New Casebook—International Human Rights by P. Alston available in an Open Access Publication

HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT

New Casebook—International Human Rights by P. Alston available in an Open Access Publication

Philip Alston’s International Human Rights textbook is now available free of charge in a comprehensively revised edition and on an Open Access basis starting July 8, 2024.

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This book examines the world of contemporary human rights, including legal norms, political contexts and moral ideals. It acknowledges the regime’s strengths and weaknesses, and focuses on today’s principal challenges. These include the struggles against resurgent racism and anti-gender ideology, the implications of new technologies for fact-finding and many other parts of the regime, the continuing marginality of economic, social and cultural rights, radical inequality, climate change, and the evermore central role of the private sector.

The boundaries of the subject have steadily expanded as the post-World War II regime has become an indelible part of the legal, political and moral landscape. Given the breadth and complexity of the regime, the book takes an interdisciplinary and critical approach.

… imaginative and stimulating materials with thought-provoking commentary… a wonderful teaching tool, as well as a valuable starting point for research.

Judge Hilary Charlesworth, Judge of the International Court of Justice.

Features include:

A focus on current issues such as new technologies, climate change, counter-terrorism, reparations, sanctions, and universal jurisdiction;
Expanded focus on race, gender, sexual orientation, disability and other forms of discrimination and the backlash against efforts to combat them;
Introductory chapters that provide the necessary overview of international law;
An interdisciplinary approach that puts human rights issues into their broader political, economic, and cultural contexts;
Diverse and critical perspectives dealt with throughout;
Sections dealing with political economy of human rights and the challenge of growing inequality;
Issues of international humanitarian law are widely reflected; and
Focus on current situations in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, Venezuela, and others

Major themes that run through the book include the colonial and imperial objectives often pursued in the name of human rights, evolving notions of autonomy and sovereignty, the changing configuration of the public-private divide in human rights ordering, the escalating tensions between international human rights and national security, and the striking evolution of ideas about the nature and purposes of the regime itself.

This book is a successor to previous volumes entitled International Human Rights in Context (1996, 2000 and 2008, all co-authored with Henry Steiner and in 2008 also with Ryan Goodman) and International Human Rights: Text and Materials (2013, co-authored with Ryan Goodman). “All four volumes were published by Oxford University Press, and I am grateful to them for reverting all rights to the author in order to enable this Open Access publication” says Alston.

The 2024 comprehensively revised edition will be available free of charge and can be downloaded in either a single pdf file for the entire book or separate files for each of the eighteen chapters.

June 26, 2024 Youssef Farhat Product

Recommendations to Funders to Improve Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Human Rights Field

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Recommendations to Funders to Improve Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Human Rights Field

Improving and maintaining well-being is essential to individual health, to organizational functioning, and to the sustainability and effectiveness of the human rights field as a whole. There are many concrete, immediately actionable reforms that are achievable in the near-term and which address a variety of causes of distress, or which can support efforts to transform the field over the long term. Such steps should be taken while the human rights field works toward deep transformation.

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Human rights advocacy can be a source of significant joy, purpose, political agency, belonging, and community. Yet advocates can also experience harms, and trauma in their efforts to advance justice and equality, including those caused by heavy workloads, time pressures, discrimination and bullying in the workplace, vicarious exposure to trauma and human rights abuse, and direct experience of threats and attacks. Advocates can experience suffering, sometimes very severe, as a result, including demotivation, alienation, anxiety, fear, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. How advocates experience their work and any resulting harms can vary widely, and may be highly contextual and culturally specific.

Improving and maintaining well-being is essential to individual health, to organizational functioning, and to the sustainability and effectiveness of the human rights field as a whole.

Positively transforming mental health and well-being in the human rights field will require significant reforms and both structural changes and close attention to the contextually-specific needs of individual advocates and organizations. The causes and dynamics at play are complex, and there are no quick fixes that can address the cultural shifts required. As efforts are taken to improve well-being, it is important that the field avoids tick-the-box or commodified approaches. Improving the wellbeing of human rights advocates requires a holistic response and a movement-wide prioritization of well-being, with careful attention to context, culture, and the diverse needs of advocates and organizations.

