SUSAN FARBSTEIN: Hi.
Wow.
Everyone got quiet so quickly.
Welcome.
My name is Susan Farbstein,
along with Tyler Giannini
sitting next to me.
We co-direct the International
Human Rights Clinic here
at the Law School.
We're very excited to see
so many familiar faces
and a few new faces here for
this Human Rights Advocacy
workshop, which is
our contribution
to the bicentennial celebration.
I'm going to do a quick road
map of what we have planned,
and then we're going
to launch right
in because we have now
less than two hours
to cover a lot of territory.
So it's billed as a
workshop for a reason.
There are going to be some
opportunities for all of you
to interact with each other
and with the panelists.
We wanted to frame the
workshop around challenges.
So that's our plan.
We're going to start off with
sort of a mini-panel discussion
in which two of the
folks sitting up here
will talk about some
of the challenges
that they've confronted
on a more personal level
in their own work.
Then we're going to
put a scenario to you
and come back for
a group discussion.
And then we'll move on
to our second panel that
will look at challenges
more at a movement
level to the human rights
movement with three
of our panelists.
And then there will be an
opportunity for a little bit
more engagement and discussion.
And we hope to close
on a positive note
by talking about successes.
TYLER GIANNINI:
And the other piece
of what we're trying
to do today is give you
a little bit of an
insight into our approach
to clinical education
and clinical teaching.
And so that's why we want
it to be a workshop format,
where everyone is contributing.
So hopefully that
will be successful,
given that we have
five panelists who
have an amazing
diversity of experiences
and were trying to do that.
We'll see how successful we
are, but that's the attempt.
And we're all about
experimentation.
So you'll bear with us
since this is an experiment.
The other thing is that we
have to give an announcement
that if you are not
here, or you thought
you were coming to a session
on teaching about lawyering
for justice in the
United States, that's
in Jarvis tent outside.
Hopefully that will not
cause a mass exodus.
But everyone's staying put.
OK, good sign.
SUSAN FARBSTEIN: So
we're going to jump right
into our first panel.
I'll introduce the two speakers.
To my left is Thomas Becker.
I feel kind of funny
reading this official bio
of you, Thomas.
Because what we did
was we invited people
who we wanted an excuse to see.
So really, we're lucky to have
a bunch of friends with us
on the panel today.
But for those of you
who don't know him,
Thomas graduated in '08.
He's an activist and a human
rights attorney currently based
in Bolivia.
We've been lucky enough to work
with him for the past decade
plus on a lawsuit against
the former president
and minister of
defense of Bolivia
that I'm hoping Thomas will
be speaking about at length.
He's also done work in India,
Lebanon, Israel, and Mexico,
among other places.
So he will go first.
And then he will be
followed by Chris Mburu, who
earned his LLM in '93 from HLS.
He's currently a
Senior Human Rights
Adviser at the UN
Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights.
He's worked on human rights,
governance, democracy, peace,
and conflict resolution issues
for over 20 years across Africa
and also in the United States.
He also started the Hilde
Back Education Fund,
which is a charitable
organization in Kenya
that supports education
of bright children
from poor families.
So Thomas, we're going
to kick it off with you.
THOMAS BECKER: We're going
to kick it off with me.
Excellent.
Thank you.
So you know, I'm supposed to
talk a little bit about myself.
But I'd rather focus more
on some of my friends
in Bolivia, who
frankly are changing
the world, who are leading
the struggle against impunity
right now.
In 2003, the
ex-president of Bolivia
and his defense minister,
Carlos Sanchez Berzain--
going to the ex-president--
sent the military
in to repress social movements,
to repress protesters.
And the result was hundreds
of casualties, a primarily
indigenous Aymara of Bolivians.
And after the killings,
Goni, as he's known,
fled to the United States
with his defense minister,
and sought refuge here, and
abused the United States
as refuge for the past 15 years.
And they currently live here.
So I was really fortunate
to get to go to Bolivia
before I started law school.
And I met some of
the people that
were fighting to hold
these people accountable.
I met the victims.
I met activists.
I met lawyers.
And they invited
me to participate
in their struggle against
Goni and against the defense
minister.
And when I started law
school, I stayed in touch
with these folks
from Bolivia, and we
talked about how do we hold
these people accountable.
They're in the US.
And we explored
this idea of, what
if we brought a civil suit?
At the time I was
a 1-L. I returned
during my one-off summer.
And let's be real.
I barely knew anything
about the law.
I don't even know if I
know about the law now,
but as a 1-L, definitely not.
So we talked about
what if we could
make this a project at the
International Human Rights
Clinic here at Harvard.
So I remember calling Tyler.
He was the first
person I called.
And I used one of
these old phone booths.
There wasn't Skype at the
time, so I'm showing my age.
And I called Tyler.
And I was like
thinking, how do I
convince this guy we need to
try to take down a president?
But immediately Tyler
was like, let's do this.
Let's see what we can do.
And I remember
thinking like, either
this guy is the
coolest professor ever
or totally crazy--
and probably both, frankly.
And so we started
to build this case.
And a year later, we
submitted a complaint,
and this lawsuit
started moving forward.
After I graduated, I
moved down to Bolivia
and have been
fortunate to live there
off and on for the
last 10 years working
on this trial with
folks from Harvard,
with a bunch of attorneys,
but most importantly,
with folks in Bolivia who really
kind of led this struggle.
Fortunately this
year, we actually
finally made it to
trial, after a decade,
after lots of legal obstacles.
Just this spring in
March, we started.
And this was a historical trial.
This is the first time
an ex-president actually
had to sit before his
accusers and respond
for his human rights violations.
So this was
absolutely historical.
But the thing that topped
it, honestly-- it took
place a couple of weeks
ago, when we got a verdict.
And I remember sitting
in the courtroom
and hearing the judge say,
the two are responsible.
And, like, I lost it.
There's two types of criers.
There's graceful
criers, and then there's
ugly criers, like me.
So I'm just bawling.
And I'm looking around,
and the rest of the lawyers
were frankly just as bad.
The whole team is just bawling.
