Reflections From Current Fellows
Cecely Richard-Carvajal, NYU'23
Fellow at NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights
Thanks to the Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellowship program, I have the opportunity to spend a year working at the Center for Business and Human Rights (the “Center”) based at NYU’s Stern School of Business. Established in 2013, the Center is now a leader in the field producing reports on the most pressing issues at the intersection of business and human rights and advocating for change. In each of their research reports, the Center makes practical recommendations to businesses and governments for addressing human rights challenges and then uses these reports as a basis for engagement with leading corporations and governments. As the first human rights center at a business school, education is a key part of the Center’s ethos, the team therefore also engages with their colleagues in academia and develops teaching materials to ensure that the next generation of business leaders take human rights into account in their future business practices.
During the first six months of my fellowship, I have had the privilege of engaging with a range of different areas of the Center’s work. For my first substantive project, I worked in the Technology and Democracy workstream under the guidance of the Center’s Deputy Director, Paul Barrett, to co-author a new report on “Digital Risks to the 2024 Elections.” This report forms part of a long-standing effort by the Center to challenge the damaging influence of social media and other technologies on democratic institutions and to advance constructive, practical reforms. In this latest report, we argue that the leading tech-related threat to this year’s elections stems not from the creation of content with artificial intelligence, but from the distribution of false, hateful and violent content via social media platforms. In order to prepare for this report, I carried out detailed research and prepared drafts of the sections looking at the way in which the digital environment is leading to a rise in harassment of election officials and new voter suppression efforts relying on digital tools. I also conducted a series of interviews with interested stakeholders, including election officials and members of the fact-checking community. Paul has now become a leading voice in this field, and with over 30 years of experience working as a journalist, I cherished the opportunity to work under him and learn from him. Our report continues to garner significant media and political attention, including a stand-alone article by the Washington Post. It is nothing short of exciting to see the impact our work is having and to know that our voices are helping shift the debate in this space.
Other workstreams I have engaged in include working with the Center’s Director of Operations, Kerin McCauley, on her ongoing research into diversity in asset management. In June 2022, the Center, together with the Knight Foundation, published an interim report assessing the degree to which the endowments of the country’s 25 wealthiest private and public colleges and universities hire asset management firms owned by women and racial or ethnic minorities. As Kerin prepares to release an updated progress report, I assisted in the strategy and reach-out to universities to encourage participation in the study.
Finally, I have had the opportunity to work closely with Michael Posner, the Center’s Director, on a range of issues. Michael has extensive experience working in the human rights space and from a range of different perspectives; he previously served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. State Department and was the Executive Director and President of Human Rights First. Michael is a figurehead and leader in the BHR field and it has been truly inspiring getting to work with him on some of his varied portfolio. One real highlight for me included getting to help prepare for his recent trip to Ukraine together with RFK Human Rights and Fortify Rights. As a former student of Slavic languages and cultures, it was wonderful to get to engage and learn more about Ukraine’s efforts to respond to Russia’s invasion and the impressive work being done there in the human rights space.
It has been incredibly exciting to get to work on so many different issues in the field of business and human rights in the first half of my fellowship and I look forward to continuing this work in my remaining six months!
Hailey Corkery, NYU'23
Fellow at Robert F. Kennedy for Human Rights
I have had the immense privilege of spending the past six months working at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights (RFKHR) on its International Advocacy and Litigation Team. RFKHR’s International Team engages with regional and international human rights mechanisms in order to protect civic space, combat discrimination, and seek redress for grave human rights violations in Latin America, Africa, and some countries in Asia. In my role, I have been working on the team’s Civic Space Portfolio, partnering with local organizations and human rights defenders to protect civic space through advocacy, strategic litigation, and technical assistance.
The work I have been conducting in my role has been varied, ranging from facilitating a consultation with human rights defenders from around the world to working on a long-term project centered around the intersection between freedom of the press and gender-based violence in East and West Africa. One of the primary projects I have worked on throughout my fellowship has been partnering with other civil society organizations on an Amicus Brief submitted before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights with regards to the Request for Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights. We filed the brief to provide the Court with jurisprudence from various regional and international legal authorities to contribute to the analysis and progressive protection of environmental defenders, women, Indigenous Peoples, and Afro-descendant communities in the context of the climate emergency. This Advisory Opinion represents an important opportunity to deepen and expand Inter-American standards on the rights of these groups, especially due to the urgent nature of the climate crisis and the myriad of attacks against environmental defenders, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute at this crucial moment.
The first half of my fellowship has gone by in a flash, but I have already learned so much about human rights lawyering in this short time. One strategy RFKHR has introduced me to is the cross-regional “pollination” of legal standards; in a lot of the work we do, my team takes standards from other regions to push courts we litigate in to adopt a more progressive approach to furthering human rights. For example, in our Amicus Brief to the Inter-American Court, we presented the Court with jurisprudence and best practices from the International, European, and African human rights systems, hoping the Court will use these standards that go further than their own as a model for their interpretation of Inter-American States’ climate obligations. Learning about and implementing this approach in my work has shown me the value of cross-regional collaboration and creativity in human rights lawyering, and I will take this knowledge with me as I continue building my career.
I have also learned a lot about the importance of partnering with local organizations. I entered the human rights space with concerns about how addressing human rights issues in other parts of the world as an American might be neocolonial intervention, and believe that I have to constantly be aware of this dynamic to avoid causing harm. However, working with RFKHR has shown me that, with care and intentionality, fostering robust partnerships with local organizations based on trust and mutual respect can facilitate important work. Bolstering grassroots organizations’ initiatives as a well-resourced organization located in the US can be a valuable contribution, but it must center the goals of the organizations themselves. As a law student, my Critical Legal Empowerment Fellowship with the Bernstein Institute taught me the importance of taking direction from those most directly impacted by human rights violations to lead the effort for justice, and working at RFKHR has shown me what that looks like in practice.
While I cannot believe it is already half-way over, my time with RFKHR thus far has been incredibly rewarding. I am excited to continue working on projects focused on protecting civic space, and I cannot wait to see what lessons and experiences the second half of my fellowship will bring me.
Reflections From Former Fellows
Iva Petkova, NYU'22
Fellow at Namati
In March, I got the exciting opportunity to travel to Nairobi, Kenya to help organize and facilitate a convening of human rights advocates from around the world. This convening was part of my work supporting the Learning Agenda for Legal Empowerment, an ambitious collective effort to use learning to power the global movement for justice. Thirteen action research projects across 17 countries are tackling a diverse set of problems, ranging from salmon farming industry abuses in Chile, to police abuse in Malawi, to refugee empowerment in Thailand. What they all have in common is that they’re using research and learning to answer big, shared questions like “how do you use grassroots legal empowerment to change systems?”, “how do you build community power” and “how do legal empowerment strategies fight repression and deepen democracy?” Over five days in Nairobi, we discussed these questions and many others, with participants from distant corners of the globe finding surprising common ground. Being in this space showed me the transformative power of coming together in solidarity and building a justice movement out of individual struggles. I walked away feeling hopeful and energized to continue learning, fighting, and asking the difficult questions.
While in Nairobi, I also got the chance to visit Kibera, the biggest urban slum in Africa, where I learned from community paralegals at the Nubian Rights Forum. Nubians, an ethnic minority group, face racist systemic barriers in acquiring national IDs in Kenya, which effectively excludes them from education, work, and other facets of daily life. The Nubian Rights Forum, in partnership with Namati, is using the law and community organizing to build grassroots leadership and demand systemic changes to end this discrimination. This visit helped it all click for me, as I got to see the impacts of legal empowerment methods in practice: Community paralegals support marginalized community members to use legal and administrative avenues to better their lives. These community members in turn gain the knowledge to empower others, and the data and experience gained from this help the community advocate for broader change.
Of the learning agenda themes, I’ve taken a special interest in the issue of closing civic space. Around the world, authoritarianism is rising, democratic norms are under attack, and grassroots justice work is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous. I’ve been helping to organize a series of virtual roundtable discussions, through which a small group of human rights activists, including participants in the learning agenda projects and others operating in repressive contexts around the world, have been meeting regularly for six months. The goal has been to identify the oppressive techniques commonly used by governments and how they impact grassroots justice work and to exchange strategies that practitioners are using in different contexts to navigate closing civic spaces and increasing government repression. We hope to better understand how we can use legal empowerment efforts to not only “play defense” in fighting repression, but ultimately to advance a deeper version of democracy. Though it’s frustrating and disheartening to hear about the devastation being perpetrated by governments around the world, it has been endlessly inspiring to see the optimism, resilience, and solidarity of human rights defenders.
Beyond this, I have continued doing research to support communities in Sierra Leone in combating environmental degradation, negotiating with corporations seeking to use their land, and implementing the groundbreaking new land laws passed last year. In response to a corporation’s interest in opening a mine in a Sierra Leonean community, I’ve researched the environmental and social risks of mining different minerals to support the community in developing an informed response. I’ve also dug deep into the specifics of different carbon credit projects to support communities in advocating for their land and resource rights and adequate benefit sharing.
I could never have imagined how much I’d learn in just a year with Namati! I’ve gained a deeper understanding of the variety of ways in which laws and legal mechanisms are used by those in power to deny rights. I’ve seen what it truly means to do “community lawyering” that amplifies the voices and needs of marginalized individuals. This fellowship has shown me the possibilities of how I can use the law to work toward making the world a more just place, beyond the traditional forms of lawyering emphasized in law school. It has inspired me to get more experience working on the ground directly with communities experiencing injustices. Though my fellowship is drawing to a close, I’ll incorporate the principles I’ve learned about community lawyering and legal empowerment into everything I do throughout my career.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
I joined Namati’s Global Programs team in the fall of 2022, just weeks before the organization’s 10-year anniversary. Over the past 10 years, Namati has worked to advance land rights and health, citizenship, and environmental justice in six countries by implementing a legal empowerment model that enhances communities’ ability to know, use, and shape the law. Their innovative approach is centered around the legal empowerment cycle: They deploy paralegals in communities around the world who empower individuals to solve problems and obtain remedies at the grassroots level. These individual cases generate learning and momentum that is then used to advocate for broader systemic reforms. Once reforms are adopted, paralegals and communities bring them to life. And the cycle continues.
During the past few months, I have jumped into research projects that have given me substantive knowledge about pressing human rights issues. I have been conducting research related to land and environmental justice, including on the use of carbon credits, climate finance, and collective bargaining arrangements for securing conservation benefits. This research helps increase Namati’s knowledge base to better understand the scope of the work they are undertaking. It also helps directly support communities, such as the Gola Rainforest National Park in Sierra Leone, that are grappling with how to combat environmental degradation or approach negotiations with corporations seeking to use their land. More broadly, I have been researching strategies for how non-governmental organizations and human rights advocates can safely conduct their work in the midst of increasing government repression and closing civic space. Around the world, threats and restrictions are increasingly being imposed on civil society actors that not only limit their work but also endanger their lives. Learning how to navigate this reality will be a crucial part of supporting community partners in the year to come.
Another part of my work so far has also involved helping make cutting-edge learning and opaque laws accessible to communities. In September of this year, the President of Sierra Leone signed into law two groundbreaking bills - the Land Rights Act and the National Land Commission Act - that radically reimagine communities’ ability to take ownership of their lands and pursue sustainable development. The laws are some of the most progressive in the world. They were co-written by the heads of Namati Sierra Leone in their personal capacity, and their passage is the culmination of exhaustive organizing by communities across Sierra Leone. The battle is not over, but has merely shifted to implementation. I have been working on creating a fact sheet that explains in plain, accessible language the process of getting the laws passed and their major provisions around free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), environmental protection, and gender equality. By sharing this with communities in Sierra Leone and beyond, we hope to enhance Sierra Leoneans’ understanding of their new rights and inspire those in other countries to advocate for similar reforms.
I have also begun working on the longer-term project of developing an environmental justice resource hub - a multimedia resource where paralegals and advocates around the world can learn about practical strategies for advancing environmental justice. So far this has included conducting research on fundamental principles and successful strategies like community-led monitoring; elements of a good remedy; and FPIC. I have also been considering the best platform for making these resources easily accessible to the communities that need them. In the coming months, I will be working closely with Namati paralegals and other advocates to learn from their grassroot expertise and help synthesize their knowledge.
Looking ahead to 2023 and the rest of my fellowship year, I know there is much more work to be done. I look forward to engaging more deeply on the substantive human rights issues I have begun thinking about. I am also excited to begin working more closely with Namati program teams in other countries and with advocates around the world. As a member of the Global Programs team, I am glad for the opportunity to contribute to work located all around the world. But I look forward to engaging more deeply with specific communities and learning from them what legal empowerment work looks like on the ground.
This fellowship is also giving me the space to look ahead to the rest of my career. Because Namati is at its core a learning organization and hosts a broad scope of work, I look forward to continuing to reflect on which thematic areas and modes of work are most exciting to me, and considering what paths I want to pursue as a human rights lawyer. Namati’s legal empowerment, community-centric model, along with its cutting-edge research and broad staff expertise, allow me to grapple with big-picture questions around what justice really means and what legal empowerment can look like in repressive contexts lacking any meaningful rule of law. I am learning strategies for carrying out human rights work in a way that centers the lived experiences and priorities of communities impacted by injustices and environmental harms. Wherever my career takes me next, I will bring along with me the principles I am learning at Namati.