Recognition of the deeply-rooted problems requiring radical change or of the complexities of the issues and the difficulty of defining a clear set of recommendations applicable across the board should not operate as an excuse to take no action now to improve well-being. There are many concrete, immediately actionable reforms that are achievable in the near-term and which address a variety of causes of distress, or which can support efforts to transform the field over the long term. Such steps should be taken while the human rights field works toward deep transformation. Some of these steps include the following recommended actions, which are drawn from our research with advocates around the world.

June 25, 2024 Dev Account Product

The Time is Now: Mexico Must Grant Haitians Refugee Protections under the Cartagena Declaration

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The Time is Now: Mexico Must Grant Haitians Refugee Protections under the Cartagena

This report published by Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Matías de Córdova A.C. and the Global Justice Clinic shows why Mexico–and, by extension, all countries that have signed the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees–must grant Haitians refugee status.

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Haitians living outside of Haiti often lack access to basic human rights, face anti-Black discrimination, and in many countries, live under the threat of being sent back to Haiti. Pathways to legal status in other countries are essential for Haitians seeking safety, but governments rarely grant legal status to Haitians and, when they do, protections are often temporary.

Mexico is one of the many countries that Haitian people have migrated to in the past decade. Tens of thousands of Haitians enter Mexico every year. Mexico has incorporated the Cartagena Declaration–which provides a broader definition of “refugee” than the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1966 Protocol–into its domestic law, legally binding it to grant refugee status to people who, based on an objective analysis of the circumstances in their country of origin, meet the elements of the declaration. This report establishes how three of the Declaration’s elements–generalized violence, massive violations of human rights, and other circumstances that seriously disturb public order–are pervasive in Haiti.

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The Global Justice Clinic and Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Matías de Córdova A.C. launched the report in Mexico City in late April 2024, and met with representatives of Mexican government agencies, including the Comisión Mexicana de Ayuda a Refugiados (Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance) and the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (Secretariat of Foreign Affairs) to urge them to apply the Cartagena Declaration to Haitian nationals.

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May 23, 2024 Youssef Farhat Uncategorized

Mexico Must Extend Cartagena’s Protection Principles to Haitian Asylum Seekers

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Mexico Must Extend Cartagena’s Protection Principles to Haitian Asylum Seekers

Intersecting crises in Haiti have left tens of thousands of Haitians no choice but to flee their country, and Haitians who fled in prior years are unable to return home. A report by Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Matías de Córdova A.C. and the Global Justice Clinic shows why Mexico–and, by extension, all countries that have signed the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees–must grant Haitians refugee status.

The report comes at a critical moment. Haiti currently faces extraordinary violence and a near-complete collapse of state institutions. Armed groups killed more than 1,500 people in the first three months of 2024, displaced more than 360,000 people within Haiti’s borders, and seized control of the capital, ports, and hospitals. Sexual violence is endemic. Escalated violence and targeted attacks on government infrastructure in March 2024 plunged Haiti into a two-months long state of emergency.

Between 2021 and 2023, Mexico approved approximately 5,200 out of more than 110,000 Haitians’ refugee applications — representing a 4.6% approval rate. In those years Haitians were also the nationality that filed the most refugee applications in Mexico.

This disproportionately low approval rate of Haitian applicants, who by any measure face persecution and extremely challenging conditions at home, flies in the face of Mexico’s legal obligations to establish nondiscriminatory migratory procedures.

Enrique Vidal, Interim Director of CDH Fray Matías.

Recognizing Haitian nationals as refugees under the Cartagena Declaration is one necessary step to correct the systemic denial of Haitians’ rights. In doing so, Mexico could pave the way for greater protection of human rights in the hemisphere.

Mexico has the opportunity to be a leader in protecting the rights of Haitian people in the region. Governments throughout the region must assess country conditions objectively, and cease to discriminate against the Haitian people.

Gabrielle Apollon, Director of the Haitian Immigrant Rights Project at the Global Justice Clinic, in light of the upcoming 40th anniversary of the signing of the Cartagena Declaration.

GJC and CDH Fray Matías launched the report, in Spanish, in Mexico City in late April 2024. They met with representatives of Mexican government agencies, including the Comisión Mexicana de Ayuda a Refugiados (Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance) and the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (Secretariat of Foreign Affairs) to urge them to apply the Cartagena Declaration to Haitian nationals. GJC and Fray Matías staff also observed firsthand the inhumane living conditions that many Haitian migrants and asylum-seekers endure in migrant encampments in Mexico. These conditions underscore the urgency of providing greater refugee protections for Haitians.