But then I looked at
my Bolivian friends,
who were sitting right next to
me, who just smiled and were
shaking their heads,
totally cool, way
cooler than the rest of us.
And they told me-- because
they knew all along the truth
was on their side.
But they were just
glowing of pride, knowing
what they had just done.
This was the first time
that a living ex-president
has been held accountable
for human rights
violations in a US court.
And these were
Bolivians who had--
[APPLAUSE]
Yeah, they're awesome.
Theoretically, these are
not the people that do that.
They had been told their
whole lives that they're
poor, indigenous peasants.
They've been treated as
second class citizens.
They've been excluded
from the justice system,
the various justice systems.
Yet they were able to take
down one of the most powerful,
richest people in the
history of the country,
who was an ex-president.
And they just shook
their head because they
knew what this meant, not only
for impunity and the message
it sent to leaders
across the world,
but also to social movements
who have been organizing
and victims of human
rights abuses who--
that you can be dispossessed
and totally marginalized,
yet you can actually do
something about this.
It was this incredible message.
And they-- as we're
bawling-- just
sat there and kind of shook
their head up and down.
And so obviously, it's been a
pretty incredible experience
to get to share this
with them and folks
here at Harvard and all
the other attorneys that
fought alongside the folks
in Bolivia for years.
I think part of why
we were invited here
was to talk about
challenges that we've faced.
And I started thinking through--
and there's been a lot,
ranging from death threats,
getting thrown in jail,
working in war zones-- things
that you would think would
be the bigger challenges.
But the biggest
challenges that I
think I've faced
doing human rights law
is figuring out what
my role is as someone
from the Global North,
particularly a white male.
Where do I fall into this?
How can I be a voice for
marginalized communities
without becoming the voice
for marginalized communities?
Something I've repeatedly seen
is just where well-intentioned
lawyers end up
co-opting this message,
or stepping on struggles,
where we innately, as lawyers--
going to law school, we learn--
we get a skill set.
We learn a language
that helps us litigate,
that helps us write human rights
reports, that helps us advocate
for the communities that we
work with, that they don't have
sometimes.
And innate in that is that we're
given this power to do things.
But oftentimes, again, we
become the voice too often,
particularly me.
I find it troubling
as a white male
when I'm speaking for a
community that knows way better
about what they need than I do.
Part of the reason
I'm bringing this up
is because I'm frankly
going through it right now
in Bolivia, where we
just won this trial.
It's only been a few weeks.
And it's been in the
newspaper basically every day.
And one of these narratives
that keeps being repeated
is "Gringo lawyer
takes down president,"
or "Rock and roll lawyer
takes down president."
And it's quite frustrating.
Because on one
level, this has been
a genuinely collective
effort of many, many lawyers,
many students, but
most importantly,
many Bolivians, who frankly
are leading this struggle.
They're the ones who daily
have to keep their wounds open,
who don't get closure,
that have to think
about their eight-year-old
daughter being
shot in their home or their
husband being shot in the head.
They don't get a move-on.
They keep these wounds
open so that nobody
has to suffer this again.
And to me, that's the
story that should be told.
But unfortunately,
sometimes, there's
this kind of white savior
narrative that continually
happens, where the
white man comes
down and helps poor communities
that can't help themselves.
And it's been real frustrating
and hard to push back on this.
It's required.
And frankly, I don't completely
know what the answer is.
You can't completely
control the media.
But what you can
do is push back.
You can talk to the communities
and figure out what message
they want out there.
Explore with them how
to respond to this
and be willing to
change in the process.
Part of this has been
a lot of reflection
on what I've done to perpetuate
this narrative, but also
how do we change it?
What do we need to do?
This has not worked.
What do we do now?
So one of the things, for
instance, we've been doing is--
any interview I
do now, we require
that one of the plaintiffs comes
along and tells their stories,
that instead, it's their
story that's in the newspaper,
not "rock and roll lawyer
taking down president."
I'm seeing that I'm
fashionably over time.
So I'll leave it at that.
And perhaps we could
explore this more.
But I'll pass it on
to the next speaker.
Thanks.
CHRIS MBURU: OK, good
morning, everyone.
My name is Chris Mburu,
and I'm very, very glad
to be back here 25 years later.
It seems like just yesterday.
But within the
last 25 years, I've
been doing a variety of things
privately with NGOs but also
with the United Nations.
I've spent the bulk of my time
working for the United Nations.
And in all this, the work
that we've been focusing on
is human rights advocacy,
trying to make sure
that we can push
certain messages,
and we can try to advance
the cause of human rights
through legal action,
through training,
through what we call
in the United Nations
technical cooperation.
So that working with
governments and trying
to strengthen their mechanisms
of improving human rights
within the countries.
So we have a lot of
things in the toolbox.
We have the method of
denouncing governments that
commit human rights violations.
That's number one,
which is very open.
We issue press releases.
We issue public statements.
The United Nations
issues sanctions.
So there is very
serious advocacy
that is very, very frontal.
But then there's what we call
the indirect advocacy, where
we train advocates who are not
part of the United Nations--
and this is mainly
the civil society--
and we try to prepare
them for that role
so that they can take
on the government.
Because there are so many things
that, as the United Nations,
we cannot do because we are
essentially an organization
of member states.
So sometimes member states tell
us, no, you can't go there.
But we have a mandate as the
United Nations secretariat,
and especially I represent the
Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights, which
is the agency entrusted
with the promotion and
protection of human rights
around the world.
It was started 25 years ago.
It's one of the youngest
agencies in the United Nations,
but one of the most laden
with a UN responsibility
because it's dealing
with a big chunk of what
the United Nations does.
As you all know,
the United Nations
was created to work on--
one, peace and security;
two, development;
and three, human rights.
So we have a very,
very clear mandate.
And even some of the times
when the member states
try to push back a little
bit, we remind them
that this is the three
pillars of the United Nations
that we are advancing.
So most of the work that
I've done is mainly--
I've done legal activism
and advocacy in Kenya,
because as you know, in Africa
we've had many countries
with dictatorships.
We were not spared
of that in Kenya.
And so I was among the
lawyers who were really
pushing to bring change.
