The MOTH Program & Project CETI explore how understanding whale communication can reshape the law.

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

The MOTH Program & Project CETI explore how understanding whale communication can reshape the law

New York University’s More-Than-Human Life (MOTH) Program and Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) have joined forces to explore how advances in our understanding of sperm whale communications could lead to positive legal change. Their findings are presented in a new article forthcoming in Ecology Law Quarterly and published on New York University School of Law’s pre-print site (SSRN): “What if We Understood what Animals are Saying? The Legal Impact of AI-assisted Studies of Animal Communication.” The paper explores the growing fields of artificial intelligence and bioacoustics and their potential to reshape human and nonhuman law by challenging long-held assumptions about animal communication.

Photo of Spermwhale — Amanda Cotton (CETI)

Recent and interdisciplinary advancements in recording technology, advanced robotics, and AI have revealed that many species, from whales to honeybees, possess sophisticated communication systems. Pioneering projects like Project CETI utilize artificial intelligence and technological advances to study those communication systems and have already made groundbreaking findings, such as the sperm whale phonetic alphabet. Proving that cetaceans have a capacity for language would challenge current linguistic theories that confine language to humans and disrupt the legal landscape. From this starting point, co-authors César Rodríguez-Garavito, David F. Gruber, Ashley Otilia Nemeth, and Gašper Beguš explore two interdisciplinary questions rooted in law, linguistics, and science.

What if we could use AI to understand what animals – in particular, sperm whales – are saying? And what if we could use the law to translate that understanding into renewed protections and respect for nonhuman animal populations?

Law and policy often lag behind the frontiers of scientific advancement, but the collaboration between NYU’s MOTH Program and Project CETI bridges that gap, bringing together two nascent and rapidly evolving fields: nonhuman animal communication technologies and more-than-human law. Together, the two organizations investigate the legal and ethical possibilities arising from new challenges to long-held assumptions about nonhuman animal communication. The joint article examines the legal implications of understanding sperm whales’ capacity for language and, taking the question even further, investigates the legal implications of understanding the contents of sperm whale communication.

Understanding the capacity and content of sperm whale language could radically reshape existing legal frameworks and supplement deeply insufficient contemporary understandings of cetacean behavior, social dynamics, needs, and experiences of suffering. These insights could strengthen enforcement of existing legislation, such as the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), catalyze entirely new rights for cetaceans, or spark a fundamental transformation in cetaceans’ recognition and treatment by the law.

“At this inflection point, we must deepen our comprehension of the legal possibilities, and the risks, that arise when humans turn to AI to connect with and understand the more-than-human world,” says César Rodríguez-Garavito, founder of the MOTH Program and Professor at NYU Law. “But the potential impacts are much broader. By infusing legal thinking and practice with respect and reciprocity for other forms of life, we can reimagine what flourishing interspecies relationships look like.”

“A deeper appreciation for how nonhuman animals communicate allows us to better honor our relationship and interconnections with the natural world,” adds David Gruber, founder of Project CETI and Project Lead. “As science reveals new portals and understandings about the variety of ways in which life communicates with one another and other species, this shift in understanding should be paired by legal and policy protections.”

Left to Right: César Rodríguez-Garavito, David Gruber, Ashley Otilia-Nemeth, Gašper Beguš.

“Language is a defining trait of humanity—through language we build our relationships, societies, and even our laws. Science has already uncovered many properties of language in nonhuman animals, especially sperm whales, but we haven’t fully asked ourselves what this means for our legal frameworks. As AI-assisted research continues to bring new insights, we ask in our paper: If language underpins our humanity, our rights, and our laws, what does discovering these properties in nonhumans mean for their legal status, and how might our legal systems evolve as a result?” adds Gašper Beguš, CETI’s lead of Linguists and Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

“The history of nonhuman animal law demonstrates that science and public sentiment have long shaped—and will continue to shape—the way we treat other species. Unlocking nonhuman animal communication gives us yet another chance to wonder whether the boundaries of legal rights and personhood that humans have created are truly immutable,” says Ashley Otilia Nemeth, Supervising Attorney at the NYU Law MOTH Program.