Today, GJC and CDH Fray Matías make this report available in English. Although the Mexican government remains the primary advocacy target, this report presents the case for all signatories to the Cartagena Declaration to extend refugee protection to Haitian nationals, and for countries throughout the Hemisphere to provide maximum protections to Haitian migrants and asylum-seekers.

May 24, 2024. For more information, please contact Gabrielle Apollon (English and Kreyòl) or Ellie Happel (English, Kreyòl, Spanish).

May 23, 2024 Youssef Farhat Uncategorized

What I Should Have Said to Fernando Botero

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What I Should Have Said to Fernando Botero

Your art is a provocation to viewers to ask: what is our role in safeguarding human rights? A reflection on meeting Colombian artist Fernando Botero.

Image from Slideshow: The Botero Exhibit at Berkeley Law

I was privileged to have met world-famous Colombian artist, Fernando Botero, who died last month [September 2023] at age 91, when he visited the University of California, Berkeley in 2007. I teach human rights at the law school, and the artists came to campus for the exhibit of his 2005 Abu Ghraib series. The canvasses and sketches depict the horrors of Iraqi prisoner abuse by US soldiers, based on leaked photographs taken by service members at the Abu Ghraib prison facility.

Overwhelmed by the paintings and awe-stuck by the artist who created them, I fumbled my few seconds with Mr. Botero. My memory is that I offered an anodyne appreciation of his work. If I could speak with him now, here is what I would say:

Mr. Botero, every day I enter the law school I try to keep in mind that the job of law professors is to train the next generation of lawyers to embody the highest values of the profession. It is true that we teach law students how to analyze the law, how to evaluate the strength of arguments, and how to weigh the equities in any given case. But law is not a set of rules that lawyers discover or inherit. Law is made through human intervention, in the form of legislation, interpretation by lawyers, as well as judicial decisions. You made vivid the power that legal professionals have to strengthen or to destroy the rule of law fabric that sustains humanity.

Your art is a provocation to viewers to ask: what is our role in safeguarding human rights?

Government lawyers drafted the rules of interrogating prisoners captured in the so-called War on Terror, setting the background norms for the torture of prisoners perpetrated by guards and recorded on film as trophy shots. And lawyers created the rules for the treatment of so-called enemy combatants the United States held at Guantanamo Bay. I interviewed dozens of former detainees, men never charged with a crime, who endured years of mistreatment proscribed by US government lawyers in violation of international law. Government lawyers and politicians led the public to believe that harsh treatment, even torture, of suspected terrorists was necessary to keep us safe. Your art asks us to confront this bargain and to reconsider what we become as a nation, if we accept that premise, and you offer us a way forward.

You said at the time of the exhibit that your outrage that the United State, which has stood for democracy and rule of law, would commit such abuse motivated you to paint the series. Your Abu Ghraib collection conveys the suffering of Iraqi prisoners. Yet through your iconic style of voluminous forms, you also render the victims literally larger than life and give their bodies a weight that suggests a hyper-permanence. Their humanity outlives the outrages inflicted on them by US soldiers. Humanity will endure in spite of depredations, but whether ruptures in rule of law are mended by justice is up to us. And I think this is what you meant when you said about these works that: “Art is a permanent accusation.”

Thanks to your permanent gift of the series to the university, I can view a few of the canvasses on display at our law school. Viewers must investigate the causes of US descent to systematic torture and the path to correct the injustice. The paintings accuse the audience of the dangers of believing that we must trade human rights for security; that it is acceptable to strip individuals of dignity simply by their being called a terrorist by a powerful state. The paintings accuse lawyers of their role in justifying rules that strip individuals of fundamental due process protections against arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, and torture.

Today, we find ourselves in the midst of another shocking rollback of fundamental rights and inversion of the rule of law, this time closer to home. The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade ushers in an era in which forced pregnancy, a form of torture under international law, is legal in the United States. There is a dangerous throughline from Abu Ghraib to the Dobbs decision: when we dehumanize one category of persons and legalize control over their bodies through direct or indirect violence, we make it easier to apply the same logic to an ever-expanding menu of targets.

It is more than two decades after 9/11 and we as a society have not yet answered your accusation, Mr. Botero, to our detriment. Yet progressive lawyers and students continue to name torture and fight injustice when it is unpopular to do so. Justice remains a work in progress, which is why we need compelling art, like yours, to continue to challenge us to action.