Rebecca Guterman, NYU'21
Fellow at Beyond Legal Aid
It has been two months since the beginning of my Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellowship at Beyond Legal Aid and I am already learning so much--both about substantive law in Illinois and how to embody community empowerment principles in my legal practice. One of the most striking aspects of the fellowship has been learning that being a good lawyer involves understanding systems and skills that aren't necessarily written down or taught in law school. I am learning the do’s and don'ts of Illinois housing court and individual judges' courtrooms. I have also learned that building a partnership between an attorney and a client involves presenting various options to a client in terms not just as legal outcomes, but holistic considerations based on their particular goals and life circumstances. This is very important at Beyond Legal Aid, as our organization aims to ensure community members are active participants in their cases and empowered to advocate for themselves beyond our legal representation.
So far, I have taken on housing cases as Illinois's eviction moratorium expired, assisted with immigration tasks, staffed community law offices--legal clinics run by community partners throughout the city--in person and remotely, and presented a Know-Your-Rights workshop requested by a community partner about the state’s eviction process. The conversations with community members at the clinics and the Know-Your-Rights presentation were incredibly valuable, as I got a sense of the issues that community members are actually facing and reflect on how legal knowledge and representation can add the most value for their cases. It has also been a reminder of how the law is never enough on its own: what happens in reality can be far from legal, and knowing one's rights may not be enough to prevent illegal actions from happening. That's why Beyond’s deep partnership with community organizers and movements creates ways to advance rights, sometimes more quickly and effectively than litigation ever could.
Rachel Margolis, NYU'21
Fellow at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights (RFKHR) has two advocacy and litigation teams: One operates internationally, and the other is focused on the United States. Both teams work with partner activists and organizations on the front lines of human rights struggles. As a member of the International Advocacy and Litigation team, I work primarily with partners in Latin America and also support my colleagues in their efforts centered on other regions.
When I joined RFKHR just over two months ago, I got straight to work on drafting legal arguments for a merits brief that we submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at the end of October. The case—which RFKHR is litigating together with one of our partners, Centro para el Desarrollo Integral de la Mujer A.C. (CEDIMAC)—concerns Mexico’s failure to adequately address rampant gender-based violence. Highlighting the cases of seven women and girls who have been missing for over ten years, we argue that the State never made meaningful efforts to find them even though they were clearly at high risk of being murdered, targeted by human traffickers, or otherwise subjected to violence. The inadequacy of the structures in place to investigate the disappearances, as well as the willful inaction of the authorities, has left the victims to their unknown fates, with devastating consequences for their families. More broadly, these systemic failures to uncover the facts perpetuate a climate of impunity and impede the State’s ability to effectively combat gender-based violence. I am honored to have been entrusted with the responsibility of writing part of the brief, which represents a cumulative total of over seventy years that these families have been fighting for justice for their daughters and granddaughters.
One of the most memorable parts of my experience so far has been the chance to work not only with the amazing advocates at RFKHR, but also with human rights defenders abroad. For my first two months, I collaborated closely with CEDIMAC, an NGO in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Ciudad Juárez has long been considered an epicenter of violence against women, and CEDIMAC has been a significant player in the battle to hold the State accountable. In fact, it was one of the organizations responsible for bringing the infamous Campo Algodonero case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, winning a landmark 2009 decision that has been foundational to the Court’s jurisprudence on gender-based violence. In addition to litigating, CEDIMAC provides legal, psychological and emotional support to victims of violence and their families, including the families of the women and girls named in our case.
For me, working with lawyers on the ground in Mexico was a great opportunity to experience the partnership model in action. Their expertise anchors and enhances RFKHR’s engagement with the issue of gender-based violence in the country; for instance, my sections of the brief relied heavily on their personal relationships with the families and their detailed knowledge of the flaws in Mexico’s justice system. At the same time, there are many valuable contributions we can make from afar, such as conducting legal research and drawing the attention of international media.
As Deirdre (2019-20 Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow) highlighted two years ago, an important goal of the partnership approach is to help ensure that human rights organizations working transnationally—especially those based in the Global North—do not dominate or overshadow, but rather support the efforts of advocates on the ground as they advance their own visions for change within their own societies. One thing that seems particularly unique about RFKHR is that assuming the role of a supportive “partner” has been a cornerstone of the organization’s advocacy model for decades. Every year since 1984, RFKHR has presented the Human Rights Award to courageous human rights activists from around the world; the honorees are invited to forge long-term relationships with RFKHR, with the result that RFKHR continues to support and amplify the work of its past laureates many years later. While the nature and extent of these collaborations may evolve over time based on the laureates’ needs and other factors, the lasting commitment itself is key given the often slow pace of progress in the human rights world.
I’m so grateful to have another ten months here, and I look forward to continuing to learn and improve as a human rights advocate.
Madhulika Murali, NYU'20
Fellow at Community Justice Project
It’s hard to imagine that the year I spent with the Community Justice Project (CJP), during the many transitions the world experienced, has now come to a close. The experiences I had in the latter half of my Fellowship were deeply instructive. They required a flexibility of thought and communication that I really developed for the first time through this work.
At the beginning of this year, I observed various depositions held in the City of South Miami, et al. v Ron Desantis, et al. case, where CJP co-counseled with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Immigration Clinic of the University of Miami School of Law to represent plaintiffs Florida Immigrant Coalition, Farmworker Association of Florida, WeCount!, Americans for Immigrant Justice, Hope Community Center, QLatinx, Westminster Presbyterian United Church, The Guatemalan-Maya Center, Inc., Family Action Network Movement, and the city of South Miami. Having conducted some document review for this case at the very beginning of my fellowship, it was an exciting experience to witness the later stages of the litigation. An order issued by Judge Beth Bloom ultimately permanently enjoined the defendants from enforcing some of the most damaging parts of this anti-sanctuary bill.
I had the opportunity to engage some very different styles of writing across this year. A large part of our advocacy strategy around Florida’s anti-protest House Bill 1 (HB1) was to write a Communique to the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Peaceful Assembly and of Association. This 7-page Communique, which I wrote in partnership with the Dream Defenders, the Movement Law Lab, the Black Collective and Law for Black Lives, described the rise of repressive, anti-protest legislation across the United States that was a thinly-veiled retaliation against the racial justice uprisings seen in the summer of 2020. In response to this Communique, Special Rapporteur Voule released a public statement decrying these laws, stating that they were “riddled with vaguely defined offences and draconian penalties”. He further reaffirmed that UN experts have repeatedly called on the United States to “adopt wide ranging reforms to put an end to police violence, and vigorously address systemic racism and racial discrimination”. It was a striking example to me of the way international instruments can be one of the many powerful tools movement lawyers can use to build political pressure. I also drafted a letter on behalf of the Florida Prisoner Solidarity network to the Manatee County Sheriff, urging immediate and complete evacuation of the Manatee County Jail, which was threatening to be overrun by millions of gallons of toxic water from a nearby former phosphate processing plant. In the vein of more traditional legal writing, I drafted a fair housing counterclaim as part of one of our client’s eviction defense litigation.
Through all this work, I engaged in thoughtful conversation, dialogue and strategizing with my co-workers as well as the organizers that we stand in partnership with. I learned various new skills from them – to do with media strategy, writing press releases, communicating through various mediums, and what it looks like to be hopeful, brave, and thoughtful in the face of adversity. I truly feel fortunate that, at such a formative moment in my career, I was able to learn from, grow at, and form true friendships through the Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellowship. The lessons I took away from my fellowship – of kindness, solidarity, creativity, a deep and unwavering commitment to people power – are lessons that will ground my practice going forward, and that I will commit myself to everyday.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
I write this at a very particular moment of 2020, amidst this year’s unending series of life-altering crises, transitions, tragedies, historic revolutions, and relative glimmers of hope. It has now been three days since Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 US Presidential Election, a week since the progressive Daniella Levine Cava was elected Mayor of Miami-Dade County, nearly six months since the murder of George Floyd and since the uprisings began against police brutality and systemic racism, and eight months since the COVID-19 pandemic first gripped New York City. This week, I’ve been reflecting on what will be next for grassroots organizing around the systemic issues that will continue to exist under the new administration, during the likely most severe yet third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I started working remotely with Miami-based Community Justice Project (CJP) in mid-July, just as Florida was in the throes of the Sun Belt pandemic wave. CJP are a group of movement lawyers who support grassroots organizing for human rights and racial justice. We work in collaboration with community organizers through a range of means – direct representation, impact litigation, legal and policy research, international mechanisms, creative mediums, strategic thought partnership, and community education. Our issue areas include campaigns to combat gentrification in low-income neighborhoods like Little Haiti, defend domestic workers, day laborers, and farmworkers suffering wage theft and workplace abuses, improve equity in disaster recovery, and end the criminalization of immigrants and low-income Black and Brown communities.
In July and August, I primarily handled CJP’s de-carceral work with the Miami-Dade Divest/Invest coalition and the local No New Jails campaign. The work I did for the Divest/Invest campaign involved undertaking detailed research on municipal finance, delineating sources of County funding that we could legally demand reallocation from and towards and wading through complex budget documents. This culminated in over 200 people turning up to speak at the County budget hearings, advocating for greater funding for affordable housing, COVID rental relief, alternatives to incarceration and participatory budgeting. The No New Jails work was centrally focused on opposing a new $440M County jail proposal. The first County Commission meeting I spoke at was a meeting that discussed the jail proposal, where I and other speakers each had one minute to voice our opposition. Through this work, I have built relationships with community organizers and learned how to always try to be someone that is trustworthy and dependable. Recently, I have been involved in litigation against corporate, gentrifying developers who are seeking to bulldoze through Little Haiti and build a high-rise, luxury condominium. I wrote case law briefs, reviewed our oral argument and participated in moots before our hearing. In the past week, we’ve been anticipating a shifting political landscape in Miami-Dade County, with the elections of Daniella Levine Cava and Joe Biden on the one hand, and, on the other, the new anti-protest bill that Ron DeSantis will be pushing for. Our task now is to get to know the new County Commission and think through how the new dynamics will shape our community work. As the election has shown, doing this work in the South is particularly challenging, and particularly crucial.
Working with CJP has really allowed me to see what movement lawyering looks like in practice, and not just as a set of politics. It’s not what we imagined ‘law’ to be at law school, and not even what we generally picture public interest law to be. We don’t follow a straightforward impact litigation model, or a straightforward legal services model. Our main goal is to build the capacity and power of grassroots movements, and we harness our legal background to do that in a variety of ways. Often, that is through traditional legal work of representation and litigation, but sometimes that is through policy advocacy, campaign strategy talks, political education, and sometimes, through simply showing up. And being politically grounded is paramount. We cannot be good movement lawyers if we don’t have a robust power analysis, particularly one that is acutely aware of the complicity of the legal system in white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, transphobia, and the list goes on. Above all, we must believe in the liberatory and healing power of community.
CJP is a small organization, with 6 staff members in total, and the relationships I have made through work are some of my biggest joys in 2020. I feel safe, supported, and comfortable at work. Now more than ever, I feel committed to exploring different ways and settings in which we as lawyers can continue to build the power of communities, movements, and help transform our societies. I’m particularly interested in exploring how movement lawyering and legal empowerment interrelate. I’m looking forward to learning and building more as the year progresses – there’s a lot to be done.
Anika R. Ades, NYU'20
Fellow at Human Rights First
I recently had the privilege of serving on a career and fellowship panel for rising 3Ls interning with a movement lawyering organization in New York City. Responding to their questions gave me an opportunity to reflect on my eleven months at Human Rights First (HRF) and to check in with myself on whether my work has aligned with what I had hoped to do as a student in their seats two years ago. Has my reporting amplified the voices of affected populations, or has it talked over them? Have I represented my individual clients without perpetuating the dehumanizing, anonymizing dynamics of the U.S. immigration machine? Had I held onto my creativity and identity even when my work became detail-oriented and legally technical?
I can’t be certain that I could always respond “yes” to each of these questions, but my time at HRF modeled many ways I could get closer. I have seen how advocacy is most effective when aimed at solving concrete problems put forward by affected communities and the organizations who represent them, even if that advocacy can be uncomfortable or unexpected. For instance, when the outpouring of promises by nonprofits to address anti-Blackness in their work following the murder of George Floyd lacked follow-through, many Black-led immigration advocacy organizations sought accountability. HRF responded by expanding research and advocacy to focus on anti-Blackness in immigration detention, law enforcement, and adjudication. My team consolidated resources, litigation support, and expertise to draft a FOIA request seeking data on whether asylum cases have different outcomes based on the race, ethnicity, tribal affiliation, or “complexion” of the applicant. Led by reports that Black asylum seekers faced disproportionately high detention rates and bond amounts, HRF also sought extensive data on racial differences in ICE detention. Seeing organizations holding colleagues to their promises and HRF’s response leveraging its resources in solidarity was an education in how the most effective, urgent, and impactful advocacy must be responsive to the voices and demands of affected communities, especially when that advocacy invokes self-criticism or discomfort.