And actually-- and
I know that you
guys want to know how that's
related to what I learned
here--
a lot of that I learned here.
Because at the Human
Rights Program,
I was exposed to a
lot of activists.
At that time,
Harvard was hosting
a lot of dissidents,
people who were trying
to push for change
in their countries
through the use of the law.
And I really learned a lot.
I actually did some
part-time job here
at that time trying to
organize those speakers.
And I really got inspired, and
I felt that if I went out there,
I really wanted to do this.
So that's very clear.
So I did a lot of that
activism in Kenya,
but then the advocacy that
we've been doing in the United
Nations, as I mentioned,
strengthening the civil society
advocates.
Civil society
advocates in Africa
and in other parts of the
world are facing real danger.
They get killed.
They get persecuted.
They get banished
out of the country.
They get all sorts
of persecution.
And so protecting them is a
huge responsibility of anybody
who deals with human rights.
So as the United Nations part
of my mandate, right now,
I'm the representative
of the United Nations
human rights in Rwanda.
And you all know what
happened in Rwanda 20--
actually today, we are having a
ceremony in the United Nations
to mark 24 years
since the genocide.
So Rwanda is coming out of that.
But it's still
facing some issues
where human rights
are active, and they
need to pass on very important
messages to the government,
and they need to be supported.
Because a lot of the times,
the governments push back.
In Rwanda, they are not really
persecuting them blatantly.
But in other countries, like
in my own country in Kenya,
we've had serious
blatant persecution.
In Congo, we've had civil
society leaders disappear.
One of my very
good friends, a guy
called Floribert
Chebeya in Congo,
was murdered after he
had issued a statement
against the head of
the police in the Congo
on human rights violations.
So these are the kind of things
that we are dealing with.
We are dealing with
real life issues.
And a lot of the
time, because I'm
sitting out there wearing a
tie and looking very serious
representing the
United Nations, I
may not be able to go out
there with a placard telling
the government that
this should not happen.
But we have methods by
which we tell the government
that this must stop.
And we put the
government to account,
and we put judicial procedures--
and obviously, as
you all know, we
have now the International
Criminal Court,
which has become a
very important platform
for trying perpetrators of
mass human rights violations.
But we also support a lot of my
work and my budget in Rwanda.
I use it to support front line
advocates who go out there
and do the placards,
who go out there
and do the challenging
of the government, who
do the picketing,
who go out there
and challenge these governments.
We also train judges.
And we also train
the legal personnel
so that the judges
can also be sensitized
about human rights issues.
So that when these issues
come to their courts,
they are able to deal
with them, and they
are able to cite
international law as the basis
of their judgments.
As you know, judges cannot
just rule out of an emotion.
They have to base it on the law.
So we train the
judges so that when
they're dealing
with these issues,
they can base it on the law.
We also push
governments to implement
their international obligations.
All these governments-- even
where all these human rights
violations are
occurring-- have pledged
to be part of the international
human rights legal system.
And that is what makes the human
rights violations perpetrated
by the government so awful.
It is because these
same governments
have ratified all the
international treaties that
talk about the protection
of human rights.
And then sometimes I find
myself advocating among the UN
agencies inside the house.
Sometimes we have UNICEF,
all the other world health
organizations--
organizations that are not
UN, that are not human rights.
But they do not understand
that everything that they do
is supposed to
promote human rights.
So for example, in
Rwanda what I have done
is I have prepared this handbook
to be used by the United
Nations agencies on how they
should incorporate human rights
principles in all that they do.
Because we sometimes get these
bureaucrats coming into the UN
and thinking, well, my work
is just to distribute food,
what does human rights
have to do with that?
But we have to remind
them that there
are all these issues of
equality, access to that food,
nondiscrimination--
all the principles that
are promoted by human rights.
And then finally in my
own private capacity,
because I just felt that working
within the United Nations is--
it's good, but it's not enough.
I started my own
foundation in Kenya.
It's called the Hilde
Back Education Fund.
And the reason I started
that Hilda Back Education
Fund is because many years
ago, several decades ago, when
I was growing up in Kenya, I did
not have a hope for education.
And then a woman from Sweden
by the name of Hilde Back
came and supported my education.
So I decided to start a
foundation in her name,
and it's called the Hilde
Back Education Fund.
And the work that I
do in that foundation
is mainly to advocate for
education as a human race.
And what we are trying
to say is all children--
I ended up at Harvard, but
I was very, very lucky.
And most of the kids
in my generation
did not make it because
education was not free,
and all of them
could not pay for it.
And now what I'm
trying to do-- and I do
a lot of runs around the world.
And I'll be running today
around here at Harvard,
exposing my message,
"Education is a Human Right,"
which I have right here.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
Education-- you
can see it later.
Not Superman.
So anyway, that is for later.
Because in advocacy
and activism,
you have to use all the tools
at your disposal, all right?
And that's what I
want, especially
the young people here
and the people who
you guys are training them--
tell them, you've got to use
all the tricks in the book.
Because the governments
are using all the tricks
in the book to
suppress human rights.
And that's the whole point.
And finally, now
on the challenge,
the main challenge is, one,
endangering the security
of those we support.
That has been a big
challenge for me.
Sometimes I get over
excited, and sometimes you
engage all these
advocates and activists,
and then they fall in trouble.
For example, in Congo-- when
I was working in the Congo--
we worked with a
group of lawyers,
and we were training them,
and we were showing them
how to do the activism.
And then we realized
that as internationals
and non-Congolese--
I'm from Kenya-- the
government could not touch us.
But the locals were
not as safe as we were.
And we woke up one morning, and
they had been put in detention.
And so you have to
be very careful.
That's a big challenge.
You have to be very careful
not to expose people to danger,
because you don't
want anybody dying.
You don't want anybody
being persecuted.
But then you also have
to use strategies.
We went to the embassies.
We went to the French Embassy.
We went to the Japanese Embassy
and the United States Embassy.
And we convinced them to
talk to the government
to release those activists
to the embassies.
So the activists were
released to the embassies,
and the government
said we are only
releasing them on
condition that they
don't remain in this country.
And so those activists were
taken as exiles in France
and some in the United States.