The findings discussed in this article and the rapid growth of this field of research are already revealing an “immense world” of nonhuman animal perception, intelligence, and communication that humbles us into acknowledging our deep connections and similarities with the more-than-human world. With appropriate precautions and safeguards, the capabilities of today’s technology may not only draw us nearer to comprehension and “the verge of a breakthrough in interspecies technology.” They may also inspire new initiatives rooted in empathy and respect for the-more-than-human world, provide a path through current legal roadblocks, and raise fascinating challenges to fundamental legal paradigms, from entirely new rights to legal personhood.

About Project CETI

Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) is a nonprofit scientific and conservation organization that is applying advanced machine learning and state-of-the-art robotics to listen to and translate the communication of sperm whales. Founded with catalytic funding via The Audacious Project, CETI’s science team comprises over 50 leading experts in artificial intelligence, natural language processing and complex systems, marine biology, cryptography, linguistics, robotics, engineering and underwater acoustics. This work demonstrates that today’s most cutting-edge technologies can be used to benefit not only humankind, but all species on this planet. CETI has made pioneering scientific discoveries, including characterizing a sperm whale phonetic alphabet and the discovery of sperm whale vowels. By sharing our findings with the public and collaborating with legal initiatives such as NYU’s MOTH, CETI is actively generating a greater wonder for Earth’s matrix of life as well as envisioning future legal and policy directions for the benefit of both humans and more-than-human life.

Project CETI is a US 501c3 (EIN: 84-4630660) and a Dominican Approved Charitable Organization (No. C53).

About the MOTH Program

The MOTH (More-Than-Human Life) Program, hosted by NYU School of Law, is an interdisciplinary initiative advancing the rights and well-being for humans, non-humans, and the web of life that sustains us all. The program brings together legal scholars, scientists, Indigenous leaders, journalists, artists, and other thinkers and doers from across the world.

Media Highlights

TIME Magazine: Researchers are Using AI to Understand what Animals are Saying
National Geographic: Whales could one day defend themselves in court – and in their own words

April 30, 2025 Youssef Farhat Post

Johanna Chao Kreilick

Johanna Chao Kreilick

Senior Fellow at the Center

Johanna brings over 20 years of experience launching, leading, and transforming organizations and initiatives dedicated to the public good and a healthy planet. She champions this work alongside a broad network of partners and change-makers, and draws on her expertise as a trained mediator, facilitator, and nonprofit board member.

In addition to advising global nonprofits on organizational growth, strategic change, and key collaborations, she works with leaders and philanthropists at critical inflection points. Her services include strategic advice, assessment, governance, partnerships, fundraising, and facilitation. Recent partners include the More Than Human Life (MOTH) Program and the Future of Rights & Governance (FORGE) Program at New York University School of Law, SPUN.EARTH, Project CETI, and more.

The world needs courageous thinking, rigorous collaboration, and institutional resilience and grit to achieve a livable future. I’m thrilled to support the Center as a Senior Fellow because they deliver on all of this, while also serving as a living lab, cultivating and connecting the next generation of evidence-informed leaders.

Johanna also served as the President and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists from 2020 to 2023 where she led a major organizational transformation and 5-year strategy refresh, integrating equity with science and driving significant policy wins in climate, clean energy, and food justice.

Her career began as a community organizer advocating alongside smallholder farmers, workers, and vendors globally. She holds a BA with distinction in Anthropology from Stanford University and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

April 24, 2025 Youssef Farhat Profile

Community-led monitoring in Guyana essential to Indigenous justice systems and access to justice

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

Community-led monitoring in Guyana essential to Indigenous justice systems and access to justice

Since 2013, the Wapichan people of the South Rupununi region of Guyana have pioneered an innovative community led territorial monitoring program to protect their rights, and advance their territorial governance and self determination. A recent submission by the South Rupununi District Council (SRDC) – the representative institution of the Wapichan people – and the Global Justice Clinic (GJC) highlights the importance of community monitoring to Indigenous justice systems and access to justice, and calls for greater government recognition and collaboration with Indigenous led community monitoring efforts. GJC has partnered with the SRDC since 2016.

Download Submission

Landscape of a field/land in Guayana with blue skies.