One of the benefits of working at—or being represented by—HRF is that in addition to providing direct legal services, HRF also educates and lobbies agencies and policymakers to create systemic legislative and policy solutions to remedy human rights violations against refugees. This representation model exposed me to a broad array of advocacy tools to push for the best outcomes for my clients. In the course of assisting a mother seeking asylum at the southern U.S. border whose case had been terminated by an immigration judge, our legal team learned we could not reopen her case to facilitate her entry into the United States since her case had never been technically “closed.” Trapped between the rock of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) which condemned refugees to wait in dangerous border towns in Mexico—and the hard place of the Center for Disease Control’s Title 42 Order, which gave the U.S. government permission to expel refugees to Mexico or other countries without the opportunity to pursue their asylum claims—our client and thousands of other refugees in her position were left without any legal remedies. In response, I worked quickly to compile case examples illustrating the absurdity and illegality of this situation and drafted a list of concrete solutions for the Biden administration to swiftly remedy the problem. A little over a month later, the MPP wind-down eligibility was extended to include refugees with terminated cases, including my client, allowing her to set a date to be processed safely in the United States. This experience laid bare how the ethical responsibility of zealous legal advocacy in the face of the inhumane ICE detention and deportation machine requires unconventional tools of advocacy in order to attack inhumane systems at every level.
The silver lining of some of the disappointments of President Biden’s first 100 days in office is that the end of the Trump Administration’s assault on immigrants has freed up some time and energy to look toward creative and imaginative long-term policy research. In this vein, I have spent the last three months collaborating with the legal fellow on HRF’s Refugee Representation team to draft a report addressing the lifelong hardships experienced by refugees who receive a status called “withholding of removal.” In U.S. asylum law, individuals who are recognized as refugees may still be barred from asylum if they meet one of the arbitrary U.S.-invented bars to asylum, such as the one-year filing deadline. Refugees who receive withholding of removal will not be deported to a country where they are likely to face persecution, but the status offers few other protections, condemning refugees to a lifetime of temporary status and separation from their families abroad. In the process of interviewing withholding recipients about the hardships they have experienced due to this status, my own preconceived notions of what it means to be undocumented in the United States were challenged, and I saw more clearly than ever the cavernous gap that exists in the U.S. immigration system between “legality” and “morality.” I am hopeful that this report will add to existing advocacy materials on the hardships of withholding of removal, allow withholding recipients the opportunity to have a home in legalization efforts that have been dominated by conversations around DACA and TPS, and will contribute to bettering day-to-day conditions for the thousands of withholding recipients already living and working as essential members of our communities in the United States.
My time as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow at HRF has shown that there are many ways to be and do advocacy and lawyering, even within the confines of an oppressive immigration system. I have learned that as long as I allow the needs of my clients to direct my work, even if it feels uncomfortable in the short term, the most sustainable and protective solutions lie in the direction they point.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
Although immigration advocacy and direct representation throughout the Trump administration has been unpredictable at best, and inhumane and hateful at worst, this year’s challenges have been particularly tumultuous. Shortly before my fellowship began, the Trump Administration implemented several interlocking border policies that essentially shut down access to asylum at the southern border. Between asylum seekers being held in dangerous border towns in Mexico while they await their hearings under “Migrant Protection Protocols” and the closure of the Southern border to under a Center for Disease Control and Prevention order, new asylum claims have dropped to historic lows despite the worsening global migration crisis.
As an interdisciplinary organization with a robust immigration direct services practice, Human Rights First (HRF) brings a holistic lens to advocacy ultimately geared towards improving the condition of asylum seekers in the United States. Because fellows collaborate with lawyers working in direct immigration services, lobbying, immigration policy, and research, HRF has been a great organization to begin a career as a human rights and immigration lawyer.
Past Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellows at Human Rights First have had the opportunity to travel to detention centers and border towns to conduct interviews, compile research, and draft reports. However, during the pandemic our team has had to find creative ways to continue this fact-finding and reporting work. My work with the Refugee Protection team has included drafting Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests, responding to new government regulations through the notice-and-comment process, and drafting reports informed by desk research and telephone interviews.
Because detention centers and immigration courts are closed, FOIA requests allow advocates to take a (socially distanced) peek behind the government curtain to uncover abusive practices, policies, and incidents affecting marginalized communities. Although there is nothing like a live, in-person visit to understand the inhumane dynamics at play in the U.S. immigration system, learning how to identify potential violations and draft a FOIA request the government is likely to comply with has been a good alternative. Since the start of my fellowship, I have drafted FOIAs requesting records on medical consent and hysterectomies in detention centers, as well as records on why ICE has not held private prisons accountable under private contracts for violating their duty to care for those in their charge. I have also submitted requests seeking policies and accountability for the use of force in ICE detention against Cameroonian detainees in Mississippi, and requested asylum officer training materials that have been suspiciously removed from the USCIS websites.
In my role supporting the Refugee Protection team, I also review and respond to administrative rules and regulations proposed by the Trump Administration that would negatively affect the rights of asylum seekers, and draft comments challenging these rules. Many of these rules have sought to, in effect, end access to asylum without going through the legislative process. For instance, the Trump administration proposed a new rule giving asylum seekers only 15 days to complete their asylum application, despite the impossibility of this timeframe.
Finally, I have worked on drafting a report on the historically long wait times for affirmative asylum interviews. This report provides context and data on the current 357,000+ person backlog for asylum interviews, policy recommendations to reduce this backlog, and interviews with asylum seekers who have been waiting more than two years for their interview to illustrate the human impact of these bureaucratic delays. The people I have spoken to have been waiting as long as five years just for the opportunity to present their case for protection to an asylum officer. Their lives hang in the balance, with family often stranded in their country of origin without protection, all because asylum processing is bogged down by bureaucratic delays and inefficiencies.
Although attacks on asylum from the Trump administration have been unending, I have been in awe of the bravery and resilience of Human Rights First’s clients, and the expertise of attorneys working to document, strategize, advise, organize, and resist during this critical moment in U.S. immigration. I have learned that even in a year that has tested our institutions and revealed the numerous cracks in the already tenuous asylum system, human rights advocacy plays the critical role of documenting violations and shaping more humane policy in the future.
Deirdre Dlugoleski, NYU '19
Fellow at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
It’s hard to believe I’m nearing the end of my Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellowship. In fact, I don’t know if it’s harder to believe that or the fact that I’ll be finishing the fellowship remotely. It’s been an incredible year at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and I’ve been grateful to engage in a range of cutting-edge human rights work that spans fact-finding, research, writing, legal and data analysis, and advocacy. My work has included writing briefs in pending cases against nation states; interviewing human rights defenders receiving death threats and drafting requests for precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; analyzing the ramifications of extending our work into a high-risk country; critiquing a multinational corporation’s policy for protecting human rights defenders; and filing updates on current cases with the Commission, among other items. I’ve loved all of it, and I’ve learned so much. I just wish I could walk over to the hot water machine to grab some tea and talk about it with my colleagues, or step out to get a celebratory lunch or coffee, instead of finishing half of these assignments alone in my living room.
Days and weeks have basically turned into a blur, but finishing a large, long-term project that’s extended over many months is one of those milestones that recalls a more structured sense of time. Reflecting on the beginning and end of the fellowship, I feel like I’ve come full circle. I started off writing an amicus brief seeking information on an enforced disappearance that happened almost 40 years ago. Now, I’ve finished a long-term report examining enforced disappearances as they’re happening right now.
Since November, I began analyzing data collected by a partner NGO, Foro Penal, on political prisoners in Venezuela who had been forcibly disappeared. Building off the data skills I used in the Global Justice Clinic’s Legal Empowerment through Community-Led Monitoring project, I completed a report examining patterns observed across 724 cases of enforced disappearance that took place between 2018 and 2019. The goal was to determine whether particular groups of people (as defined by their gender, military status, or status as a minor; the circumstances under which they were detained; the month of their detention; the location of their detention; and whether they experienced torture) faced a higher probability of becoming victims of enforced disappearance and/or generally spent a greater amount of time disappeared. I also examined the involvement of the different security forces in cases of both enforced disappearance and torture.
What I found was significant. In both years, military members faced by far the greatest chance of being both detained and forcibly disappeared, and also of being disappeared and tortured – far greater than civilians, increasing from 2018 to 2019, and almost exclusively at the hands of one specific security force. Women who had been detained were more likely to also be forcibly disappeared than men. In both years, those who experienced torture generally spent more time disappeared than those who did not.
We published the report, which was covered by The New York Times and CNN, in June. Although the Venezuelan government immediately dismissed its findings, publishing the results of the analysis was important. First of all, it’s important to shed light on the practice, since the Venezuelan government has been known to quietly release political prisoners when condemned internationally for their detention (as in the weeks following the release of OHCHR High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s report last July on the human rights situation in Venezuela). It’s also important to establish patterns of enforced disappearances as supported by the data, because this could be eventually used as evidence in a criminal trial. In February 2018, the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened a preliminary investigation into possible crimes against humanity committed in Venezuela. If the Court moves forward into a full investigation, evidence of enforced disappearances – a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute – would help establish the court’s jurisdiction.
Of course, international human rights law continues to develop on the question of what, specifically, constitutes an enforced disappearance. (More on that here.) The Rome Statute in particular requires the disappearance to be an intentional strategy of the government in question, and specifies that the person must remain disappeared for a “prolonged” period of time. What amount of time that might be is unclear, since the ICC has never heard an enforced disappearance case requiring it to decide (although other bodies have indicated that even very short amounts of time can still constitute enforced disappearances. The Venezuela report indicates intentionality pretty clearly – members of certain groups, like the military, being disappeared at exponentially higher rates than others indicates targeting. But on average, political prisoners in Venezuela spent about five days disappeared. In this respect, the practice of short-term enforced disappearances in Venezuela is at the cutting edge of developing international human rights law.
After spending an astronomical number of hours on this report, I’m excited that it’s finally out. I’m going to miss doing this work, but I hope that I can bring some of what I’ve learned about working in the Inter-American system to my next fellowship with Earthrights International. I’m deeply grateful to RFKHR and the Masiyiwa-Bernstein Institute for the opportunity to work with such a great team and launch my human rights career.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
As the Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellow at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights (RFKHR), I began work in September as part of the International Advocacy and Litigation team, which takes human rights cases to the African Commission and Court on Human and Peoples Rights and the Inter-American Human Rights System, as well as the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Integral to this work is building a deep partnership with human rights organizations to advance their advocacy goals.
Historically, human rights as a field has shown a disturbing trend towards institutions from the Global North dictating strategies and solutions to human rights advocates in the Global South, a deeply ingrained Eurocentrism, and a tendency to view non-white populations as victims of human rights violations, while ignoring the fact that many, whether victims or not, are also committed advocates and determined agents of change in their own societies. Supporting advocacy groups overseas in advancing work they’re already doing, as opposed to determining the strategy ourselves, helps avoid this.
This approach is also a necessary strategy in the face of rising populism and hostility to human rights protections worldwide. César Rodríguez-Garavito, a visiting professor at NYU Law, points out that, in the face of today’s political landscape, the old “naming and shaming” strategy of human rights organizations doesn’t work as well. Rodríguez-Garavito urges, instead, a “more equitable and horizontal form of transnational collaboration.” In this respect, RFKHR’s model of working with overseas human rights groups to take their cases in front of international mechanisms utilizes exactly such transnational collaboration. Our combined efforts push these mechanisms to strengthen and refine the legal precedents for human rights protections upon which activists on the ground base their demands. This logic is also why we pay particular attention to defending human rights defenders. The goal is to allow them to do their work well, rather than do it for them.
One way we do this is through submitting amicus briefs to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – a large part of what my job entails. I love that I get to talk through the theory of each case with partner organizations in South America and work with them to focus my arguments in such a way that they complement, rather than overlap with, theirs. I love learning about how what I do with the brief fits into their larger advocacy strategy on the ground.
The first brief I wrote was, broadly, about the right to access information. The goal of the main case was to get the state to identify and try those responsible for forcibly disappearing the plaintiffs’ relative in the 1980s in Bolivia, during a particularly repressive dictatorship. But our amicus had a much narrower focus, seeking a broader impact: we were trying to get the military to declassify its archives to hold the people who effectuated the disappearance accountable. I like one of our main arguments a lot, because it’s consistent with the reasons I wanted to work here to begin with: this country’s society as a whole needs this information to prevent serious human rights violations from happening again. In this respect, our argument is predicated on the idea that a society, rather than only its new government, plays an active and decisive role in resolving thorny questions of justice for past governments’ human rights violations.