Some have ended up going back.
But that's to show you the
kind of live challenges
that we deal with.
The last thing I
wanted to mention,
which is very,
very important, is
that we are facing an
international human rights
backlash.
And this is mainly
happening through the rise
of right-wing governments.
A lot of human rights
are being violated,
more blatantly than they
were 25 years ago, which
is very, very dispiriting
for some of us who
have been in this movement.
Because we are
seeing a rollback.
We are seeing-- in countries, in
Europe, and in other countries
that I will not
mention here, you're
seeing a lot of rollback,
where human rights
activists and advocates are
in more danger than they were.
You're seeing areas where the
political space is closing,
the civic space is shrinking.
And this is where we
need even more advocacy.
And that is what I hope we
can have a discussion on now
and in the future.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
TYLER GIANNINI: So
Chris and Thomas
have teed up some of
the key things that
are the personal challenges from
the life-threatening security
situations that advocates
face every day to the role
of the Global North.
It's interesting
that both of those
don't necessarily pop off
the page as legal issues.
And often what we're dealing
with in clinics and practice
is we know the law.
You're obviously not
allowed to crack down
and kill people related
that are doing human rights
defense work.
And so it becomes about judgment
calls on how do you engage.
That's a lot of what Chris
and Thomas are teeing up
as the personal challenges.
So we're going to
pivot to a scenario.
And so we'd like groups
of three or two-- however
is your neighbor.
And this is kind of an example
of one of the things that we do
in the clinic quite regularly
is try to get teams of people--
it's normally not one individual
that's making a judgment call--
to focus in on making
judgment calls.
The law is in the background.
You obviously need to
know the law when you're
making these judgment calls.
But a lot of these
are ethical dilemmas.
And so we'd like you to
spend 10 minutes talking
to your neighbors,
friends, colleagues.
Some of you have been
colleagues for years.
We can see the laughing
and smiling in the room.
So hopefully that will continue.
We're also going to
have a discussion
up here with each other.
We'll turn off the mics.
And then at the end of
the 10 minutes, come back.
We'd like you to have then a
discussion with the panel--
Chris, Thomas, anybody can
participate at that point--
about things that have
come up from the scenario
but also from what
Chris and Thomas raised.
And then we'll wrap up the
personal challenges piece
and we'll pivot to the movement
challenges, which Chris,
I think, has teed up quite
nicely as one of the key things
to talk about in
the second hour.
[SIDE CONVERSATION]
SUSAN FARBSTEIN: OK,
I think we're going
to call people back together.
We should say that when we
use this scenario in a class
setting, we usually take about
an hour to work through it.
So we understand that
we're cutting people short.
But hopefully it
gives you a window
into the way that we
try to present problems
and challenges to
students and get them
to start grappling with it.
Given the limited time, rather
than having different teams
report back about what you
decided or what you thought,
we thought that it
might be interesting
for you to ask
questions of the panel
if there were things
about the scenario
that you found particularly
sticky or confusing,
or you didn't know how
you would handle it.
We thought that we would move
the conversation that way.
So we'd love to hear from groups
about places in this scenario
that you felt really stuck.
Yes?
AUDIENCE: Hi.
One thing that my
team and I discussed,
which has happened to both
of us in different contexts,
is if you sometimes
help someone,
we feel like they might
feel pressured to give you
information, and how playing
that role as a lawyer
can be very difficult to handle.
We don't want people
to feel pressured
like they have to help you
because you helped them.
SUSAN FARBSTEIN: Maybe
we'll just take a few,
and then we can let whoever
wants to respond respond.
Are there others?
AUDIENCE: One thing
that stuck out to me
is that the person
had one contact
or if he had one
local contact, I
would think he could have more
and more resources to connect
people, too.
So that you're not in
the position of being--
yeah.
I took that as a certain
premise here is that this person
[INAUDIBLE].
SUSAN FARBSTEIN: So why
are you working if you only
know one other contact?
AUDIENCE: One
concern that we had
was that since this is a camp
of what seems to be refugees,
and you have this
one child, there
might be other children
who expect the same thing.
And before you know it there's
a substantial mission here
that you were here
to do reporting,
but now you're just
transporting children
from one part of the
country to the other, which
wasn't part of the
mandate and might not
be within your expertise.
AUDIENCE: I think one
of the things that we
were concerned about is
what is the individual's
particular situation right now.
Is she in significant
danger of being
killed or seriously-- whatever.
And that would influence
at least the decision
that we would make.
AUDIENCE: And just along
those lines, what's the--
it seems to stimulate
the interest
in determining before we
go in, what's the impact?
What's the impact going
to be on these people
for having to tell
their stories of trauma,
and how would we best take
care of that in exchange
for what they're giving to us?
SUSAN FARBSTEIN: OK.
Yeah, Michael.
AUDIENCE: I think
the other thing
was about sustainabilities.
If you're removing
this child, are you
really in the child's
best interest,
and are you able to ensure
that a safe environment is
sustainable for the child?
AUDIENCE: What comes to my mind
is a question of boundaries.
And it shows up in a
variety of contexts.
It's not limited to--
someone described
it as [INAUDIBLE]..
It shows up in
conventional law practice,
and it shows up in
individual medical services.
But if we're going to help in
profession, it's inevitable.
You wouldn't be doing
this kind of work
if you, on a certain level,
weren't a people person.
And yet if you were advancing
institutional causes,
those truths are going
to be the intention.
And the, I'll say, charitable
impulse, or the detective
impulse, may actually be
intention with your reason
for being there.
SUSAN FARBSTEIN: OK.
AUDIENCE: And I think we
don't really know completely
what the mission is, but I
think one needs to think about,
are you endangering your mission
by stepping out of bounds
and helping this young woman?
So you have to think about
the larger picture of,
why are you there?
What is your purpose?
And are you going to
put that in danger
by helping this specific person?
SUSAN FARBSTEIN: Great.
So obviously, this
room has identified
a lot of issues
that are embedded
in this one little paragraph.
I think what I'll do is
just turn to the panelists
and see who wants to respond
to any of the things that have
been put to us, or if there
were other things that we all
talked about that
you wanted to raise
in terms of how you begin
to answer these really
difficult questions.