In January, the South Rupununi District Council (SRDC), the representative institution of the Wapichan people in the South Rupununi region of Guyana, along with the Global Justice Clinic (GJC), made a submission to the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers to inform her upcoming thematic report on Indigenous justice. The submission underscores the importance of community-led monitoring to the Wapichan people’s Indigenous justice system and access to justice more broadly, both of which are critical to the Wapichan people’s enjoyment of nationally and internationally recognized human rights.

Since 2013, the SRDC has utilized tools like drones, GIS mapping, and water quality testing to support scientifically rigorous data gathering efforts as part of its community-led monitoring program. The monitoring program builds upon the traditional monitoring practices of Wapichan community members that has accompanied customary activities such as hunting and fishing, and clearly documents “happenings” on Wapichan wiizi (territory), including deforestation, land degradation, and water contamination stemming from mining exploration and extractive activities by external actors. This documentation highlights clear violations of national and international law as well as violations of the Wapichan people’s customary law. GJC has partnered with the SRDC since 2016, providing technical and legal support to the monitoring program.

The submission highlights the centrality of the monitoring program to the Wapichan people’s territorial governance, care, and management of Wapichan wiizi, and its importance to self-determination. It argues that, as a participatory community institution that enables the regulation of lands according to custom and traditional practice, community-led monitoring serves as a mechanism for the implementation of customary Wapichan law, as well as supporting access to justice for violations of communities’ rights. This includes the Wapichan people’s right to a clean environment and to free prior and informed consent. The submission identifies government barriers
to community-led monitoring and emphasizes the powerful potential of community-led monitoring programs to address systemic injustices, advance the territorial-self governance of Indigenous communities, and strengthen environmental protection. In the Guyanese context, the submission calls for:

Government recognition of the Wapichan people’s land rights over the entirety of Wapichan wiizi.
Explicit government and other stakeholder recognition of the SRDC Monitoring Program and of the Wapichan peoples’ right to monitor their full customary territory.
Government collaboration with the SRDC monitoring program, for instance through Memorandums of Understanding with the Environmental Protection Agency and other relevant agencies.
Full transparency and timely response to requests for information from the Wapichan people that arise from the monitoring program.

March 5, 2025 Youssef Farhat Post

MOTH Festival of Ideas & FORGE Gathering 2025

EVENTS

MOTH Festival of Ideas & FORGE Gathering at NYU Law

A dynamic week of interdisciplinary exploration, innovation, and collaboration.

The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice hosted a weeklong series of events through the More-Than-Human Life (MOTH) Festival of Ideas 2025 and the Future of Human Rights and Governance (FORGE) Gathering 2025. These global gatherings will bring together thought leaders, advocates, and scholars to explore the most pressing issues of our time, from ecological emergencies to technological disruption to geopolitical shifts. Taking place at NYU Law, this dynamic week of innovation, and collaboration ran from March 10 to March 15, 2025.

Hosted by the Earth Rights Action and Research (TERRA) and the FORGE programs, both gatherings include closed-door, interactive scholar-practitioner sessions, as well as sessions open to the public in the evenings.

With creativity and interdisciplinarity at their heart, the open sessions include keynote talks, interviews, film screenings, book launches, poetry readings, and interdisciplinary performances, concerts, and an exhibit on display throughout the week.

NYU Law is honored to host these pivotal gatherings that bring together bold ideas, diverse voices, and meaningful action. At a time when global justice faces unprecedented challenges, we are committed to fostering a space for creative thinking and forward-looking solutions.

César Rodríguez-Garavito
Chair, Center for Human Rights & Global Justice.

About the MOTH 2025 Festival

The MOTH Festival of Ideas featured thinkers and doers from around the world advancing the rights, interests, and well-being of nonhumans, humans, and the web of life that sustains us all. Practitioners and scholars from a wide range of disciplines—including law, ecology, philosophy, biology, journalism, the arts and well beyond—are pursuing efforts to bring the more-than-human world into the ambit of moral, legal, and social concern. The MOTH Festival of Ideas featured over 100 thinkers and doers at the cutting edge of this rich and rapidly evolving field.

About the FORGE 2025 Gathering

With two days designed to foster a solutions-oriented community of legal experts, social scientists, governance professionals, and community-based practitioners, the FORGE conference is dedicated to uncovering new approaches and solutions that reimagine rights and governance at a critical time for global justice.