Of course, open access to information isn’t by itself sufficient to ensure justice and stability for new (or recently returned) democracies, and a court decision isn’t by itself going to ensure that people both access and use the information to hold their leaders accountable. And of course, most countries where members of the former regime and/or their partisans are still powerful are going to want to punt on these efforts, or at least stall their progress. The ruling we’re trying to get is just one piece of many in what will surely be a long and difficult process. But in my experience, this is how human rights works. No single effort is going to fix deeply entrenched systems of injustice. We commit to achieving what we can, and trust that someone, somewhere, is going to pick up what we accomplish and use it to move their own efforts forward.
I don’t know what is going to happen with this case, but I feel a great sense of privilege, and humility, at being tasked with shaping one family’s 40-year search for their brother into a court precedent that others – people neither I nor this family have ever met – can use to achieve justice in their own societies.
Isabelle Glimcher, NYU '19
Fellow at the Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern School of Business
With only a month left at the Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern School of Business, it’s hard to believe how quickly the time has gone. During my Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellowship, I’ve been immersed in the Center’s cutting-edge work on business and human rights, including responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Below are a few examples.
Our construction project has been working to address the overwhelming recruitment fees which keep migrant workers in the Persian Gulf in debt bondage and unbearable working conditions. With the threat of COVID-19, these workers face a health crisis without adequate sanitation or healthcare, and many are unable to return home. Our manufacturing work has long been advocating for global brands to take more responsibility for working conditions in the factories around the world that produce their clothes. As coronavirus stagnated global retail, this has become even more clear as brands abandon their suppliers and workers living on the edge of poverty face the loss of their jobs.
Our technology program has focused for several years now on the threat of disinformation online, calling on social media companies to better regulate the content on their platforms and to improve the job of content moderator in ways that recognize its centrality to their business, and account for the psychological toll of the job. In the midst of the pandemic and national demonstrations against racism and police brutality, we’ve seen some of the platforms intervene more substantially for the good of all users.
Our investing program has long been working to improve metrics related to social practices under the umbrella of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing. Coronavirus has necessitated a rethinking of essential workers and the way they’re treated by their companies, making the need for tools to assess these practices more urgent than ever. Despite the challenges facing this country and the world right now, I am proud to be part of a team working every day to address these issues and drive change for people around the globe.
In the midst of everything else, I have also been leading my own project focused on US government procurement. Over the last six months, I have authored a report outlining ways the procurement process should change in order to leverage US government buying power to drive human and labor rights compliance by contractors and subcontractors around the world.
The US government is one of the world’s biggest buyers – every year, the US government procures over $2 trillion in goods and services, purchasing everything from office supplies to armaments. This procurement relies on global supply chains, with production often occurring in countries that lack the resources and incentives to monitor human and labor rights compliance in their jurisdictions. As a result, goods produced pursuant to US government contracts are often made in factories where rights violations are rampant and unchecked. While recent changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulations – the sprawling body of legislation that regulates federal procurement – have begun to address human trafficking, more must be done to address and prevent rights violations.
The report outlines several ambitious steps that can be taken to reform US government procurement processes in order to improve human and labor rights protections for workers around the world. While this project aims high, its aspirations are achievable. The US government owes it to its citizens, and those of other countries, to act as a responsible buyer, ensuring that its spending supports rather than impedes respect for human and labor rights around the world. We are in the process of consulting with experts to finalize the report, before distributing it to policymakers of both parties.
As I reflect on my time at the Center, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to immerse myself in the growing area of business and human rights. I have seen firsthand the change that can be made when businesses step up and integrate human rights commitments into their business models. This work has arguably never been more urgent than it is right now as the world grapples with new crises and long-standing challenges. I feel very privileged to have had this year to contribute to these efforts and gain expertise in this important area. This fellowship, the people I’ve met, and the insights I’ve gained will help guide me as I chart my career path for years to come.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
As I write this, it has been just over two months that I have been a part of the Center for Business & Human Rights at the NYU Stern School of Business as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellow. The Center, a first of its kind institution, leads the way in advancing the corporate social responsibility goals of the past few decades into a more meaningful commitment to human rights standards in the 21st century global economy. The Center focuses on business models, looking carefully at different industries, to identify practical ways that businesses can better uphold human rights standards, in concert with their attention to the bottom line.
My work for the Center has been focused on two industries – technology and investing. On the technology front, the Center has published four reports in the last few years highlighting the dangers of disinformation on social media platforms and calling on companies to exercise more rigorous and thoughtful controls. As I started my fellowship, the Center had just released its latest report, Disinformation and the 2020 Election: How the Social Media Industry Should Prepare. The report predicts the sources and forms of false content that could pose a threat to the November 2020 election, drawing special attention to Instagram and deepfake videos, and offers nine concrete recommendations for social media companies. The report generated substantial media attention, and I jumped in to help the team manage the publicity. Looking ahead, we have begun work on a major project focusing on content moderation and the extent to which it is being outsourced by the platforms. In support of a report we intend to publish this year, I have been researching content moderation and speaking to individuals who have done this harrowing work. Throughout this process, I have had the privilege of learning from Paul Barrett, the Center’s Deputy Director, who spent three decades in journalism with the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg-Business Week. He has taught me invaluable skills already, especially related to interviewing individuals and writing in a more engaging tone than the one I learned in law school. I look forward to continuing to work on this project, and I hope we will follow these issues all the way to Dublin and Manila, where much of this content moderation actually happens.
On the investing front, I am working with Casey O’Connor Willis, a fellow NYU Law graduate, on a paper that argues that businesses and investors must do more to prioritize the social factors in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing. For my part, I am drafting the legal section of the paper, demonstrating that it is possible to prioritize so-called social factors in a manner that does not violate the fiduciary duties of directors and investment advisers. This work has given me the opportunity to delve more deeply into corporation law, agency law, trust law, and ERISA, and to understand more recent trends around shareholder activism and ESG reporting. I have been lucky to work with Casey on this cutting-edge issue, trying to encourage more tangible commitments from businesses and to show them there is a way forward without unduly sacrificing their profits and returns.
Throughout my time at the Center, I have also been privileged to work closely with Michael Posner, the Center’s director, on a mix of issues. This work has been highly varied in terms of topic and context – to name a few examples, I have contributed to his Forbes columns about Palantir, the NBA, and challenges facing journalists around the world, and helped prepare his testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China highlighting the linkages between American capital and the Chinese government’s repression of the Uyghur minority. It is incredibly exciting to get to work on so many different issues simultaneously, surrounded by people with diverse professional backgrounds who are united by their commitment to harnessing the resources of businesses to change the lives of individuals around the world. I look forward to the months ahead, continuing to contribute to this important work.
Kalpana Yadav, NYU LLM '19
Fellow at Namati
My year at Namati as a Masiyiwa Bernstein Fellow has drawn to a close. As I look back, I have so much to be immensely thankful for - I got a chance to work with some of the most passionate and dedicated people and witnessed firsthand the tremendous impact that a successful grassroots legal empowerment movement can unleash!
This year and the Fellowship gave me the unparalleled opportunity to be closely involved with many interesting projects that unfolded at Namati. I worked closely with all of Namati’s country teams (in Kenya, India, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Myanmar and the US) to develop a robust and universal empowerment-oriented paralegal training and support model premised on building capacities of affected communities to know, use, and shape the law. Through this, I gained invaluable knowledge about implementing community-based paralegal programs in different parts of the world, and the challenges that plague effective human rights realisation at the community level.
I also worked closely with the US Environmental Justice team to provide research and strategic support for existing cases that ranged across a wide variety of issues – relating to air pollution, fugitive dust, coal dust storage, CERCLA violations, and more. While working on each individual case, we sought to tie learnings from casework to the larger push for systemic change in order to address gaps and inequalities at a more structural level, in addition to a case-by-case basis. In keeping with the push to achieve broader systemic change through legislative and policy interventions, I carried out extensive research to support Namati’s ask for a wider application of the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for all affected populations (and not indigenous populations alone) in Sierra Leone and Myanmar.
This experience also taught me key lessons about resilience and solidarity in the face of adversity. Half way through my fellowship, the COVID-19 crisis took over the world. The pandemic was not a public health challenge alone – it also presented a justice crisis characterized by an explosion of human rights violations in practically every facet of life. Through a careful and quick re-orientation of work priorities to respond to the crisis and the setting up of the COVID-19 grassroots justice fund in record time, Namati embodied organisational resilience, solidarity, and sensitivity in ways I have seldom seen before.
I am extremely thankful for this year – it prompted me to ask fundamental questions that will shape my life and work in the years to come. Every day, I thought (and continue to think) more critically and deeply about what “justice” means in a world marked by increasing inequality; what it means to democratise justice movements; and how one can wield the power of law to be a catalyst for social change by placing it directly in the hands of those most marginalised and vulnerable. I have been greatly inspired by the whole team at Namati and the brilliant work they’re doing on the ground. I look forward to using and applying my learnings from this year into my work in rights protection and advancement in the years to come.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
I began my Fellowship at Namati, a global human rights organisation that works to advance justice by putting the power of law in the hands of the people, in September 2019. The last couple of months have marked the beginning of a uniquely rewarding and fulfilling opportunity to work with communities across the globe and learn from different legal empowerment models that build individual capacities to know, use and shape the law.
In a relatively short span of time, I have been exposed to the inspiring and relentless work carried out by Namati’s country teams on the ground in Kenya, India, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Myanmar and the US towards securing and advancing the right to health, citizenship, community land protection, and environmental justice. Working with the global programs team provides a unique and unparalleled opportunity to understand the human rights challenges presented in different geographical contexts, and to be able to draw on comparative experience and learning to address and overcome them.
The current times are perhaps the most challenging, and the most interesting to be working in the field of human rights. Countries across the world are witnessing an erosion of basic rights and civil liberties, space for civil society participation is shrinking, inequality is on the rise and an environmental crisis seems inevitable. Namati CEO Vivek Maru notes that these times present “crisitunities” that the human rights movement must rise and respond to. In such times, witnessing incredible grassroots work on the ground to push for systemic change and build a culture of critical consciousness bolsters one’s faith in the movement and its potential to usher meaningful change.
I have had the opportunity to work closely with the Namati US and India program teams on environmental justice issues – I have been carrying out research and working on developing legal strategies for ongoing environmental law cases in the US (dealing with CERCLA violations, issues relating to hazardous emissions, air and ground water pollution etc.). In keeping with Namati’s focus on carefully balancing individual cases of violations with a push for larger systemic change, I have also been researching overarching questions relating to the effectiveness of environmental remedies and regulations that can help shape the impact of Namati’s environmental justice work going forward.
I am also working on developing a comprehensive empowerment-oriented paralegal training model that is premised on building capacities of affected communities and that is capable of implementation across different jurisdictions. This project provides me with the opportunity to interact closely with grassroots advocates in different countries and learn from existing legal empowerment models and practices, so as to internalize best practices and bridge subsisting knowledge and practice gaps for developing a more robust and universal model.
If the first few months are anything to go by, I know my year at Namati will present numerous incredible learning opportunities and I look forward to working with a wonderful and highly dedicated team to strive towards securing meaningful access to justice for marginalized and vulnerable communities across the globe.
Alyssa Isidoridy, NYU '18
Fellow at Human Rights First
As a Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellow with Human Rights First this year, much of my work has involved responding to the current administration’s attempts to eviscerate asylum protections, refugee resettlement, and U.S. obligations under the Refugee Convention. I entered my fellowship hoping my work would help to push the needle forward on refugee rights – by ending harmful immigration detention policies, stopping the criminal prosecution of asylum seekers, and advocating for fairer hiring among immigration judges, to name a few. Instead, like refugee rights advocates around the country, I have been called upon to defend against the near-daily barrage of new regulations and policies designed to create suffering and chaos for people who arrive at our nation’s border in need of international protection.
A colleague from the organization Al Otro Lado, a bi-national legal services organization serving indigent migrants and refugees in Tijuana, described their work as “building the airplane while it’s already in the air.” This perfectly encapsulates the work of many of the immigrants’ rights organizations I have had the great fortune to work alongside in the past year. Each advocate in this space is leveraging their own skills and opportunities to provide direct services and contribute to policy objectives to defend the safety and due process rights of refugees forced to languish in areas where their lives are at risk. As a researcher, my position has led me to travel from Texas to California to document human rights abuses happening at the border. Professionally, I have benefitted greatly from the opportunity to learn how to present my research in a variety of forms – from writing congressional testimony, reports, and op-eds to speaking with coalitions and policymakers. The urgent nature of this work has allowed me to appreciate the need for flexibility, deepen my knowledge of advocacy channels, and sharpen my ability to evaluate how certain needs call for specific actions.
I have long admired Human Rights First for its model which provides direct representation of refugees and asylum seekers alongside its policy and advocacy work. One of the most powerful experiences of my fellowship came in the opportunity I had to represent a detained Salvadoran asylum seeker. By the time he won his case and was released from detention, my client had been incarcerated in a New Jersey jail for over eleven months. Before his case was referred to Human Rights First, he represented himself pro se in immigration court. There, attorneys for DHS ignored years of brutal persecution in his home country to argue that he should be deported because he had improperly filed his I-589 application for asylum. He is illiterate, having never received a day of formal education in his life. It became clear to me that the government attorneys’ callous argument to circumvent due process and strip my client of his voice is the incarnation of an administration that seeks to obliterate asylum protections at all costs. Luckily, the judge granted a continuance in his eleventh hour that allowed Human Rights First to intervene and assist him with preparing his case and testimony over the course of several months.