THOMAS BECKER: And
I can jump on--
to piggyback on what
you said in terms
of endangering the mission.
I think another question is how
does it endanger potentially
this young girl
or the communities
that you're working with?
I mean, particularly as
an outsider parachuting in
from Human Rights
Watch, I don't know
how to answer these questions.
I think the first
thing you have to do
is talk to your local contacts.
And the community is there
to gauge what this means.
If we take this woman
out, a young girl out,
does she come back?
Is this a temporary
situation that she's
in this community-- will
she be able to come back
if she wants to?
Are we perpetuating--
I mean, how is it going
to look if some outsider
gringo takes some child?
What does that mean for the
other people in the community?
I think it could potentially
endanger a lot of people.
And I wouldn't know
how to answer that
based on this single paragraph.
I wouldn't know how to
answer the question.
And I think you need to look
to people on the ground who
know the community and know the
situation better than someone
who's come from the
outside to analyze this.
CHRIS MBURU: This is a
very interesting scenario.
And I really think it's a very,
very important mind-jogger
for all of us.
For me, I've dealt
with all these issues.
As I alluded in the
past, we've actually
rescued activists, specific
activists, out of danger
and ferried them
out of the country
through the help
of the embassies.
And there are some
questions-- why
are you doing that to those?
What about the
others left behind?
There are always
these questions.
But when you're in the field
dealing with these issues,
you have to take
razor sharp decisions
based on individual cases.
There are certain
cases you look at,
and you say, now I
am intervening here.
And I'm going to deal with it.
However, there are
a lot of things
that we are cautioned about.
One, do not be a rumble.
Do not think that you
can do everything.
Try to use existing services.
In a lot of these
countries, there
are a lot of services that
would actually work better
for the interests of
this girl or the source
that you're dealing with.
You're not a policeman.
There are police
officers that you
can talk to about
the perpetration
of a criminal case,
a criminal act,
or the ongoing
endangerment of the girl.
Contacts-- you have, as
a human rights advocate,
as a human rights activist,
and if you are a researcher--
you need serious
contacts on the ground.
By the way, sometimes by virtue
of just being seen with a cop,
you've already
put her in danger.
So sometimes you actually
have to talk to the girl
but then disengage from that.
But you're not really
abandoning her.
You have set in motion a
barrage of interventions
through your contacts.
And we've done a lot of this.
When we went to Ethiopia
and the government would not
let us deal with any
of the dissidents,
we would talk to the dissidents.
But then we would just have
a casual conversation--
how is your situation?
We would not even carry notes
because the government would
take the notes away from us.
But then, based
on what we heard,
we would get the relevant--
some NGO, some local
NGO, some local chiefs,
some local women's rights
activists or lawyer--
deal with that.
And then we would
fly back to London,
the Secretariat of
Amnesty International,
and just wait for the
information to come,
and the interventions
that we left behind
would be successful.
So that's very important.
However, when you are dealing
with a source in human rights
advocacy--
for you to have
advocacy, you need data.
You need information.
So when you have a
source that is giving you
credible information,
you need to find out
how to get that information.
Because if you have
a right to report,
you're going to be lambasted
if the report is not credible.
And in terms of human
rights collection,
obviously, the most
important thing
is what we call
the primary source.
This girl is a primary source.
She's a victim.
That's a primary source.
Then there's the
secondary source,
where you hear from
her father saying,
this is what happened
to my daughter.
Then there are even more
post-secondary sources,
where an NGO tells you a
report was brought to us,
and this is what happened.
So when you are in front
of a primary source,
you are in front of a
treasure trove of information
that will give your
report in the future
a lot of credibility.
So you have to be
very careful about how
you deal with that
without endangering,
but at the same time making sure
you collect every little data
that comes out of that.
That's second.
Third, we have what we call
the "Do no harm" policy.
It's very, very important.
My friend Viviana has
been working a lot
on these issues in other
parts of the world,
and she knows that very well.
So make sure whatever
intervention you have--
human rights is
about protection.
You have to have that at
the foremost objective,
that you are out
there to protect.
If you are in danger,
then you are doing harm.
So you have to make sure
that that balancing is done.
So that "Do no harm"
policy is very important.
Then the other thing
we always caution about
is not being tempted
to buy information
or to create an incentive
to have information.
In human rights,
what we have found--
if you want information,
you'll get it.
But that goes either way.
If you want bad information,
you'll get bad information.
You'll go there and
say, anybody who
tells me how many people are
raped here will get $100.
You'll get 100 rape allegations.
So you have to be careful
about what you've done in front
of especially the victims.
So you have to let them
tell their stories.
Let them come from the heart.
You should not be prodding,
and you should not be obviously
buying the information.
I was troubled a bit about
this whole arrangement
where he's trying to get
the housing done and all
this thing, because that's
creating an incentive.
And in a situation
like that, you'll
have somebody who was not a
victim tell you it happened.
Because they think that
that is your mandate.
So we have to be very
careful about that.
And finally, we always remember,
there are two forms of danger--
danger to you as a human
rights advocate and factfinder,
and danger to the source.
So again, you have to
counterbalance that.
I was in Eritrea, and
we found women who
had been attacked in a raid.
And they were sitting there,
and we needed to help them.
And it was getting late, and
we had to make some decisions.
And we decided that we were
going to look for services.
But the team behind
us decided that she
was going to take these
women in their vehicle
and bring them to Addis Ababa.
But then, because
those women were there,
the convoy fell under an attack.
So these people endangered
themselves and endangered
the security of the sources.
So those are some
of the dynamics
that you really
have to watch when
you're looking at these issues.
KRIZNA GOMEZ: So Thomas
and Chris already gave
a lot of important tips for me.
So taking all of those and
the questions that you raise,
what helps orient my
instincts in a situation
like this is really
seeing myself
and my organization as
part of an ecosystem.
It's not even just
having contacts.
It's really understanding
your role and the fact
that you're part of
an ecosystem of actors
as a human rights
advocate, meaning
if I were in that
situation, I wouldn't feel
like, what do I have to do?