With the hope of building momentum toward a brighter future, the MOTH 2025 Festival of Ideas and FORGE 2025 Gathering seek to transform perceptions and inspire a transnational community of practice with new ideas about global justice and more-than-human rights and encourage experimentation with new actions and approaches.

March 10-15, 2025 Schedule of Events

Monday, March 10, 2025

3:00-6:00 p.m. | RSVP via Nina Kantcheva at nina.kantcheva@undp.org
UNDP Headquarters at 304 E 45th St. 11th Fl, NY

Panel: Working with fungi to protect biodiversity and mitigate climate change

César Rodríguez-Garavito: Professor at NYU Law and founding director of the More-Than-Human (MOTH) Life program.
Midori Paxton: Director, Nature HUB, UNDP
Merlin Sheldrake: Biologist, author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, and Distinguished fellow at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law
Nina Kantcheva: Senior policy adviser on Indigenous Peoples and Local Community Engagement, UNDP (Moderator)

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. | MOTH Festival of Ideas – Academic Conference (closed session)
Breakout rooms at Kimmel Center

Noon-3:00 p.m. | MOTH Festival of Ideas – Exhibit Opening
Greenberg Lounge located inside Vanderbilt Hall at NYU School of Law
The Exhibit will remain on display until March 14 and can be visited from 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.

4:00 – 7:00 pm | MOTH Festival of Ideas – Public Sessions
Tishman Auditorium located inside Vanderbilt Hall at NYU School of Law

Talk: José Gualinga
José Gualinga: Former Tayak Apu (president) of the Sarayaku Indigenous People and current advisor to the Tayjasaruta (Sarayaku Governing Council); spearheaded the development of the Kawsak Sacha Initiative.

Poetry Reading: Fátima Vélez
Fátima Vélez: Story-teller, professor, PhD candidate, and cultural producer; published the collection of poems Casa Paterna, Del Porno y las babosas, Diseño de Interiores, and the novels Galápagos and Jardín en Tierra Fría; part of Como un Lugar, a collective of Latin American poets based in NYC.

Talk: An exploration of More-Than-Human Rights, César Rodríguez-Garavito
César Rodríguez-Garavito: Professor at NYU Law and founding director of the More-Than-Human (MOTH) Life program.

Poetry Reading: Ezequiel Zaidenwerg
Ezequiel Zaidenwerg: Writer, translator, educator and photographer; published the novels 50 estados: 13 poetas contemporáneos de Estados Unidos and El camino and the poetry collections Doxa and La lírica está muerta.

Conversation: Merlin Sheldrake and Jonathan Watts
Merlin Sheldrake: Biologist and author of the best-selling book, Entangled Life How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures.

Jonathan Watts: Journalist, co-founder of Sumaúma, and global environment editor at The Guardian.

Poetry Reading: Angela Rawlings
Angela Rawlings: Interdisciplinary artist-researcher; author of Wide slumber for lepidopterists, Gibber, o w n, si tu, and Sound of Mull; founder of Snæfellsjökul fyrir forseta (Glacier for president), Iceland’s first rights of nature movement.

7:00 – 9:00 pm | MOTH Festival of Ideas – Art and Performances
Eisner & Lubin Auditorium located inside Kimmel Center

Talk: Sol Guy
Sol Guy: Award-winning producer and director; co-founder of Quiet, an artist-led community based in trust, care, and empowerment; honored by National Geographic as an “Emerging Explorer”; co-produced and directed highly acclaimed projects in music, film, and TV, including: Oscar-nominated film Bobi Wine: The People’s President; the television series 4REAL (MTV/National Geographic); the 2010 World Cup anthem, K’naan’s WAVIN FLAG; and the documentary Inside Out (HBO).

Musical Performance: Eric Terena
Eric Terena: DJ and music producer; amplifies through his music the power of Indigenous ancestrality; currently part of Youth4Climate which, together with other young climate activists from around the world, promotes awareness and actions to reverse the impacts of climate change.

Thursday, March 13, 2025

9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. | MOTH Fest of Ideas – Academic Conference (closed session)
Breakout rooms at Kimmel Center

4:00-9:00 pm | MOTH Festival of Ideas – Public Sessions
Tishman Auditorium located inside Vanderbilt Hall at NYU School of Law

Conversation: David Gruber and César Rodríguez-Garavito
David Gruber: Marine biologist & Founder & President of Project CETI, an interdisciplinary scientific organization that uses advanced robotics and applied computer sciences to listen to and translate sperm whale communications.