As a newly-barred attorney arguing against an antagonistic opposing counsel in immigration court, I drew upon inspiration from my client’s strength and courage to help him fight for his rights in a system designed to deter and dehumanize. To him, and to each asylum seeker I met at the border and in detention centers across the country who shared with me their stories so that the path to freedom and safety may become a little more illuminated, I am forever indebted.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
I began my Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellowship with Human Rights First in the midst of the Trump administration’s full-fledged assault on immigration. What began as simmering anti-immigrant rhetoric during his campaign has boiled into two years of executive overreach in pursuit of dismantling large swathes of the legal immigration system. Among these regulations are some of the most inhumane policies towards refugees and asylum-seekers this country has seen. Human Rights First is an organization that is uniquely positioned to highlight the value of international human rights law in the domestic sphere.
My work with the Refugee Protection team specifically focuses on asylum seekers and demonstrating why it is critical that the United States provide safety and freedom to individuals fleeing violence and persecution, rather than turning them away or detaining them. I have had the opportunity to further this goal through conducting research, educating the public, and preparing documents for audiences ranging from domestic administrative agencies to United Nations studies.
I recently traveled with a team to the U.S.-Mexico border, visiting places in California and Arizona to monitor the conditions of asylum seekers forced to wait at ports of entry before requesting international protection. We witnessed and documented the lack of infrastructure and resources for refugees and asylum seekers, and the role of the U.S. in both creating and failing to respond to the situation. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials are turning away asylum seekers from ports of entry and forcing them to wait in Mexico, in many cases in violation of the principle of non-refoulement, which forbids a country from returning asylum seekers to a country in which they would likely be in danger of persecution. We found that asylum seekers are forced to wait at ports of entry for over six weeks in dangerous conditions, just to request protections to which they are legally entitled. On November 9, the Trump administration also passed regulations prohibiting those who cross the U.S.-Mexican border between ports of entry from accessing asylum in the U.S. These regulations are currently the subject of litigation by the ACLU, Human Rights First, and others. The so-called ‘asylum ban,’ combined with CBP’s practice of limiting entry to a few families each day, is the administration’s deliberate creation of a humanitarian crisis along the southern border and, since the arrival of the thousands of migrants and asylum seekers traveling in the migrant exodus, the crisis in Tijuana has become much worse.
The people I spoke to at the various ports of entry, had come from countries as near as Mexico and Honduras and as far as Cameroon and Russia. All of them made heartbreaking decisions to leave behind friends, family, and community, and many shared stories of unspeakable violence at home. At some ports, families relied on non-profit organizations that provided shelters and resources to migrants. However, many people expressed concern that these shelters were quickly reaching capacity and that there was not enough food and water. At the San Luis port, adjacent to Arizona, migrants were forced to sleep on concrete outside of the international gate, and had constructed makeshift tents from sheets and blankets in order to shield themselves from the elements.
In San Luis, I interviewed a 20-year-old mother from Michoacán who was traveling with her family, including her 9-month-old baby who had a persistent cough from bronchitis. When I began speaking with her, family members peeked out from under the blanket where they were resting, eager to share their story. They talked about the dire conditions at home, where they could no longer walk on the streets for fear of violence against their family. Despite the limited food and water resources, absence of hygiene infrastructure and lack of access to medical care during their five-week long wait at the port of entry, they said this was the only place where they had hope.
I witnessed first-hand the depth of the cruelty of the administration’s policies and am now challenged to adequately convey the toll that they have on peoples’ lives. Speaking with asylum seekers at ports of entry also forced me to contemplate my role, in that moment, as an observer rather than as a lawyer. Because our goal was to observe and document, I had to overcome my instinct to advise asylum seekers of their rights and what to expect from the process.
Human Rights First’s on-the-ground fact-finding and institutional expertise allow us to build evidentiary records and arguments that can be used in litigation or in communications to Congress, coalition partners, and the public. I am developing an understanding of the role of human rights advocacy in the context of the larger efforts of building more humane immigration policies, and am eager to continue growing this year as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellow.
Rachel Levenson, NYU '18
Fellow at Make the Road New York
This February, in the early hours of a bitterly cold morning, I walked with staff, members and allies of Make the Road NY (MRNY) up and down the sidewalk outside a high-end apartment building on the Upper East Side. It was Valentine’s Day and we were there, accompanied by a Mariachi band, to deliver a message to Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan/Chase Bank: break up with private prisons.
In between songs, people took the microphone to talk about the #BackersofHate campaign, which pressures financial institutions to divest from corporations that profit from immigration detention. At the end of the speaking program, there was an announcement: “We have one more speaker today.” To my surprise, the next speaker was my client. She is very shy, and it was her first time attending a protest. But she had just been released from immigration detention where she had been days away from deportation before our Transgender Immigrant Project (TRiP) organizers and legal team stepped up to help her, and she now had her own message for the group: “When we fight together, we are stronger.”
In the face of the Trump Administration’s attack on the dignity and humanity of immigrants, LGBTQ folks, people of color, and working class people, among others, it can be difficult to remember that we are powerful. This has certainly been a challenge for me as I begin my career as a lawyer during a time when dozens of cruel, and often unconstitutional, executive orders, immigration enforcement actions, and court decisions reshape immigration law. But at MRNY, I am regularly reminded that when communities come together and fight back, we can, and do, win. This year, I have witnessed immigrant-led victories in fights that were called unwinnable - whether that was keeping the citizenship question off the census, passing legislation that restores drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants in New York, or when, this past March, JP Morgan/Chase announced that it was divesting from private prisons, a major victory in the #BackersofHate campaign.
I similarly have witnessed MRNY’s immigration legal team pull off remarkable victories for our clients, from winning release on medical parole for a sick Bronx dad who had been detained for a year and a half, to helping a client renew his DACA in a complex and challenging case. While there have also been many difficult moments this year, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to begin my legal career working with such incredible advocates.
Over the course of my fellowship, I have continued to provide legal support to MRNY’s deportation defense organizing by working with our community organizers to respond to reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. I have also expanded my own caseload of clients, the majority of whom are in removal proceedings. While a year is a very short time, I am amazed by how full it has been. I am grateful to the Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellowship for the opportunity to work at MRNY, and particularly to Bob Bernstein, who was a strong advocate of my raids response work and who passed away this spring. It has been a year of great personal growth and a deepening of my understanding of movement lawyering and human rights advocacy. I am excited to be staying on at MRNY at the end of my fellowship as a staff attorney.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
Make the Road New York (MRNY) is a member-based immigrant rights organization in New York and works to build the power of immigrant and working class communities through community organizing, policy advocacy, transformative education and legal and survival services. I am working with the immigration unit of MRNY, as the organization’s first-ever Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow. As a fellow, I provide legal support to MRNY’s deportation defense coordinator, a community organizer who leads MRNY’s rapid response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
Nearly every day, I hear stories of New Yorkers whose lives have been fractured by ICE disappearances and raids: a young man dragged by unidentified officers into an unmarked black van as he walks out of court; a father of three U.S. citizen children who leaves for work in the morning, and ends his day in immigration detention, not to come home again for nearly four months; a young woman who overstayed a student visa woken up at 5 AM to loud knocks on her door and a handwritten note threatening immigration detention. This is ICE enforcement in New York City in the age of Trump.
As a fellow, I work with the deportation defense coordinator, other MRNY organizers, and members of our legal and communications teams to support the loved ones of detained individuals as they navigate the aftermath of these raids. This involves assistance in locating the detained person, orienting the family about the legal process going forward, and documenting the arrest so that we can identify increasingly aggressive patterns in ICE enforcement, which are incorporated into MRNY’s Know Your Rights work and tracked by the Immigrant Defense Project’s raids map. Finally, I help assess the detained person’s options for legal representation, often coordinating with attorneys from New York City’s universal representation program and the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project. Because we are MRNY, and building immigrant power is central to our mission, our organizers also work with the loved ones of detained individuals to connect them to weekly membership meetings, ongoing organizing campaigns, and other survival services.
When we have capacity – and when needed – I also provide limited direct representation of individuals detained by ICE. A highlight this fall was working with Pedro (name changed), a community member whose wife had sought out MRNY’s support after Pedro was detained by ICE on his way to work as a chef in an Italian restaurant in Manhattan in July. Because of backlogs in immigration court, among other factors, he had to wait until late September for his first appearance. And on that date, under a recent change in policy, he was not even brought to court in person, but instead appeared by video in immigration court in lower Manhattan. I sat next to his wife in the courtroom and watched as tears filled her eyes when she saw her husband appear on the courtroom video screen. It was the first time that she had seen her husband since he was detained in July.
I worked with Pedro’s wife, as well as volunteers in MRNY’s allies program called Aliadx, to collect over a dozen letters from medical providers, employers, family members and friends about Pedro’s character and his central place in his family’s fabric. On the day of his bond hearing, attended by Pedro’s family, a MRNY organizer and one of the allies who supported his case, I appeared in immigration court as his legal representative. I argued for Pedro’s release from detention, while the government attorney tried to dehumanize Pedro, arguing that he should remain detained. Ultimately, the judge ruled in our favor – noting some of the positive facts about Pedro that we had presented to the court. It was a powerful experience as a new lawyer to be able to use my legal skills to support this family. When we exited the courthouse together, we all gathered outside of the building and took a photo with our fists in the air, celebrating not only the win in Pedro’s case, but also the power of MRNY community.
I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to work MRNY as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow. Prior to this fellowship, I did not engage directly with human rights law, seeing it as an area of law largely concerned with non-domestic problems. This fellowship has helped me to understand that human rights law is also a powerful tool in the U.S., particularly now when human rights defenders are being targeted by Trump, when ICE is using increasingly violent and dehumanizing detention practices against non-citizens, and the Trump Administration is working to limit access to the courts for immigrants. I look forward to continuing to learn more about how human rights frameworks can strengthen the legal and extra-legal strategies needed at this critical time.
Katie Wightman, NYU LLM '18
Fellow at NYU Law's Global Justice Clinic
At the celebration of Robert Bernstein’s life, all fellows were asked to stand. This moment gave meaning to the underlying bonds which have fortified me all year, but which I had not quite grasped until then. Of all the gifts that the Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellowship provides, this opportunity to stand in solidarity with people from different backgrounds—all of whom are united by a desire to serve those who are marginalised, silenced and oppressed—is the greatest.
As a Fellow in the Global Justice Clinic, I have been privileged to join three remarkable communities, each of which has broadened my perspective and reaffirmed my commitment to a career in the service of others:
- the Wapichan community with whom I have worked in Guyana;
- the human rights community of devoted advocates around the world; and
- the growing Masiyiwa-Bernstein community who made this entire year possible.
Below I share some of my insights from each of these communities.
Wapichan Community: Prioritize what matters and recognize that all our actions have consequences, for this generation and the next.
I began writing this reflection in Wapichan wiizi—territory in the South Rupununi of Guyana, which has been tended by the Wapichan people and their ancestors for generations. This past year, I was fortunate to spend two months with the Wapichan people, who very graciously welcomed me into their communities. Working in the South Rupununi redefined my understanding of a wholesome existence as I observed the Wapichan people prioritize what matters: community bonds, preservation of the environment, cultural traditions, their way of life, and living in a manner that protects the interests of future generations.
For years, the Wapichan people have monitored violations of their land and environmental rights in order to protect the territory which sustains their way of life and lies at the heart of their identities as an Indigenous People. The Global Justice Clinic supports this effort, using legal empowerment strategies to identify advocacy opportunities for the monitoring data collected by the Wapichan people. This collaboration facilitated my pivotal fellowship experience, which involved trekking through the Amazon Rainforest alongside Wapichan monitors to test the water quality for adverse impacts of mining. I was completely mesmerized as I explored the diverse flora and fauna and the tranquillity of this breathtakingly beautiful ecosystem which serves as “the Earth’s lungs.” This initial elation and awe soon turned to immense sorrow and shame as we climbed Mazoa Mountain—a sacred site for the Wapichan people—and witnessed the far-reaching destruction and deforestation caused by mining. Up until that moment, I had blindly blamed miners for their exploitation of natural resources. But standing there in silence alongside Wapichan monitors, I was confronted with the realization that the root cause of all this destruction is the demand that (especially) Western societies—including my own—place on finite natural resources. As I came to terms with the fact that we are all implicated, I was reminded that all our actions have consequences, not only for those closest to us but also for communities many miles away—in this generation and the next.
I returned to New York a different person. Initially I felt down, disconnected and adrift; symptoms of what I now understand to be reverse culture shock. But this depressive state soon turned to gratitude as I came to another realization: I did not feel myself because I was not myself; or, at least, not the same self I was before this extended fieldtrip. My eyes had opened, my lens had shifted, my heart and mind had expanded. To me, this highlights one of many fulfilling aspects of human rights advocacy. Working with communities outside of your own provides the endless opportunity for self-reflection and self-growth as we are forced to hold ourselves to the higher moral standards that we demand from others. In the process of working in solidarity with others, we learn so much from this exchange that it is impossible not to be transformed. In particular, the Wapichan people taught me to “love internet less and appreciate the cows more.”