No, like what does the entire
ecosystem have to offer?
Who do I know that can
provide this emergency
support, ensuring long-term
safety and sustainability,
who can provide
psychosocial support
to the girl at that moment?
I don't have to do it all.
Perhaps I won't end up
doing any of those services
at all at the end of the day.
It's really connecting the
person to the different parts
of the ecosystem.
And I think that relieves a lot
of the pressure, or the guilt
even, that Thomas referred to.
Like, what do I have to
do as Human Rights Watch,
as this white male
going into this?
But all of us,
whether white, male,
from the North, or a
female from the South,
or working at the UN--
it's part of an ecosystem.
And it's part of our
obligation when we go out
there to make the
effort, aside from doing
the day-to-day job of doing
research, litigation, are
really getting to
know who's out there,
who can help the different
contexts that I'm working on.
So in our case-- so I'm
based in Bogota, in Colombia.
And we work with Venezuelan
activists and non-activists
who are crossing the border
and trying to cross the border.
So the question of
sustainability--
when you help one person,
where do you then stop?
Because we're not an emergency
support organization.
But we know people who do that.
We partner with
organizations that
provide emergency
support, someone who will
then-- we're developing
this protocol.
We were just with some
Venezuelan activists
again last week.
And they were saying, so if
I have to leave next week,
tell me where-- the step-by-step
that you can offer--
from the moment I cross the
border in Cucuta into Colombia.
So we're like, OK, when you
come, we call this person who's
not from our organization.
There are organizations that
provide emergency support,
even funds and housing.
And that's what they
are trained to do.
And I wouldn't even
dare doing something
when I know I'm not
trained for that.
So it's really-- the
word for me is ecosystem.
I'm part of an ecosystem.
SUSAN FARBSTEIN: So
I think we're not
going to answer all
of the questions that
were put out on this scenario.
Hopefully, it gives
you an indication
of the way that we would try
to talk with our students
and make them see, make
them understand, how
complicated it is.
I think part of what I'm
hearing, one of the themes
that came out, is
how as advocates,
as human rights attorneys,
of course, we have agency.
We have a role to play.
But we also have to be very
mindful of this "Do no harm"
principle, that as soon
as you insert yourself
into a situation, you've
changed it in some way
by virtue of being there.
And maybe you are changing
it for the better,
but you have to be so
mindful of the fact
that by virtue of showing
up at this informal camp,
by virtue of having
this conversation,
expectations may change.
Realities may change.
So that even if you're very,
very thoughtful about the role
that you're playing,
there is a danger.
There's a risk in
what you're doing.
I think we're going to pivot
now to our second panel.
So I'm going to let
Tyler introduce that one
and talk more about
movement challenges.
TYLER GIANNINI: And just one
reflection that also came out,
I think, for me in
listening, was that a lot
of the dilemmas that were
identified, the questions,
they can't really be reconciled.
And so you have
this duality often
between the
institutional mission
and the humanity of the
person in front of you.
And that sometimes
can't be reconciled.
So maybe the ecosystem
system works.
But sometimes if you're
in an urgent situation,
maybe you're not
tapped into that
because it's a war zone
that's just come up,
and the ecosystem actually
is not well developed.
So part of this for this,
hopefully, the discussion
is so that when
that moment comes.
And we've all experienced
it in our practice,
some variation on this.
You're not surprised by it.
So you can make that decision
and not be paralyzed.
And that's, I think,
hopefully the big thing
that comes out of
our classrooms is
be ready to make those decisions
and not be surprised by them.
The movement challenges are--
we'll see if those are
going to be any easier.
Let's see where we go.
So we're going to
have Meghan, and Sam,
and Kriz give us their
insights on the challenges.
I'm going to keep the
introductions brief.
We could go quite
long with those.
But because we want to move
forward to hear from them,
let me keep this--
Meghan, I'm going to
start with you, OK?
And Meghan is currently
a post-doctoral
fellow in law in inequality--
that is a great post-doc--
with the American
Bar Foundation.
I think we have to
give a shout out.
You just finished your
dissertation last month.
[APPLAUSE]
So congratulations on that.
So she has a PhD in
anthropology from the University
of Chicago, also a JD
from this Law School,
and an MA from Fletcher.
So many degrees and a lot of
different angles on things.
The work that she's
focused on right
now is the role of
law in war and peace
making, with a particular
emphasis on property over land.
And she has a book
project right now called,
"Property in the Shadow of
Post-conflict Colombia."
It's an interdisciplinary
study examining
how property can
become understood
as both the root of violent
conflict and the key to peace.
So that's a little
bit of insight
into one of the
things she's doing.
There's a long history
of work that she's
done that I'm leaving out.
But maybe you'll
touch on some of that
as you get into movement.
Let me introduce Sam
and Kriz briefly, too,
so that we can keep
the conversation going
and just move through.
Sam is next to Meghan, and she
is currently the Health Policy
Leadership Fellow at the Satcher
Health Leadership Institute
at Morehouse School of Medicine.
She's also a
graduate of this Law
School, same year as Meghan.
It's a good year--
and Thomas.
So that's a decade ago.
Maybe I shouldn't
have done that.
But I did.
I'm older than that.
So I think I'm
allowed to do that.
And while here, she worked
on a variety of things
for the clinic.
So that's where our relationship
dates to that experience.
She's maintained
a long commitment
to a range of domestic
and international issues.
So I'm hoping that
Sam is going to be
able to touch on some of the
domestic dimensions of rights
and social justice issues.
She's been looking
at human rights
and the nexus between the rule
of law and meeting human needs.
And during her time as a
practitioner and lawyer,
she's worked on housing,
food assistance in New York,
in South Florida.
She's worked with paralegals
challenging sexual violence
in rural Sierra Leone.
And she's also been engaged with
South African health workers
addressing the legal and ethical
challenges faced by patients
living with HIV/AIDS.
In her current work, she's
looking at the issue of health
more closely.
And I hope that she'll
be able to expand
on this domestic
and social needs
from a different dimension
than some of the things
we've heard so far.
And then Kriz, you've introduced
yourself a little bit.
