United Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe.
The Clinic successfully organized and hosted the Consultation for the US Country Visit of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Ms. Farida Shaheed, in May 2024. The Clinic also co-organized OIDEL’s June 2024 Summer University on Education, Sustainability and Human Rights with both OIDEL and the University of Geneva. The Clinic is providing legal analysis and assistance on representation matters referred by OIDEL involving challenges to educational pluralism and the human right to education in Spain, as well as drafting initiatives to address the Abidjan Principles’ impacts worldwide.
EXTERNAL COLLABORATIONS
Private Practitioners and Clinic Partner Law Firms
Mr. Glen Rae, Bank of America Deputy General Counsel
Mr. Jeremy Cole, Jones Day, Notre Dame Law School alumnus
Mr. Robert Houston, K&L Gates, Singapore
International Civil Society Organizations
International Justice Mission (Asia)
International Centre for Journalists (UK)
International Organizations
UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Geneva)
UNICEF Innocenti
Organization of American States
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Observatory of Impact
STUDENT AND ALUMNI NEWS
The NDLS GHRC includes LL.M., J.D., doctoral, and undergraduate interns.
Our NDLS GHRC alumni have been admitted to serve prestigious international clerkships and internships in the following courts: the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights; Inter-American Court of Human Rights; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; and The Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations Office and Specialised Agencies in Geneva.
We also have alumni admitted to the New York Bar and Indiana Bar, as well as alumni now working for the State Government of Indiana and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“I joined the Global Human Rights Clinic to learn about and gain experience in the actual practice of international human rights law. The Clinic’s emphasis on experiential learning coupled with the diverse team of international LL.M. and J.S.D. students has facilitated my learning about international legal practice and helped me to develop practical skills. The human rights cases and projects the Global Human Rights Clinic has worked on as a team have shaped me into a more effective and empathetic legal practitioner.”
–Laura Allaben ’24 J.D.
“Preparing for and attending a hearing before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights with my Clinic colleagues was a fantastic professional experience. I am very excited to see the Clinic grow and to watch all of the future success it has in pursuing Notre Dame’s mission and fighting for human rights around the globe.”
–
George Santangelo ’24 J.D.
PRACTITIONER-IN-RESIDENCE
Our Global Human Rights Practitioners-in-Residence are selected to share practical experience and expertise in human rights representation and advocacy with our students, faculty, and Clinic staff. Practitioners-in-Residence may include alumni of the Notre Dame Human Rights LL.M. or others who have accumulated valuable practical experience in human rights advocacy in different regions of the world and who are well positioned to share that experience with students in a formal educational context.
PRACTITIONER-IN-RESIDENCE FOR SPRING 2024:
Dr. Pablo Saavedra
Executive Secretary of the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights
PRACTITIONER-IN-RESIDENCE FOR SPRING 2025:
Dr. Robert Eno
Registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE
OF OUR WORK
Diane Desierto
CLINIC FACULTY & STAFF
Professor of Law and Global Affairs, Faculty Director, LL.M. in International Human Rights Law, and Global Director, Global Human Rights Clinic
Jean Marc Brissau Staff Attorney Specialist, Human Rights Graduate Programs
Rita Cueva Office Coordinator, Human Rights Graduate Programs
Irene Pamblanco Esteve Legal Fellow
Josemaría Rodríguez Conca Legal Fellow
Faisal Yamil Meneses
Research Associate/Research Fellow
BOARD OF ADVISORS
G. Marcus Cole
Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law
Paul Miller
Associate Dean for International and Graduate Programs and Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law
Michael K. Addo
Professor of Law and Director, Notre Dame London Law Programme
Roger P. Alford
Professor of Law and Faculty Director, J.S.D. Program
Paolo G. Carozza
Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science
Nicole Stelle Garnett
Associate Dean for External Engagement and John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law
James Seckinger
Professor of Law
O. Carter Snead
Charles E. Rice Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science
Francisco J. Urbina
Associate Professor of Law