Human Rights Community: if we do not look after our mental health, human rights work is not sustainable and can potentially be harmful to the communities we hope to support.
Alongside immense joy and fulfillment, this fellowship also exposed me to the pervasive flipside of human rights work: the toll it takes on our mental health. Human rights advocates work to address some of the most intractable problems facing humanity, often under precarious working conditions. This presents significant challenges to wellbeing; some of which inevitably arise due to the nature of the work, but many of which could be mitigated with greater awareness. It is precisely these mental health challenges—and the means for overcoming them—that the Human Rights Resilience Project has studied for the past six years. Together with an interdisciplinary team of human rights lawyers and psychologists, I was privileged to co-author a publication on a global study—the first of its kind—on organizational responses to mental health risks in the human rights field. I was also fortunate to travel internationally to present the findings at Amnesty International in London, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and RightsCon (“the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age”) in Tunisia.
The findings of this study have been well received because it provides evidence for the lived experience of many human rights advocates. We conclude that human rights organizations are generally not doing enough to support the mental health and wellbeing of advocates, but we also recognize that organizational efforts are impeded by structural problems within the human rights field, certain deep-rooted and harmful human rights cultures, and mental health stigma that persists broadly. These challenges are so pervasive that, ironically, despite my acute awareness of the mental health risks, I was not immune to the wellbeing challenges documented in the study. While this fellowship equipped me with the tools and tactics to promote my resilience in theory, it was extremely challenging to apply those lessons in practice. Mitigating these challenges will require a concerted effort among advocates, NGOs, funders and the human rights movement broadly; much of which is beyond my individual control. But at least I now know how to play my part in order to prolong my career in this field. This includes practicing self-care and fostering an organizational culture which actively tackles the martyrdom, savior mentality and mental health stigma that undermines our wellbeing and, ultimately, the sustainability of human rights practice.
Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellowship Community: No matter how demanding human rights work becomes, stay engaged and curious about those around you.
As an Australian (and first LL.M.) fellow, I have benefited immensely from membership in the Masiyiwa-Bernstein network and the extensive support-system this provides. This includes support from past and present fellows, the Bernstein Institute staff, and the entire Bernstein family. It is comforting to know that this support will extend beyond my fellowship, as I am now part of a community of like-minded individuals to whom I can turn in times of need.
I was privileged to meet many inspiring human beings this year, including—not least—the late Robert Bernstein. I was deeply saddened by his passing but so grateful for the privilege of undertaking my fellowship in a year that enabled me to be blessed by his presence and also to celebrate his life. During our conversation at one fellowship dinner, I was struck by his genuine curiosity and engagement with us fellows. I was amazed that someone with the extent of his achievement could be interested in my life. With greater clarity, I see now the discipline required to strike a balance between the fierce dedication to human rights without neglecting those closest to us; whether that be our partners, friends, family or colleagues. As I strive to master this discipline, I will draw upon Robert Bernstein’s leadership—with lifelong gratitude—as I carry his torch for many years to come.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
As a Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow, I recently had the privilege of co-presenting at Amnesty International’s Wellbeing Week in London. During a session on ‘Leading a Healthy Organization’, I learned the importance of moving between the dance floor and the balcony. This requires an ability to, in the words of the Harvard Business Review, “simultaneously play the game and observe it as a whole.” It means being both a participant and a dispassionate onlooker, and retaining the capacity for reflection even while you are in the midst of the action.
This metaphor aptly captures the work of the Global Justice Clinic (GJC), a human rights clinic based in NYU School of Law where I am currently undertaking my fellowship. The GJC works to “prevent, challenge and redress rights violations related to global inequality.” Before undertaking a Master of Laws (LL.M.) at NYU, I had never considered the possibility of pursuing a human rights career within an academic institution. I have since come to realize that the GJC is the ideal setting in which to begin a career in human rights law, as it has allowed me to balance fieldwork (i.e. being on the dancefloor) with an effort to create systemic change (i.e. from the balcony). This is fostered by the ongoing interrogation of existing frameworks—including my underlying assumptions—which is encouraged in an environment of continued intellectual curiosity and discovery.
At the fieldwork level, I am working with indigenous communities in Guyana to help protect and defend their ancestral lands from the environmental damage, cultural impacts, and resource depletion caused by mining, logging and other development projects. Recently, I collaborated with our partner, the Forest Peoples Programme, to support the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) in preparing submissions recommending strong positions to ensure that the rights of Indigenous Peoples are protected in response to a draft mineral sector policy released by the Guyanese government. It was gratifying to accompany the APA as it gave voice to the Indigenous Peoples who were not consulted in the formulation of this policy, despite the far-reaching impacts of mining on every aspect of their lives. Soon, I will be embarking upon my first field trip to Guyana to attend a statutory meeting of the South Rupununi District Council (SRDC) in the village of Shea. At this meeting, I will have the opportunity to deliver a number of clinic research reports and to build a relationship with the Toshaos (Village Leaders) of the 21 communities who make up the SRDC. I hope to develop a deeper understanding of how Indigenous Peoples’ connection with their land is intrinsically tied to their sense of self—an appreciation that my own culture has long neglected to our detriment. Through this community lawyering project, I am utilizing legal empowerment strategies which have reframed my understanding of human rights advocacy, away from the unilateral provision of expert legal services toward a partnership which fosters bilateral learning and the sustainable realization of human rights.
At the systemic level, I am managing the Human Rights Resilience Project, an interdisciplinary research initiative which seeks to promote mental wellbeing and resilience among human rights workers. This has given me the good fortune of working with a team of human rights lawyers and psychologists who have spent the past 20 months mapping what human rights organizations all over the world are—and are not—doing to support the wellbeing of advocates. This understudied but critically important subject is of great interest to me—both personally and professionally—because I believe that an awareness of mental wellbeing challenges and practices is not only crucial to supporting survivors of human rights violations, but it is also essential to forging a sustainable career in this field. In addition to giving me the opportunity to travel internationally to co-present on the study’s findings, I am currently helping to finalize an article for publication in the Southern California Review of Law and Social Justice and a report to the Open Society Foundation (the funders of this study). I am certain that I will call upon the insights that I have gained from this project in my efforts to build an enduring career in this field.
This brings me to what is, without question, the most valuable aspect of this fellowship—the opportunity to work alongside my mentor and role model, Professor Meg Satterthwaite. The fellowship has allowed me to put into practice the theory of human rights advocacy that I learned under her tutelage during my LL.M. degree. Under the guidance of Prof. Satterthwaite and with the support of many talented human rights scholars and practitioners at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, every day I am learning how to be a more effective human rights advocate and lawyer. But, perhaps more importantly, I am also learning how to be a better human being—and that is fundamentally what this vocation is all about.
Adam Gordon, NYU '17
Fellow at U.S.-Asia Law Institute
Adam Gordon is the Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, an organization which seeks to promote the rule of law and human rights in Asia, including both domestic and international law. Known as one of America’s preeminent research centers for the study of law in Mainland China and Taiwan, USALI serves as a resource and partner to various Asian countries as they develop their legal systems, and works to improve popular, professional and scholarly understanding at home and abroad through its publications and exchanges concerning comparative and international law. What follows are some of his reflections – from the perspective of a new human rights law professional – on pursuing human rights law in a time of crisis.
Oh, what a time to have entered the human rights field. Here we are attempting to navigate the launch of careers we hope to be filled with positive impact, waking to headlines of the US pulling out of the Human Rights Commission, of the people of Italy driven to the far right by nativist xenophobia, of – directly pertinent to our work here at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute (USALI) – a crackdown on foreign NGOs by China. Meanwhile, with the US facing a situation at its southern border which constitutes one of the worst human rights violations in the country’s recent history, the media, the public, and “the resistance” have not only forsaken the language of human rights, they simple forgot to even bother with it. And as we take our first steps into what has always been a difficult field, the human rights movement’s own leaders – those we dream of one day becoming – are resigning their posts, citing the hopelessness of the battle, the failure of their work.
I’m reminded of something I once read on a printed-and-then-forgotten page taped to the outside of a professor’s office door. It said that the greatest way – indeed, the only way – to affect change is to find a wave that's moving in the direction you want and adding your weight to it. But what do you do when there’s no wave? When, in fact, the tide has ebbed, carrying the water far out to sea, and we are left standing on dry, parched land miles from the shoreline? What possible value in developing knowledge and skills for a seemingly dying field of law?
Deng Xiaoping famously stated that to reach its goals, China must “cross the river by feeling the stones.” He was referring to China’s national economic development, but perhaps the same approach is needed for both the human rights movement and our careers within it. Perhaps what is needed is to go step by step, not sure of the path but trusting that each move forward is carrying us closer to our ultimate goal. In all honesty, the questions and doubts above are ones I’m currently grappling with. And I’d be lying if I said I had any clear answers. I think anyone would be, given the times.
But answering these questions is, frankly, not particularly necessary to success in an early-career fellowship, to the narrow, concrete problems our organizations attempt to address, to developing the core, fundamental legal skills involved in solving such problems and others like them. At USALI, we aren’t working to solve the Human Rights Commission’s ability to hold states accountable for rights violations. We’re giving Chinese and Japanese anti-discrimination experts insight into the America’s employment discrimination institutional ecosystem. We’re training young lawyers in Beijing effective criminal defence trial advocacy. We’re sharing insights on the impact which will result from discrete but important changes to China’s criminal code. This is not to say that the system-wide issues affecting human rights are not a threat to the long-term viability and impact of our work. But these on-the-ground, bread-and-butter projects remain an effective contribution to ongoing reform efforts, as well as a great place to cut one’s teeth in this field.
Besides, we need to keep going, keep pushing, keep finding the avenues that are still open. What else would we do? When interviewing for this fellowship, I told Mr. Bernstein that what I really admired about USALI’s director, the great Jerome Cohen, was his ability to express more critical commentary on China than anyone else while still being welcomed back by the country. What that speaks to is an approach that esteems being an effective agent of change over orthodoxy of ideals. At a time when many people, seeing the mounting calamity they see around them, are being driven to engage in public interest work, I believe it is important to get beyond just feeling good about ourselves for “supporting the cause,” and instead to ask what it is we are actually accomplishing, and how best to make that happen. Working at USALI has only served to confirm my faith in this approach. From choice of projects to point of engagement to mechanism of change, I am learning how to make projects work where others have failed, due only to a well-crafted approach.
A recent trip to China aimed at moving the country toward improving their criminal suspect interrogation techniques, for instance, involved engaging officials and students from the National Security University through dialogue and presentations. Crucial was the involvement of Andy Griffiths, a former British police officer who was instrumental in his country’s implementation of their field-leading interrogation method, a system which has all but eliminated false confessions by no longer seeking confessions at all, focusing instead on fact finding. These engagements built trust by focusing on solidarity of experience, describing how the problems with China’s interrogation methods were ones Britain faced at the time – and which the US disgracefully still faces – which led to the development of the technique we were promoting. A focus on means of improving results in police work, an emphasis on possible concrete steps, and direct, respectful dialogue meant that our ideas found a receptive audience.
Finally, in a chaotic and backsliding time such as this we’re not always going to be able to see tangible results from our efforts. It’s a frustrating situation to walk into at the beginning of one’s career – to finally be ready to hit the ground, restless to see your work translated into real and meaningful reform, and instead walk into a frustrated and demoralized field. But if this situation represents the new normal, we must learn to be okay with not always making improvements. When we can't make gains on the ground, we need to focus on other things. When our voices are not being listened to, maybe we should stop trying to talk all the time, and use it as an opportunity to listen, watch, learn. Working at an organization that both works with a wide array of institutional and academic partners, and is enmeshed in the academic conversations taking place at our own law school on disciplines ranging from hate speech in Japan to the justice implications of computer learning, perhaps the greatest thing about this type of fellowship is that it affords a chance to do just that.
I started by expressing my own frustration, doubt, and uncertainty about the human rights field, and its ability to stay relevant in an unravelling world that seems to have disavowed, sidelined, or simply forgotten us. And there’s no getting around the fact that it is a dark time, one of mounting fear, hatred, division. But in a way, it’s also a fascinating time to be starting out in this field. Were we entering the human rights profession but a few years ago, we would have entered as novices in a field of practice where seasoned veterans know the game and all of its rules and strategies. While we obviously have much to learn from these experts, we're also working in paradigm-shifting contexts that are no more familiar to them than they are to us. So all the while that we’re using these first forays into the field to learn from these experts, learn best practices, learn the ropes, we also get to see the limitations of these old ways of doing things, and contribute to trying to innovate solutions. If China, who have already limited our scope of operations, decides we’re no longer allowed to conduct training programs within its borders, USALI’s whole model of impact will need to be rewritten. The same is true of every organization and element of the field. Our fresh ideas, unjaded enthusiasm, and flexibility can be an important part of this. And there’s something exciting about that.