But there's more
to your background.
She's the Research Coordinator
at Dejusticia in Bogota.
And she has an LLM from this
Law School and a JD from--
I'm going to mess up
the pronunciation--
KRIZNA GOMEZ: Ateneo.
TYLER GIANNINI: Ateneo de
Manila at the University
of Philippines.
Kriz, after
graduating from here,
did a fellowship with the Open
Society Foundation in New York.
And she's been a lecturer
in the Philippines.
She's also worked with other
Asian organizations on access
to justice issues.
And she's also worked
in Cambodia and Uganda.
Currently, she is doing a
lot of experimental work
with methods on how you actually
bring collective knowledge
and new approaches to labs
and scenario-based learning
to problem solving for
human rights issues.
She's closely working on issues
related to the closing of space
of civil society and solidarity
support for human rights
defenders in the Global South.
Again, there is much
more I could say.
But I'll leave it
at that so that we
can hear from other
people besides myself.
So Meghan, I'm going to put you
on the spot and have you start.
MEGHAN MORRIS: All right.
It's a total pleasure to be here
in this room with all of you.
Thank you so much
for having me here.
It's just so special.
It reminds me of how
special it was to be here
and to learn from everyone
that I had the pleasure
to learn from when I was here.
So thank you.
And challenges to the movement--
you used the word tension
and duality in your wrap-up
of the last panel.
And that is how I
was thinking of it.
Because I think some of the
challenges to the movement,
at least for me,
are really old ones
that don't go away, that
history keeps repeating itself.
And I thought of
three that I think
are really critical
that are old,
but that they crop
up in new ways.
And one of them, Thomas touched
upon in the first panel, which
is this real tension between
legal advocacy and organizing,
that at their best can
really support each other,
but at their worst can
work at counter-purposes.
And I'll tell a little
story about this
that I think will help lead
into the second tension as well,
and that is as many
of you may know--
and I know some of you know
very deeply in this room--
Colombia just went through
a long peace process
to sign a peace agreement
with the FARC guerrillas, just
signed in 2016.
And during the
organizing around peace,
what was really interesting
to me and very disturbing
was the fact that many prominent
international human rights
organizations spoke out
against the peace process,
and on the basis of the idea
that it would foster impunity.
And this is from international
human rights organizations,
but also some other ones
in Latin America, who
had worked really
hard for many years
to build a transitional justice
framework that would adequately
bring accountability
for dictatorships
in the Southern Cone,
for example, and then
around the world really, and
in the transitional justice
scenarios that played
out after that.
And so there was such
a devotion to this body
of law, which is very fragile,
very difficult to win.
But unfortunately
at the great cost,
I think, of seeing the
bigger picture of what
people organizing around
peace are trying to do,
which is bring an end
to a 60-year civil war.
And that tension between what
legal advocates really thought
was important, just
like protecting
a fragile body of
law that had been
difficult to win against a
broader notion of justice
or peace that wasn't just about
accountability in the form
of prison sentences, was really,
really difficult to resolve.
And I saw this from the
very micro interactions
of Argentine lawyers,
and Colombian organizers
and lawyers, to
official statements
by major international
human rights organizations
executives.
So I think that's a tension
that's really hard to resolve.
And it leads into
a second tension
that I'd like to
talk about, which
is that between
this kind of notion
of accountability and
notions of justice or peace
that we might have.
And I think that domestic
situations are really
seeing this play out a lot
with really important moves
towards pushing for
accountability for people
and power on many fronts,
from police officers who
disproportionately execute
violence against people
of color to business
executives who make decisions
that are really detrimental
to the health of people
on the planet.
And those movements, I think,
are really, really important.
And in many of these
situations, what's
justice for folks
who are affected
might indeed be accountability
in the form of incarceration.
But what does that mean for
broader movements of ways
that we might
think about justice
for the push against
mass incarceration,
for the push against
accountability
as understood as prison
sentences, which I think
are really, really important
movements right now as well.
How do we think about
those things together?
Those are really
hard to sit with.
How do we move away
from the carceral state
and also ask for a kind
of justice that's real
and that affects the kind of
power imbalances that we have?
I think that is a tension
that's really, really
hard to deal with, in that
we as human rights advocates
should be in a position of
sitting with and thinking
about every day.
And then finally,
the third one is one
that the great work that this
clinic has done, I think,
really shows and has
really been pushing
on for a long time, which
is the very long division
between civil and
political rights
and economic and social rights--
just how hard it is
to work for change
that actually asks for
structural, economic change,
just how difficult that
is to get living wages,
to get environmental
protection, to get
health care, clean
water, in our own country
and other countries, compared
to doing work on civil rights.
I think it's really striking how
hard it has been for how long.
So those are three tensions that
I think are really important.
I think about how clinical
education can address these.
From my personal standpoint, the
education I got in this clinic
was fundamental, and especially
thanks to the clinic,
and especially to Tyler--
fundamental for
being able to even
think about these
tensions, to recognize them
as tensions and not as something
that has clear answers.
And I think that's a really hard
thing for law students to grasp
and very important
for clinics to do
is-- and I think Tyler and Susan
have raised this with scenarios
and other in other settings--
is to say there aren't clear
answers.
Law students really like clear
answers, as you guys all know.
And I think it's just
the clinic's role
to show them that in the real
world there aren't very many.
There aren't very many
clear answers in there,
aren't very many good
solutions, and there
are very few victories.
And that to do the work still,
because the work is still
important, even
though you might not
have something that looks
really clean, crisp,
and clear at the end.
And I think another
really important thing
for clinics to do is
something that we talked--
I think all of you raised,
that was raised on the panel
by several of you-- is just to
be good listeners to movements,
to be critical thinkers, and
to listen to people as to what
they think might be a good or
a bad strategy, a failure--
what's a failure
or what's a victory
might look really
different to someone
that you're working with than
it does to you at the outset.
So to really just listen hard,
I think, is a really good lesson
that this clinic teaches--
I think is very important
that clinics teach.