César Rodríguez-Garavito: Professor at NYU Law and founding director of the More-Than-Human (MOTH) Life program.

Poetry Reading: Lila Zemborain
Lila Zemborain: Professor and author of eight poetry collections, compiled in Buenos Aires as Matrix Lux; director and editor of the Rebel Road series and curator of the KJCC Poetry Series at New York University.

Talk: Christine Winter
Christine Winter: Senior Lecturer in environmental, climate change, multispecies, and Indigenous politics at the University of Otago (New Zealand).

Book Launch: Elena Landinez in conversation with Fátima Vélez
Elena Landinez: interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores the relationship between the human and more-than-human.

Fátima Vélez: Storyteller, professor, PhD candidate, cultural producer, and author of the collection of poems Casa Paterna, Del Porno y las babosas, Diseño de Interiores, and the novels Galápagos and Jardín en Tierra Fría.

Poetry Reading: Neronessa

Neronessa: Award-winning poet and social entrepreneur; published the poetry collections La Estirpe de las Gárgolas and El Volcán de la Matriz Electroelástica; participated in over a dozen anthologies and translations in Latin America, Europe and the United States; speaker at the United Nations and NYC Climate Week.

Documentary Screening: All That Breathes followed by Q&A with Shaunak Sen
Shaunak Sen: director of All That Breathes, Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and the Golden Eye award for the best documentary at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

Friday, March 14, 2025

9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. | MOTH Fest of Ideas – Academic Conference (closed session)
Breakout rooms at Kimmel Center

9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. | FORGE Ideas & Actions Discussion Series (closed session)
Greenberg Lounge located inside Vanderbilt Hall at NYU School of Law

4:00-8:00 pm | FORGE x MOTH Festival of Ideas – Public Sessions
Tishman Auditorium located inside Vanderbilt Hall at NYU School of Law

Conversation: Elisa Morgera and Dylan McGarry
Elisa Morgera: UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights and Professor of Global Environmental Law at the University of Strathclyde.

Dylan McGarry: Co-director of One Ocean Hub and a founding member of Empatheatre.

Remarks: NYU Law Dean Troy McKenzie
Troy McKenzie: Dean and Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law at NYU School of Law.

Arts: Tour of the MOTH Exhibit
Featured artwork by: Elena Landinez, Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Erin Yoshi, Ezequiel Zaidenwerg-Dib, Fátima Vélez, Flora Wallace (ceramicist, ink maker and painter) , and Wio Gualinga (visual artist from the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku).

Book Launch: Jonathan Watts in conversation with Genevieve Guenther and Andrew Revkin
Jonathan Watts: Journalist, co-founder of Sumaúma, and global environment editor at The Guardian.

Genevieve Guenther: Founder of End Climate Science and author of The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It.

Andrew Revkin: Journalist, educator, and author, whose published work includes The Burning Season and The Human Planet: Earth at the Dawn of the Anthropocene.

Conversation: Eliana Hernández-Pachón and Erin Robinsong
Eliana Hernández-Pachón: Writer and educator whose book, The Brush, received the Colombia National Poetry Prize.

Erin Robinsong: Poet, interdisciplinary artist, and author of Rag Cosmology and Wet Dream.

8:00 – 9:30 pm | MOTH Festival of Ideas – Art and Performances
Eisner & Lubin Auditorium located inside Kimmel Center

Concert: Cosmo Sheldrake
Cosmo Sheldrake: UK-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, live improviser, and field recordist; toured internationally with sold-out headline shows across North America, Europe, and Japan; released Wake Up Calls (2020) on his label Tardigrade Records, Wild Wet World (2023), and Eye to the Ear (2024).

Saturday, March 15, 2025

9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. | FORGE Ideas & Actions Discussion Series (closed session)
Greenberg Lounge located inside Vanderbilt Hall at NYU School of Law

Concert by Cosmo Sheldrake at the MOTH Festival of Ideas

March 14 | 8:00 – 9:30 p.m.
Eisner & Lubin Auditorium located inside Kimmel Center

The MOTH Festival of Ideas concluded with a concert by Cosmo Sheldrake, a UK-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, live improviser, and field recordist.