Astha Pokharel, NYU '17
Fellow at Namati (2017-2018)
As my Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellowship at Namati draws to a close, I’ve been reflecting on what has made it so special. One year is a very short amount of time. And yet in this year, I’ve developed strong friendships with my co-workers, thought much more deeply about what kind of lawyer I want to be, and learned what it means to be creative and innovative. There’s so much to say about the work at Namati, below are some highlights from my fellowship and one parting reflection.
The second half of my fellowship was largely focused on developing Namati’s Environmental Justice Program in the United States. We focused our efforts in DC and Maryland, where there’s heavy air and water pollution caused by incinerators, power plants, and industrial agriculture, concentrated near low-income communities of color. Our dream is to find a group of organizers that could use Namati’s support—training on environmental and land use law, sharing with fellow activists, and mentorship by environmental justice advocates—to help their communities organize against environmental harms. In July we launched a call for “legal empowerment advocates” also commonly known as community paralegals in many countries around the world.
One of my first introductions to the environmental justice community in Maryland was at the Patuxent Riverkeeper’s annual meeting on April 28th. The Patuxent Riverkeeper is a fiery, friendly and inspiring man named Fred Tutman who is in charge of keeping the river healthy. He often notes that while his jurisdiction is the river, what drives him is the impact that an unhealthy river has on nearby communities. I was at the Riverkeeper’s annual gathering with Namati’s CEO, Vivek Maru. We gathered with other environmental justice advocates and spiritual leaders. We began by kayaking in the river, then shared a meal together, talked about Namati’s work, and had the privilege of taking part in a sacred water ceremony led by Rabiah Al Nur. We discussed many topics related to environmental justice, from issues on how zoning laws are a crucial but often overlooked battleground for environmental justice to strategies to protect hard won victories, for example, as the state of Maryland bans fracking while approving dangerous methods of fracked gas transport across the state. The introduction to the environmental justice community here in Maryland was warm, energizing, and empowering.
The second major highlight during my time at Namati was my work with the Namati Sierra Leone team. Namati puts together what we call learning exchanges, which are these extended retreats for legal empowerment practitioners to come together and learn from each other. This year in Sierra Leone, we hosted a 2-week learning exchange on environmental justice where several legal empowerment practitioners from Africa got together in one place to learn and collaborate. We visited paralegals in mining-affected communities who are helping communities organize to get remedies for the impacts caused by major extractive industries.
My time at Namati has taught me how to think critically about what justice looks like when “justice” systems are so broken and the powerful are still causing the greatest harm. What processes (existing or new, imagined ones) can provide redress without furthering injustice, without disempowering already marginalized communities? And how do you do this while keeping radical, systemic change as your goal? I’ve learned from so many people here at Namati that when you start to think rigorously about these questions you can imagine a world where people most impacted by injustice can find redress, and also bring to life the changes that we all desperately need.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
I came to law school wanting to work at a transnational human rights organization, but I was also wary--the legal profession can be disempowering to marginalized communities, leading to the same patterns of inequality that give rise to human rights abuses in the first place. And legal frameworks can help construct systems of oppression. So I have been grateful to have the opportunity to work at Namati, an organization that shares this wariness and works actively to build power in communities that bear the brunt of the world’s injustices.
Namati works to demystify and democratize the law so that people are able to use legal tools to solve their own problems, and eventually to shape law and policy. We do this through a paralegal approach, where individuals in communities around the world facing land grabs, environmental harms, violence, and discrimination are trained in law, advocacy and community education skills. These paralegals then work to challenge injustices through formal and informal institutions. In this way the paralegals work with communities to, as we say at Namati, “squeeze justice out of a broken system,” and to change the system itself.
In my first few months at the Namati DC office, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects. I’ve assisted the Sierra Leone team in developing tools to inform impacted communities of the environmental and health implications of extractive and large-scale agricultural industries. In this way, communities are able to negotiate lease provisions with companies and take other steps that they need to protect themselves.
I have also had the opportunity to work on what is currently the exploratory phase of Namati’s US environmental justice program. As elsewhere, environmental law here often fails to protect marginalized communities; where laws exist, enforcement remains inadequate. Although Native American and other marginalized communities resist, extractive industries continue to flourish. Industrial facilities continue to harm low-income communities of color. With the lessons learned from our environmental justice work in India and Sierra Leone, we hope to launch a program in the US to help impacted people develop the tools that they need to fight against environmental injustices. The paralegal model has worked in the US before, where “access to justice navigators” in NYC assist individuals in housing and civil courts in New York City. I’m excited to see how this model can work in the environmental justice sector.
Namati also has a commitment to creating systemic change. One big question that I have begun doing research into is on grievance redress mechanisms. We are trying to learn what makes a grievance redress or accountability mechanism truly effective and functional, both in terms of responding to complainant’s needs and in creating meaningful change. The answers to this question will help the communities that we work with develop plans for advocating for change in the grievance redress mechanisms that they engage with. I’ve begun by looking to lessons learned in the health sector, but the critical question of whether an accountability mechanism is both just and functional and, if it is not, then how to improve it. These learnings are applicable across all sectors.
My time here so far has been incredibly inspiring--I have loved working at an organization that is truly committed to thinking critically about how to create meaningful change. I’m excited to continue my work and to carry the lessons that I learn this year into the future.
Erika Asgeirsson, NYU '16
Fellow at Human Rights First (2016-2017)
Working as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow at Human Rights First has been an incredible experience, and a great place to start my career as a human rights advocate. What I have loved most about this job is the opportunity to bring a human rights lens to domestic advocacy work, and illuminate connections between what is happening at home and abroad. During my fellowship, I worked with Human Rights First’s antisemitism and extremism team, focusing on issues like hate crime and the rise of ethno-populism.
Before the U.S. election, we were working on a report detailing the complex array of causes behind the 2015 surge in hate crime in Germany. We went to Berlin in late November to present our preliminary findings and recommendations.
Around the same time, news reports and civil society organizations were documenting the spike in bias-motivated incidents post-election in the United States. The juxtaposition of these trends drove us to incorporate more domestic advocacy into our strategic plan for the year, and we made the case that the US should prioritize hate crime prevention and responses to regain international leadership.
Because I’ve been based in Washington, D.C., I have been deeply engaged in our advocacy work. I helped shape advocacy priorities and worked to implement those priorities. To do this, I engaged with other civil society groups working on our issues, built relationships with key Hill offices, and advocated in front of State and Justice Department officials.
This year has been humbling in many ways. American leadership on human rights, while far from perfect, has been something we have taken for granted as a core American value. Even though our government did not always live up to it, there was broad consensus that human rights were important. This vision seems less certain today.
What that means is that human rights advocates must be even more strategic and learn to communicate in new ways. Because of my role in our advocacy work, I have learned how to envision the larger goal and then figure out the pieces necessary to achieve that goal. I have also learned how to frame messages to appeal to a broad political audience.
My experience at Human Rights First has reaffirmed my commitment to advocating for American leadership on human rights, an increasingly important but challenging task. Working alongside other dedicated and passionate human rights advocates every day has been inspiring, and I look forward to continuing my career as a human rights advocate.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
This year, I am a Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow at Human Rights First. I work on issues of antisemitism and extremism in Europe, and we encourage the U.S. government to take an active leadership role on these issues. Human Rights First is known for their advocacy pressing the U.S. government to respect human rights and their contribution to crafting policy that works.
Very early on in my fellowship, I was able to engage in a meaningful way in that work. Every October, the Organization for Security Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) holds their annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, focusing on the human rights and democracy commitments of the 57 participating States of the OSCE, including the United States. In September, as the U.S. delegation prepared to attend the meeting, they convened civil society organizations in the United States to gather their input.
I attended this meeting on behalf of Human Rights First. I was certainly one of the youngest people in the room. Yet, when it came time to present my organization’s priorities, Ambassador Michael Kozak, the head of the delegation, listened intently as I talked about the importance of disaggregated data on hate crimes. He even asked follow up questions.
As a first-year lawyer, two weeks into my job, I went into the meeting incredibly nervous, but left pleasantly surprised. Here was this senior government official, asking me for more information. I was surprised at how much the delegation cared about our input, and that we really did have a voice that mattered.
It matters whether the government consults with civil society. Policy is better, more informed, and more responsive when everyone contributes to it. We can’t move away from this norm.
In our work on extremism and hate crime against refugees in Germany, we’ve looked at the issue of online hate. The European Union partnered with technology companies to develop a Code of Conduct on Illegal Hate Speech. While I appreciate their sincere efforts to address hate online, the Code has been criticized for infringing on the right to free expression and for not consulting civil society earlier in the process. I can’t help but wonder if they had meaningfully engaged civil society in the process – including human rights groups, groups representing communities facing discrimination, and groups focused on the right to free expression – if the Code would not have had the same deficits.
Over the past few weeks, many of our Facebook feeds have been filled with requests to call our elected officials – whether to oppose a Cabinet nomination or the recent refugee ban. At the same time, activists in the United States are concerned with the possibility that civil society space is closing, that our government will be less receptive to our critical feedback.
While we will certainly face new challenges over the next few years, what I do know is that organizations like Human Rights First will do everything we can to make sure our voice is heard. This makes me optimistic. And I know I can count on the next group of Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellows to do the same.
Jay Shooster, NYU '16
Fellow at Just Security (2016-2017)
When I applied to be a Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellow with Just Security, I had some lofty aspirations. I wanted to engage with traditional media outlets to bring my writing to a broad public audience. I wanted to help bring neglected issues and perspectives into the national security and human rights discourse. And I wanted to build relationships with leading experts in human rights and national security law and policy.
Today, reflecting on my year at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (of which Just Security is a part), I am happy to say that the support I received there enabled me to achieve all of my goals and then some.
For example, since starting at Just Security, I have become a frequent contributing author with The Huffington Post and Newsweek; and my writing has been cited in The Washington Post, Slate, and Rolling Stone. The platform that Just Security has provided me -- with its high-level readership of journalists, policymakers and academics – was essential for getting my work out there. But just as importantly, working alongside veteran journalists has helped me to develop the skills to continue to effectively engage with the media in my future advocacy work as a lawyer and a writer.
Crucially, the editors at Just Security didn’t just provide me with a platform, they gave me the opportunity to write and publish pieces on neglected issues of my choosing, and to advance marginalized or unconventional perspectives. For example, I solicited and edited a post on the targeting of animal rights advocates under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a little known law that deters activists from engaging in legal and/or nonviolent protest activity. I also had the opportunity to interview experts on artificial intelligence policy, and to challenge the misleading narrative that anti-smuggling efforts serve to protect immigrants.
I also received significant encouragement and support to conduct legal and policy analysis of some of the leading issues of the day, including Trump’s Muslim ban, Islamophobia, and the administration’s efforts to combat human trafficking. Our connections to leading experts enabled me to receive rigorous feedback to help strengthen the arguments in my work. I also helped with research and editing for major pieces, including for the ACLU Legal Director’s first public articulation of their legal theory against the Muslim ban.
This writing and editing process – in addition to the numerous events I organized and attended with Just Security – allowed me to develop relationships with seasoned experts (e.g. law professors, NGO lawyers, journalists, and former government officials) as well as rising stars in national security and human rights. Through these events, I also had the opportunity to meet our esteemed speakers, including U.S. Senator Ron Wyden.
Overall, it’s hard for me to envision a better opportunity for a recent law graduate with an interest in law, policy, and media. The skills, knowledge, and relationships I’ve gained through my Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellowship have left me feeling more empowered to change the world than ever before.
Watch Jay discuss his experience as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellow.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
It wasn’t until I started my 3L year at NYU that I finally figured out what was missing from my internship experiences. I didn’t just want to research and write about what the law is -- I also wanted to engage in discussion about what the law should be, and work to try and shape the conversation on public policy issues. Fortunately, my current work as an associate editor and Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellow at Just Security has provided me with exactly what I was looking for.
Just Security is the leading publication on human rights-oriented national security law and policy. With our high-level audience of influential journalists, academics, and policymakers, I have seen first-hand how our writing influences law and policy. For example, in late October at the International Law Weekend at Fordham Law, I got to meet Brian Egan, the State Department’s top lawyer. Shortly before we were introduced, without any prompting, he told the crowd about how Just Security’s recent writings have helped to guide the State Department’s legal analysis on a crucial issue in international humanitarian law.
The International Law Weekend is just one of the many professional development experiences I’ve been encouraged to take advantage of as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellow. In September, I spent the weekend at the International Humanitarian Law Conference at Yale, where I learned from leading experts on the law of war, and laid the groundwork for a potential collaboration with a leading expert on autonomous weapons. And just a few weeks ago, I attended a public forum with Senator Chris Murphy and asked him questions about war crimes in Yemen on behalf of Just Security.
One of the biggest highlights of my experience so far has been writing my own posts for Just Security. I have published two posts on the conflict in Yemen and the law of armed conflict, which catapulted me into a Twitter debate with a host of leading human rights scholars and advocates. It was a novel experience for me to be treated as a colleague by these eminent figures in the human rights movement, but I have found this to be the norm since starting joining Just Security.
