Human Rights Research, Advocacy, and Education
The Bernstein Institute for Human Rights is a center at NYU Law committed to challenging legal systems that exclude, marginalize, and oppress. We support and train community justice advocates, law students, and lawyers on legal empowerment methods as a way to actively challenge inequities here in the U.S. and around the world. We believe that the practice of law can and should be rooted in dignity and care.
The work of the Institute is supported by Professor Margaret Satterthwaite ‘99 as Faculty Director and Sukti Dhital as Executive Director.
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Our Focus Areas
Institute Updates
Our NEW Global Report is Out!
The Bernstein Institute for Human Rights is thrilled to share the launch of our global report, Exclusion in Practice: A Human Rights Analysis on the Legal Barriers to Advancing Community Justice. The report explores the power, promise, and struggles of community justice workers––human rights defenders who are KEY actors in the legal ecosystem.
In particular, the report brings visibility to harmful laws that restrict the ability of community justice workers to fully participate in justice efforts. Told through a mix of research, analysis, and 8 global case studies, the report unpacks how harmful laws that regulate legal practice exclude communities and violate human rights. The report outlines recommendations co-created by global legal empowerment practitioners that call for reform to strengthen access to justice, uplift the work of community justice workers, and build community power and participation. Read the full report.
Missed the panel discussion? Watch it here.
Justice Power has Re-launched!
Justice Power is back with new organizations, more strategies, and updated resources!
In 2018, the Bernstein Institute launched Justice Power, a documentation project that partners with directly affected community members, immigration advocates, and lawyers in the United States to highlight legal empowerment strategies that help immigrant communities to know, use, shape, and transform the laws that impact their lives.
Our team has spent the past year building relationships with over a dozen new legal empowerment organizations, identifying new strategies, and co-developing how-to guides.
Visit JusticePower.org to learn more.
Second Learning Lab Cohort Engaged in Weeklong PAR Exchange in Zimbabwe Eastern Highlands
Since December 2022, a collective of human rights practitioners from around the world have gathered monthly to learn about participatory action research (PAR) as part of the Institute's 2nd Legal Empowerment Learning Lab. Our participants engage in cutting-edge legal empowerment work that spans labor, land, health, gender, climate, sex work, children, and indigenous people—and together in a communal space rooted in care—have explored the power of participatory approaches to advance community justice.
This April, facilitated by our very own Mela Chiponda, Lab members gathered in the Eastern Highlands to learn from and exchange with feminist community-based researchers living in Odzi and Chimanimani. During the exchange, the sisters from Chimanimani, shared how they used FPAR to build an evidence base and shed light on the work of women to engage in disaster justice work following climate-impacted disasters such as the 2019 cyclone. The week was full of song, dance, and food, with lasting relationships built across borders. Lab members walked away invigorated and inspired to embrace PAR and legal empowerment as acts of resistance and community-building.
The Jailhouse Lawyer Initiative (JLI), National Lawyers Guild-Prison Chapter (NLG-PC) submit a Report to the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission
In February 2024, our Jailhouse Lawyer Initiative (JLI) collaborated with members of the National Lawyers Guild-Prison Chapter (NLG-PC) in Texas to co-submit a report to the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission. The Commission performs reviews of state agencies to assist the Texas legislature in advance of its review of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) for the 2024-25 cycle. The report urges TDCJ to ensure humane prison conditions and reduce the Texas prison population through changes to the parole system. This joint NLG-PC/JLI submission represents an opportunity for directly impacted people, lawyers, and institutions to partner together to reimagine approaches to justice. Read the full report here.
Bernstein Institute's Faculty Director Meg Satterthwaite appointed UN Special Rapporteur
We are thrilled to share that the United Nations Human Rights Council named our Faculty Director, Meg Satterthwaite, as the new Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers.
Special rapporteurs are independent human rights experts enlisted by the UN to provide reports and advice on specific areas of human rights. In particular, Meg will explore the role of community justice advocates in building healthy, durable and inclusive legal ecosystems and identify best practices to engage trained non-lawyer advocates across the globe. This is a pivotal moment for the legal empowerment and human rights community and we are eager to share ways to engage with the mandate in the months to come.
“A system that encourages legal empowerment—active engagement of those who have too often been excluded–is made stronger and more resilient to the ongoing threats of democratic backsliding and disaffection with the judicial system. To ensure equal justice for all, legal systems must be independent, transparent, and accessible to everyday people.”
-Professor Meg Satterthwaite
Lab Stories: JLI
The Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative (JLI), founded by former jailhouse lawyer Jhody Polk, invests in jailhouse lawyers as a core strategy in ending the cycle of incarceration. The JLI fuses legal education, movement building, participatory research, and advocacy to bring visibility to jailhouse lawyers and ensure they have the resources to know, use, and shape law.
Lab Stories: Barefoot Law
We are excited to share this video featuring one of our partners in the Lab - Tim Kakuru and Barefoot Law in Uganda. Barefoot Law transforms communities and helps build power among the most underserved people in Uganda by using legal empowerment as a tool to expand access to justice.