October 4, 2023. Laurel E. Fletcher, Visiting Scholar (Fall 2023).
Laurel E. Fletcher is Chancellor’s Clinical Professor of Law at UC Berkeley, School of Law where she co-directs the International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law.

This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of NYU, NYU Law or the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.

October 4, 2023 Youssef Farhat Product

Law Clinics Condemn U.S. Government Support for Haiti’s Regime as Country Faces Human Rights and Humanitarian Catastrophe

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Law Clinics Condemn U.S. Government Support for Haiti’s Regime as Country Faces Human Rights and Humanitarian Catastrophe

To mark the second anniversary of the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, the Global Justice Clinic and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School submitted a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Assistant Secretary Brian Nichols calling on the U.S. government to cease to support the de facto Ariel Henry administration. Progress on human rights and security and a return to constitutional order will only be possible if Haitian people have the opportunity to change their government.

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In the wake of Moïse’s murder and at the urging of the United States, Dr. Henry assumed leadership as de facto prime minister. The past two years, Dr. Henry has presided over a humanitarian and human rights catastrophe. He has consolidated power in what remains of Haiti’s institutions, and has proposed to amend the Constitution in an unlawful manner. Further, there is evidence that ties Dr. Henry to the assassination of President Moïse. Despite the monumental failure of Dr. Henry’s government, the United States continues to support this illegitimate and unpopular regime.

The letter declares that any transitional government must be evaluated against Haiti’s Constitution and established human rights principles. Proposals such as Dr. Henry’s that violate the spirit of the Constitution and further state capture cannot be a path to democracy.

This post was originally published as a press release on July 10, 2023 by the Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law, and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School.

July 10, 2023 Dev Account Uncategorized

Fair Pay for Public Defenders: If Mongolia Can Do It, Any Country Can

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Fair Pay for Public Defenders: If Mongolia can do it, any country can

On the first day of 2023, Mongolia’s public defenders received a 300% pay raise. A new law took effect on January 1st that ties the compensation of publicly funded defense attorneys to their courtroom counterparts, prosecutors. Although Mongolia ranks among the world’s poorest countries, it has achieved something that many of the world’s wealthiest states have failed to: pay equity between public defenders and public prosecutors.

Oyunchimeg Ayush (wearing blue in the photo), then the head of the Mongolian state agency responsible for public defense.

A central tenet of adversarial legal systems is that justice is best served when opposing sides are fairly matched. As the European Court of Human Rights put it, “[i]t is a fundamental aspect of the right to a fair trial that criminal proceedings…should be adversarial and that there should be equality of arms between the prosecution and defence.” Similarly, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights says that public defenders should be empowered to act “on equal terms with the prosecution.”

If the goal is a fair fight in the courtroom, it seems obvious that paying public defenders just a third of what prosecutors make would detract from that goal. Yet around the world, such pay disparities are commonplace, a phenomenon I saw firsthand as Global Policy Director for the International Legal Foundation, an NGO that builds public defender systems across the globe.

One reason for this disparity is that most domestic constitutions are silent on this issue. And even in the realm of international law, where the “equality of arms” principle is a well-established component of the bedrock international instrument on fair trial rights, courts have not interpreted this to require “material equality” between prosecution and defense. For example, this ICTR case found no fault with the fact that the prosecution’s team comprised 35 investigators deployed for several years, while the defense team had just two investigators paid to work for a few months.

Instead, equality of arms is mainly conceived of in procedural terms, such as this HRC case where the court’s failure to allow defense counsel to cross-examine the victim was found to violate the principle. As applied to resources, equality of arms requires only that the resources available to the accused are “adequate” to present a full defense (as the Caribbean Court of Justice points out in §33).

Absent promising legal grounds, the battle for pay parity must be fought in the political arena. But there are major challenges here, too, mainly that elected officials are not usually keen on funding services for people accused of heinous crimes. Public defenders around the world have had to embrace vigorous strategies to compel political action, such as labor strikes and joining forces with prosecutors.

So how did Mongolia do it? Dedicated advocacy by a committed public official.

Oyunchimeg Ayush (wearing blue in the photo to the right), then the head of the state agency responsible for public defense, had grown tired of trying to recruit and retain qualified attorneys on salaries 70-80% lower than prosecutors and judges. She saw the unequal pay not only as unfair but as inefficient: high turnover increased recruitment and training costs and yielded a less-experienced workforce.