I have greatly appreciated the autonomy I’ve had as a fellow. In addition to writing on topics of my choice, I’ve also been able to solicit writing from leading experts on an issue that I’m passionate about: the suppression of animal rights activism. Additionally, I’ve been able to interview a number of experts for a special feature I’m hoping to produce on the intersection of autonomous weapons systems and human rights law.
Crucially, that autonomy is complemented by significant support from the warm and welcoming staff at Just Security and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law (of which Just Security is a part). It has been a very special experience to develop meaningful relationships with both other fellows and senior faculty members. Regular lunches with my peers and supervisors in the center have helped me to feel like I am part of a real team -- and not just any team. It’s still hard for me to believe it that I have biweekly meetings with Pablo de Grieff, Philip Alston, and Meg Satterthwaite (just to name a few) – and I receive daily emojis in text messages from Ryan Goodman.
So far, my Masiyiwa-Berstein fellowship supported by the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights is shaping up to be a fantastic experience. I can’t wait to see what the rest of this experience holds, and what new emojis lie ahead.
Alexandra Zetes, NYU '16
Fellow at NYU Law's Global Justice Clinic (2016-2017)
I knew that spending a year as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow with the Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law would be challenging and provide me with a number of opportunities for growth, but I had no way of knowing how much I would learn in twelve short months. Working with the Global Justice Clinic has deepened my substantive knowledge on a number of topics and sharpened my advocacy skills, experiences that have dramatically increased my capacity as a human rights lawyer.
The Global Justice Clinic is NYU School of Law’s human rights clinic, and provides students with real-life work experience to complement their academic legal education. The clinic allows students to work side-by-side with human rights activists from around the world, to “prevent, challenge, and redress rights violations in situations of global inequality.” I have spent the last year working essentially as a staff attorney and research fellow for a number of the clinic’s projects.
During my fellowship I have worked on a diverse mix of projects including a case before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights representing a victim of the U.S. CIA rendition program, helped to develop and organize a world-wide study on mental health and well-being in human rights work, and partnered with an indigenous community in Guyana to assist with advocacy relating to community-based monitoring data that the community has been collecting for over four years. I co-wrote a blog post for JustSecurity on Trump’s travel ban, and had another blog post published as part of a series on mental health and human rights work for openGlobalRights. I’ve also had the opportunity to write legal submissions for on-going litigation, conduct intensive research on a variety of human rights issues, engage in field work with direct client interaction, and conduct interviews with people from around the globe. Additionally, I had the opportunity to attend RightsCon 2017, where I learned about technology and human rights.
Working on this incredible variety of projects and building on the skills that I had developed during law school has been extremely beneficial. Today I am a better writer, communicator, strategizer, and a more confident advocate, and have a stronger sense of where in this field I would like to build a career. My work has been very fulfilling and has redoubled my passion for this work I believe that I am better positioned to jump into a number of subspecialities within the human rights field, as the fellowship has provided me with the exposure, connections and skills to confidently move on to what’s next.
Watch Alex discuss her experience as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellow.
Mid Fellowship Blog Post
Five years ago, I was working with a democracy-building non-governmental organization in Rwanda. It was an incredibly rewarding experience. I felt that I was using my skills to enhance local communities and structures in sustainable, respectful, and constituent-based ways. It was a great thing for me to do right out of college. It was also really hard. Rwanda is often touted as a beautiful African county that stands out as an example of development and economic growth, and I certainly saw that. I also found that some things, including the scars of the 1994 genocide and governmental restrictions on the freedom of expression, made Rwanda a difficult place for me to live – both as a human rights worker and as a person.
For me, it eventually became too much. I have always been a strong person, but after six months of hard stories, rumors of disappearances and constantly watching over my shoulder, I needed to leave. There was work I could (perhaps should) have stayed to finish, but I couldn’t’t do it. I was burned out and traumatized, and without tools to cope. My experiences in Rwanda haunted me for a long time after I left.
That’s why, five years later, I am excited to be working on a project addressing mental health in human rights work as part of my Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellowship. I am working with Professor Meg Satterthwaite, who, with Professors Sarah Knuckey (Columbia Law School) and Adam Brown (Sarah Lawrence College), has been working on this issue for a few years now. Our current project focuses on mapping what human rights organizations are doing to address the challenges of vicarious trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and burnout in human rights workers, and to test interventions that may hold promise for preventing or responding to those issues. This cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary project will hopefully show us what is happening within the field, and point to ways we can better support human rights workers to increase their capacity to do their work.
Mental health in human rights is an issue that for years no one has wanted to talk about. Many still don’t. It feels individualistic and selfish to talk about your own mental and emotional health, especially when the people you are working with or on behalf of face much worse. For many, the notion of needing self-care or mental health assistance is stigmatizing, and runs counter to the savior narrative and tough image many of us have of ourselves. Some are just too busy to think about anything beyond the immediate challenge in front of them.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not important. I spent my first summer of law school in Turkey with the UN, and it was clear that my colleagues were burdened by the things they were facing. Many demonstrated signs of burnout and trauma. Numerous anecdotal accounts, as well as the research Profs. Satterthwaite, Knuckey and Brown are engaging in, point to a clear and unmet need. The mental and emotional impacts of human rights work are not well understood and are poorly addressed. Some may not want to talk about it, but if we are to prepare ourselves and future human rights workers to be effective in this work, that necessarily includes training and resources for how to take care of yourself when things are hard.
That’s why I believe this project is so important. It is critical that we work with those on the ground to understand these challenges that our colleagues are confronted with, and to identify ways to support them in the face of these issues. This project is perhaps not the most paradigmatically “legal”, but it is incredibly important within the holistic view of what constitutes human rights work. I’m also thrilled to be working on an interdisciplinary team of psychologists and lawyers in a field that too often looks inward instead of collaborating across disciplines. This project will hone my research and interview skills, and I believe it will make me a better human rights advocate. More importantly, it will help the human rights community to better understand (and hopefully be more understanding of) our own needs, and increase our efficacy for the challenging, but important, work that we do.
Katherine Erickson, NYU '15
Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2015-2016)
When you learn about human rights abuses, you usually hear it from reporters on TV or from online. But have you ever wondered where these stories come from?
Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Commissions of Inquiry are two main sources of information and reporting on human rights abuses around the world. They rely on specific techniques to conduct their investigations, often referred to as “human rights fact-finding.” While these techniques are detailed and systematic, they are not always executed with future prosecution in mind.
For example, Human Rights reports don’t necessarily focus on every single person who touches a document, or as formally referred to in legal proceedings, the “chain of custody.” But a document’s chain of custody is highly relevant in determining whether it can be admitted into later courtroom proceedings. This year, as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, I researched ways that human rights fact-finding missions can be improved to better preserve evidence for later prosecutions. I worked with Stephen Rapp, former United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice to organize a series of expert convenings.
One issue with human rights fact-finding is the dearth of forensic experts. Another issue is time constraints—certain crimes, especially sexual and gender-based violence, require sensitive investigations that may be compromised due to a lack of long-term relationships between the investigators and the local communities. Finally, there is the issue of different priorities. Human rights investigators may be so focused on getting a public report out that they forget that their notes might later feed into accountability. For example, just because someone may choose not to be publically named in one report does not mean that retaining their name is not useful; they may consent to testify in court later, in a time of greater stability in their country, or after they have obtained asylum in another nation.
International prosecutors, unlike many human rights fact-finders, have to focus on individuals, not patterns of violations by entire groups. They focus on linkage evidence—an investigation unto itself that looks into proving connections between perpetrators and victims, and even command structures. While occasionally human rights fact-finders do look into linkage evidence, they do so at the expense of time that they could spend investigating the “bird’s-eye view” of violations - a very difficult decision to make.
These two groups of investigators have a lot in common, but they face structurally different incentives and constraints. This has been called the “Hague-Geneva Divide,” and to help bridge it, we brought together a group of experts in two different convenings—fittingly in the Hague and in Geneva. For my fellowship, I produced a series of memoranda that were circulated before each convening, which summarized current practice and suggested innovations for various methods and subject areas of investigation. The series of convenings continued after my fellowship, with a final meeting in Bellagio in October. After this final convening, the expert group aims to produce a series of main points of accord, or suggested practices, to assist future human rights fact-finders who are dedicated to accountability.
As it has been often pointed out, the processes we follow are all secondary to the goal of ending cycles of violence around the world. It is our hope that through these convenings, and the improved processes that come out of them, we are closer to reaching that goal.
Katherine is currently working as Staff Attorney at New York Legal Assistance Group in the Tenants' Rights Unit.
Sharon Samuel, NYU '15
Fellow at Human Rights First (2015-2016)
My time as a Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow at Human Rights First (HRF) was a tremendous learning experience, and a new and valuable glimpse into the world of government advocacy. The fellowship provided a foundation for the kind of human rights advocacy I want to be involved in throughout my career.
When I began the fellowship as part of the Anti-Trafficking Team at HRF, it was envisioned that I would share my time equally between sex trafficking and labor trafficking. However, early on in my fellowship, I sat in on a coalition meeting with several anti-trafficking organizations, with the overwhelming majority focused primarily on sex trafficking. It was clear to me that there was a huge gap in the anti-trafficking space, and HRF was one of the few organizations that could fill that gap. With their unique ability to bring together unlikely allies in government, civil society and the corporate world, HRF could play a key role in convincing companies to support transparency legislation, voluntary disclosure and corporate compliance measures, and other proactive means of monitoring supply chains. My focus leaned heavily on labor trafficking, both internationally and domestically.
Although HRF’s government advocacy takes place in DC and I was based in NYC, I was able to support the team’s multi-dimensional approach to advocacy. For example, I researched the legislative history and application of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and drew comparisons to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) to see how the TVPA could help hold accountable companies with forced labor in their supply chains. Additionally, I worked with the Communications team to create advocacy materials and website content, and propose new areas of research that I thought would benefit the team’s advocacy efforts. From day one, HRF made me feel like a member of the team. My suggestions were received enthusiastically, and I was always briefed at our weekly team meetings about the work of the organization across departments.
The most exciting part of the fellowship was engaging in the important issue of human trafficking, and learning to respond to real-time developments in the law. We actively followed new cases that were being brought against companies by former victims of forced labor abroad, and started focusing heavily on enforcement of new trade laws banning the importation of slave-made goods into the United States.
I learned at HRF that advocacy is sometimes a slow-moving process, particularly when advocacy targets include corporate entities and a protracted Congress. However, the ever-changing nature of the issue of human trafficking made the work feel dynamic and always vibrant. I plan to remain in the field of human rights throughout my career, and will do my best to support Human Rights First and other innovative human rights organizations for many years to come.
Sharon is currently a law clerk at the Law Offices of Steven L. Wittels, where she helps to represent plaintiffs in consumer fraud class actions, wage and hour cases, and employment discrimination cases.
Nate Stein, NYU '15
Fellow at NYU Stern Center for Busniess and Human Rights (2015-2016)
A Year in Business and Human Rights
As an inaugural Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellow, I spent one year at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, the first-ever human rights center based at a business school, with a mission to challenge and empower business leaders to make practical progress on human rights. I became interested in the intersection of business and human rights in college, when I studied abroad in China during the months leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Later, I read the book Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang, which detailed the daily lives of migrant workers in Guangdong, China from a unique and eye-opening perspective. I was studying economics and began to wonder about the costs and benefits of transnational businesses and international supply chains. The Center was a great fit for me because of its “pro-business, high standards” approach of engaging directly with companies to create positive change.
Through my research and work with the Center’s director, Mike Posner, as well as Sarah Labowitz and others at the Center, I was exposed to many interesting topics, and experts, in the field. As a Fellow, I did general research for the Center’s projects and work relating to best practices in multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs). I had the opportunity to research and write, as well as gain experience working in an academic setting. During my fellowship year, the Center published a paper on shared responsibility for the World Economic Forum, launched its Bangladesh Factory Map, began a new blog series of best practices on MSIs, and more. At the beginning of my fellowship, I was tasked with planning an MSI meeting to take place on the margins of the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, the fifth such meeting co-hosted by the Center. It was somewhat challenging to plan and execute, but the meeting went extremely well and I was very happy for the opportunity to attend meetings at the UN Palais des Nations, which had been a lifelong dream of mine.
I learned so much during my year at the Center. Business and human rights is an exciting and developing area that I am very interested in staying involved in. Although there are problems in international business practices, such as obscure supply chains and human rights abuses by private security personnel, transnational companies also provide jobs where there weren’t any before. Therefore, it is important to engage with businesses to help ensure that they create jobs that provide employees with safe and secure working environments, which have a positive impact on the local communities. One of my biggest takeaways was the realization of the importance of all interested stakeholders having a voice in the regulation of transnational companies, from businesses to governments to human rights organizations to local workers on the ground. By giving everyone a voice, all perspectives can be heard and considered, and through this process improvements can be made.
I am extremely thankful for the Masiyiwa-Bernstein Fellowship and the opportunity to work in the rapidly growing field of business and human rights. I am very interested in seeing how this field, and the Center, continue to develop in the coming years.