The Exhibit at the MOTH Festival of Ideas

March 12-15 | 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Greenberg Lounge located inside Vanderbilt Hall at NYU School of Law

The Exhibit featured a range of artists whose work engages with questions essential to understanding and transforming our relationships with the more-than-human world. Featured artwork by: Elena Landinez, Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Erin Yoshi, Ezequiel Zaidenwerg-Dib, Fátima Vélez, Flora Wallace (ceramicist, ink maker and painter) , and Wio Gualinga (visual artist from the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku).

February 26, 2025 Youssef Farhat Event Summary

Bay Kou Bliye, Pote Mak Sonje: Climate Injustice in Haiti and the Case for Reparations

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT

Bay Kou Bliye, Pote Mak Sonje: Climate Injustice in Haiti and the Case for Reparations

This report by the Global Justice Clinic at NYU Law and the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA Law, in collaboration with Haitian social movement organizations, illuminates the crisis of climate injustice in Haiti.

Bay Kou Bliye, Pote Mak Sonje: Enjistis Klimatik an Ayiti ak Demann pou Reparasyon se yon rapò ekri pa Klinik Jistis Mondyal nan Fakilte Dwa NYU ansanm ak Enstiti Promise pou Dwa Moun nan Fakilte Dwa UCLA. Se atrave kolaborasyon ak mouvman sosyal an Ayiti nou reyalize li. Rapò a prezante enpak dega klimatik sou popilasyon Ayisyen epi li montre jan istwa kolonizasyon ak enjistis rasyel kreye vilnerabilite klimatik Ayiti. Li bay egzanp pou montre kouman popilasyon Ayisyen ap degaje yo nan reyalite difisil la, epi li konkli reparasyon se nesese pou jistis klimatik ansanm ak jistis rasyel. Rapò a ansanm ak rezime egzekitif la disponib anba — klike sou ti kare a pou jwenn yo.

Report & Executive Summary

Rapò ak Rezime Egzekitif Kreyòl

The report outlines the impacts of climate harms on Haitian people and their human rights, the colonial construction of Haiti’s climate vulnerability, and the legal and moral arguments for reparations to advance both climate and racial justice. It also touches on grassroots efforts in Haiti for climate resilience and to advance land rights, environmental justice, and community self-determination.

Haiti is one of the countries most harmed by the global climate crisis. The country’s climate vulnerability is not just a product of its geography—it is also the result of centuries of racial injustice, originating in colonialism, slavery, and Haiti’s “independence ransom” to France. Haiti powerfully illuminates that the climate crisis is a racial injustice crisis. Yet there is little available research presenting the impacts of climate change—or climate disorder as Haitian activists term it—on Haitian people, analyzing the connections between racial and climate injustice, and presenting demands for climate justice, including critically for reparations. This report advances the case for reparations to Haiti, and demonstrates that reparations are essential to advancing climate justice.

December 10, 2024 Youssef Farhat Product

Center Chair gives keynote talk in Brazil Supreme Court’s seminar on structural litigation

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

Center Chair gives keynote talk in Brazil Supreme Court’s Seminar on structural litigation

On October 7, 2024 as part of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice’s ongoing academic exchange with Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF), Professor César Rodríguez-Garavito gave a keynote talk in the seminar “Structural Litigation: Advances and Challenges” in Brasilia.

The event was organized by STF Chief Justice Luís Roberto Barroso as well as other high-ranking Brazilian judges, including STF’s Deputy Chief Justice Edson Fachin and the Federal High Court’s Chief Justice Antonio Herman Benjamin.

In his opening remarks, Minister Barroso highlighted the significance of structural litigation—that is, constitutional cases addressing systemic policy issues that affect the rights of large groups. Among ongoing structural cases before the Brazilian Supreme Court are those dealing with violations of Indigenous rights in the Amazon, prison overcrowding, and police violence in informal settlements. He underscored that this emerging area is central to the Brazilian judiciary, urging judges to proactively identify such issues and ensure that relevant governmental institutions develop and implement effective solutions. Other judges on the panel echoed the importance of the judiciary’s authority to act in these matters and emphasized the need for effective monitoring of structural court decisions.