So, she started making her case for equal pay. She met with legislators, justice system stakeholders, and cabinet ministers, where she found a key ally in Khishgeegiin Nyambaatar, the Minister of Justice and Home Affairs. She also reached out to the ILF to ask for research on pay parity and examples of other jurisdictions who had achieved it. We pointed her to Argentina, which passed a parity law in 2015, and to the American state of Connecticut, which has had a parity law for 30 years and has been recognized for excellence. This partnership between local and international actors echoes the ongoing debate among human rights scholars like Gráinne de Búrca, Margaret Keck, Kathryn Sikkink and others about how human rights reform is actually achieved. Eventually, Mongolia’s Parliament, known as the Great Khural, amended the legal aid law to require that public defender wage rates equal those received by prosecutors.

Mongolia’s achievement is all the more impressive in light of its economic constraints. The Mongolian government’s annual budget is roughly $6 billion. Juxtapose this with the American states of Florida and Oregon, whose failure to pass pay parity legislation in recent years was largely justified on budgetary grounds. Oregon’s annual budget? $67 billion. Florida’s? $101.5 billion.

Though Mongolia’s achievement is monumental, even these reforms do not amount to true equality of arms between public defenders and prosecutors. In recent years, many commentators have argued that individual pay parity—between defense and prosecution lawyers—is insufficient to ensure an equal playing field. Instead, they argue that what is needed is institutional parity. For example, the leading international instrument on good practices for public defender systems calls for “fair and proportional distribution of funds between prosecution and legal aid agencies,” and the American Bar Association says that parity should extend beyond salaries to include workloads, technology, facilities, investigators, support staff, legal research tools, and access to forensic services and experts.

The inclusion of defense investigators is particularly important. Prosecutors aren’t the only government agents that help prosecute a criminal case. Much of the work of collecting evidence and facilitating witness testimony is done by the police. But police investigations are often subtly (or not subtly) shaped by the prosecution’s theory of the case, and police agencies have historically been less than eager to turn over exculpatory evidence. For this reason, public defender performance standards generally mandate that defense attorneys conduct their own independent investigations. A truer apples-to-apples comparison for public defense agency budgets should not only include the prosecution agency, but also some portion of the police budget, too.

Mongolia’s revised law does not yet achieve parity on this institutional level, but individual parity is still a huge and significant step, one that is particularly remarkable in light of Mongolia’s economic constraints. Their achievement stands as an admonition to wealthier jurisdictions who claim that pay parity is too expensive.

Congratulations to the members of the Great Khural, for passing this law; Minister Nyambaatar, for championing it; Oyunchimeg Ayush, for catalyzing this effort; and, above all, to the Mongolian public defenders whose pay finally reflects their vital role in achieving justice.

May 19, 2023. Ben Polk, Bernstein Institute for Human Rights of NYU Law School.

This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of NYU, NYU Law or the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.

May 19, 2023 Youssef Farhat Post

Clinics call on the U.S. government to take urgent steps to address insecurity and gang violence in Haiti

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Clinics call on the U.S. government to take urgent steps to address insecurity and gang violence in Haiti

The NYU Global Justice Clinic, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, and the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School call on the U.S. government to take urgent steps to address insecurity and gang violence in Haiti. The clinics are deeply concerned that the U.S. government continues to support de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry, despite strong evidence of his government’s involvement in broadening violence. The Clinics are alarmed about recent and serious threats against human rights defenders, particularly concerning staff of the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH). The status quo puts human rights defenders—and all Haitian people—at risk. The clinics are in close contact with Haitian civil society, and stress that recent U.S. legislation, the Haiti Development, Accountability, and Institutional Transparency Act and the Global Fragility Act, recognizes the right of Haitian people to self-determination. Together, the clinics urge the U.S. government to:

Support Haitian-led investigation of and accountability for human rights abuses
Ensure transparency in the U.S. investigation of the murder of former President Jovenel Moïse
Take concrete, effective steps to enforce U.S. laws on arms trafficking
Shift support from Dr. Henry towards an inclusive and Haitian-led political process.

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June 27, 2022. Statements of the Global Justice Clinic do not purport to represent the views of NYU or the Center, if any.

June 27, 2022 Dev Account Uncategorized

Haiti Land Grab Violates Women’s Rights and Deepens Climate Crisis, Say Rights Groups

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Haiti Land Grab Violates Women’s Rights and Deepens Climate Crisis, Say Rights Groups

NYU Global Justice Clinic and Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn submission to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women underscores consequences of violent land grab against women in Savane Diane, Haiti

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A violent land grab that displaced women farmers in Savane Diane, Haiti, constituted gender-based violence and has aggravated climate vulnerability, NYU’s Global Justice Clinic and Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn (SOFA) told the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women in a submission lodged late last week. The Savane Diane land grab, which expropriated land used by SOFA to teach women ecologically sustainable farming techniques, is just one of many in recent months. Land grabs in Haiti are on the rise, while the Haitian judiciary has failed to respond.

“We are asking for the Special Rapporteur’s attention because we have been unable to secure justice in Haiti,” said Sharma Aurelien, SOFA’s Executive Director. “This land helped women combat poverty and benefited all of society,” she continued.

In 2020, armed men violently forced SOFA members from land that the Haitian government had granted them exclusive rights to use, severely beating some. SOFA learned that an agro-industry company, Stevia Agro Industries S.A., was claiming title to the area to grow stevia for export. The Haitian government revoked SOFA’s rights to the land, without a court process, and, in early 2021, the late President Jovenel Moïse converted the land into an agro-industrial free trade zone by executive decree.

“The Minister of Agriculture set himself up as a judge, siding with Stevia Industries and allowing it to continue its activities while SOFA was ordered to suspend ours” said Marie Frantz Joachim, SOFA coordinating committee member.

The organizations’ submission underscores the compounding rights violations caused by the land grab. It is deepening poverty and food insecurity in the area, and women who have sought work with Stevia Industries have experienced sexual exploitation and wage theft. The grab also violates residents’ right to water in a context of deepening climate crisis: the land seized includes three State-protected water reservoirs.

“We lost our water reserves because they have now become the [company’s]. Meanwhile, we are experiencing a major water crisis,” said Esther Jolissaint, an affected SOFA member in Savane Diane.

Climate change, land grabbing, and violence against women are interconnected phenomena, say the organizations. Haiti is often named as one of the five countries most affected by the climate crisis. Land grabbing can both result from and contribute to climate vulnerability, as increasingly scarce agricultural land is converted to environmentally degrading monoculture agriculture or other industrial use. Women are particularly vulnerable.

“Rural women’s land rights and access to agricultural resources are essential to securing their human rights and supporting climate resilience,” said Sienna Merope-Synge, Co-Director of GJC’s Caribbean Climate Justice Initiative. “Land grabbing against women should be recognized as a form of gender-based violence,” she continued.

The joint submission emphasizes SOFA’s call for reparations and restitution for women affected by the land grab. It also highlights SOFA and Haitian social movements’ call for greater protections for peasant land rights, as rural communities in Haiti note an uptick in land grabbing. Greater international attention and condemnation is needed, the organizations say. “We are calling for solidarity from others engaged in the global struggle to ensure respect for human rights,” concluded Aurelien.

This post was originally published as a press release on April 5, 2022.

This post reflects the statement of the Global Justice Clinic and not necessarily the views of NYU, NYU Law, or the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.

April 5, 2022 Dev Account Uncategorized

GJC Among Organizations Demanding Halt to Deportations of Haitian Migrants Amidst Worsening Crisis in Haiti

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GJC Among Organizations Demanding Halt to Deportations of Haitian Migrants Amidst Worsening Crisis in Haiti

The Global Justice Clinic, in collaboration with several human rights and migrant rights organizations, jointly issued a factsheet analyzing the ongoing crisis of U.S. deportations and expulsions to Haiti in the midst of an ever-worsening political and humanitarian crisis. It shows the numerous ways the U.S. has violated its legal obligations to Haitian migrants.

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Recommendations include an immediate end to deportations to Haiti, the restoration of access to asylum, and an end to the U.S. government’s discriminatory treatment of Haitian migrants. The signatories of the statement include Haitian organizations Groupe d’Appui aux Rapatriés et Réfugiés (Support Group for Repatriated People and Refugees, GARR), Rezo Fwontalye Jano Siksè (Jano Siksè Border Network, RFJS), and Service Jésuite aux Migrants-Haiti (Jesuit Service for Migrants-Haiti, SJM).

Additional signatories include Amnesty International, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Haitian Bridge Alliance, and Refugees International.

This post was originally published as a press release on December 16, 2021.

December 16, 2021 Dev Account Uncategorized