The seminar also featured discussions on the judiciary’s role in resolving complex structural conflicts. Professor Rodríguez-Garavito shared insights on how structural cases are handled in comparative law, focusing on their impacts and potential applications to climate litigation. He highlighted the STF’s contributions to the protection of constitutional rights through structural rulings and suggested ways forward to ensure the legitimacy and effective implementation of the Court’s rulings.

The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice’s participation in this seminar is one of many initiatives planned with high courts from around the world for the upcoming year, underscoring the Center’s commitment to supporting judicial engagement in innovative legal areas while protecting rights and advancing justice for all.

Photo Gallery

November 7, 2024 Youssef Farhat Event Summary

Forming a High Level Expert Group to Strengthen Global Gender Justice

INEQUALITIES

Forming a High Level Expert Group to Strengthen Global Gender Justice

In a groundbreaking initiative to address gender-based injustices, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law together with the American Society of International Law, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School’s Women, Law, and Leadership Project and the University of Oxford’s Bonavero Institute for Human Rights formed the High-Level Expert Group on Gender Persecution and Gender Apartheid.

The High-Level Expert Group is led by Baroness Helena Kennedy of The Shaws KC, a Member of the House of Lords and founder of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights; Catherine Amirfar, Partner and Co-Chair of the International Disputes Resolution Group and Public International Law Group at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP; Rangita de Silva de Alwis, a Senior Fellow at Penn Carey Law and Member of CEDAW; and Ghizal Haress, a former Ombudsperson for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and visiting professor at the University of Toronto.

The group is comprised of an esteemed array of global experts and human rights defenders who bring to bear a wealth of knowledge and expertise, including José E. Alvarez, NYU School of Law Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law.

The High-Level Expert Group seeks to address gaps in the existing international legal framework addressing gender-based crimes, including by examining the basis for gender apartheid and gender persecution under international law, developing the definitions and framework for addressing these crimes, advancing accountability efforts against perpetrators of gender-based crimes, and centering the voices of victims and those directly affected by gender apartheid and gender persecution.

Through this newly-launched initiative, NYU Law students have the opportunity through research to be part of the ongoing efforts to achieve justice for victims of gender-based apartheid and/or persecution around the world. A myriad of legal research assignments on topics ranging from gender-based crimes under international law to human rights protections against gender-based discrimination will be carried under the direct supervision of pro-bono attorneys at a local NY firm supervised by Prof. Alvarez.

August 28, 2024 Youssef Farhat Student Program

Seizing the opportunity to improve Uganda’s national digital ID system

TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Seizing the opportunity to improve Uganda’s national digital ID system

In 2014, Uganda introduced its first national digital ID system. Now, a decade later, as millions of ID cards are set to expire, the Government is planning a significant upgrade of the system and will soon begin a mass enrollment exercise to register all unregistered Ugandans. Given that many exclusions and harms have arisen from the current digital ID system, the Government’s plans to roll out a new system represent a key opportunity to learn from past experiences and ensure that the new system is more inclusive, equitable, and privacy-protecting.

Download Recommendations

In this document, we raise 5 urgent recommendations that the Government must adopt to put Uganda on the path towards a digital ID system that centers inclusion, equity, privacy, transparency, and accountability. Drawing on research and lessons learned from Uganda’s existing national digital ID system, as well as incorporating lessons from other countries’ experiences and from international best practices, we recommend that the Government should:

Improve communication and transparency about plans for the new digital ID;
Proactively facilitate participation, particularly of vulnerable communities and of civil society organizations, in policy and design choices;
Conduct a comprehensive Human Rights Impact Assessment to identify risks arising from the ID system and the registration process;
Take steps to ensure that marginalized and vulnerable groups are proactively included in enrollment and renewal processes;
Put in place concrete plans for a transition period to ensure that no rights are violated as the Government works to introduce new digital components

This is not intended to be an exhaustive list but instead focuses on short-term, actionable recommendations that will help concretely improve the Government’s approach in the immediate term and avoid further entrenching the well-documented problems and weaknesses that have affected the current system.

July 25, 2024.

July 24, 2024 Youssef Farhat Product

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.

Digital Access

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

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

HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT

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.

Advocacy

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.

Additional resources

May 23, 2024 Youssef Farhat Uncategorized