And then, finally, yes to make
judgments based on the law,
but also to make
judgments on the basis
of a sense of justice, your own
sense of justice, but also--
our sense of justice, but
also the sense of justice
that the movements and people
that we're working with
might have, which might be
very different from our own,
and that might be unclear
at the beginning, but is
figure out-able, often.
And that sometimes
they put law students
in the very
uncomfortable position
of having to push--
instead of push for law
or push to build it--
push to break it down,
push to change it, and
push against compliance
with the legal standard,
as in the case of Columbia.
And I think that was the
right thing to do was to say,
yes, we have a body of law
that was very hard to win.
But no, we're going to do
something different here.
Because that's important for
our broader sense of justice.
So I think that's hard
when you're in law school,
as many students think that
we're here to learn the law.
I remember so many times as
a 1-L year in this class,
they'd be like,
but what's the law?
Students.
And when the question
becomes, well,
what do we do with
it because it's
not doing what we need to do?
I think it's a hard one.
So those are things I think
this clinic taught me to see,
and that I think is
really important for us
to think about in terms
of these broader tensions.
TYLER GIANNINI:
Thank you, Meghan.
We'll come back to the
things that you've raised.
And there'll be some
questions and discussion.
Sam, hopefully you can build
off of Meghan's thoughts
and add some new
dimensions to this.
SAMANTHA BENT-WEBER:
Hi, everyone.
Thanks to Susan and Tyler, and
everyone at the Human Rights
Clinic for inviting me back.
I actually became a student
at Harvard Law School
because I wanted to work
in the Human Rights Clinic,
and I'm not even
exaggerating about that.
And that's exactly what I
did for much of my time here.
And it was a really
important experience to me,
so I'm grateful to have had it,
and I'm grateful to be back.
I, like Meghan, had three
thoughts I wanted to share,
and I wanted to
touch very briefly
on my clinical experience.
And some of what I say
is going to overlap
with what several people on
the panel have already said.
So forgive me if I'm
a little redundant,
but I think it's a
testament to where
we are in the current
moment, both in terms
of being able to look
back and recognize
the ways that the human
rights movement, which
is now in its 60s and has been
really critical to refashioning
our world in good and bad ways.
It still presents some
of the same problems
over and over again,
and challenges
us to kind of think critically
and do some of this work
in new and creative ways.
So the first thought I
had was, or the first sort
of tension or challenge
that I thought of
was that, there's a
question about the role
of modern human rights, which
privileges and really relies
upon, and as undergirded by
democratic norms and principles
at a time when democracy
and its various elements
are under siege, being
called into question
and being undermined
in many ways, even
in the longstanding democracies.
And I raise that, and that
is all I'm going to do.
Because it's very
much an open question,
and I think opens a large
debate that I myself--
I'm not even sure how
to begin to crack.
But I do sort of feel
like it may become
the prevailing question for us.
I mean, people do human
rights work in places
that are not democratic.
And people on the ground,
local activists, local people
engage in really
important, really critical
transformative human
rights work in places
where democracy doesn't function
very well or even exist.
So my point is not that you
need democracy for human rights,
but we are sort of,
as practitioners
here in the global north,
in places like Harvard,
are sort of guided by the
idea that, ultimately, we're
trying to get good
constitutions,
and good legal norms, and
entrench the rule of law.
And what happens when those
things just become a joke
or treated as a joke by
people in positions of power?
So I hope people will have some
insights about that or comments
about that.
The next thought I had
concerns human rights--
the tension, actually,
that Meghan alluded to.
Well, not just
alluded to but really
engaged with surrounding
civil and political rights
versus economic
and social rights.
This longstanding
battle between the two--
what does it mean that the large
human rights institutions, both
in sort of both the private
institutions and also public
institutions, have
really privileged
civil and political rights.
Because frankly, we
haven't figured out a way
to talk constructively
and practically about
how to create systems
where we pursue and achieve
not just economic equality but
real equity where we invest
in developing humans
and improving people's
circumstances based on where
they are meeting people
where they are.
And I think that
question becomes
more acute as the sort
of post-World War II
social contract that many of
the modern northern democracies
invested in the creation
of welfare states
and the creation
of tax systems that
resulted in public investments.
That social contract is
also under siege, right?
And that has not always
worked for many people
living in these societies.
But now the vast
majority of people
are finding that social contract
is not living up to its promise
and, again, is not only
being called into question
but undermined.
And so what does the human
rights movement offer
both in a rhetorical sense, in
terms of the language we use,
in terms of the language we
develop to advocate around
economic and social
issues, but also
in terms of the
infrastructure that we create?
What kind of systems do we
create to actually improve
people's living conditions?
That question has been
very acute for me.
And one of the reasons why I
have been sort of tormented
as someone who feels
very emotionally invested
in human rights principles
because I have worked in
places like Sierra Leone,
which exists at the bottom of--
or close to the
bottom-- of the world
index on human development.
And I have also worked
in very poor places
in the United States.
And a lot of us
have that experience
of grappling with
the tension of,
what does it mean that
there are people living
in our rich country
who are as poor as
or whose life
outcomes are actually
as bad as those of people who
live in much poorer places?
Where is the language for that?
On what basis do we
advocate around that?
And I think that
question is going
to continue to confront
the human rights movement.
It has from the beginning, and
that's not going to go away.
And I think it's going
to become even more
acute as economic
inequality and the shortage
of language around equity
becomes even more deeply
entrenched in our world,
as the gap between the rich
and the poor grows.
And then the last
thought I had is
very personal for me
because I've struggled
with how to sort of frame this.
There's a question
about what kind of role
the modern human
rights movement can
play in bridging the divisions
that exist among movements.
So for example, as a
person of African descent,
I live in a country where
people of African descent
are, at a sort of broad
level or statistically
speaking, their health outcomes,
economic outcomes are really
terrible, actually, as
compared to the rest
of the living in this country.
Well, actually, no, that's
not totally accurate,
but as compared to many other
people living in this country.
And so recognizing
that, what it means
to attempt to pursue racial
justice in the United States,
but then to think about racial
justice and economic justice
outside of the United States,
and to be able to recognize
that there are actually
really deep seated connections
between these justice
movements and to be
able to articulate that?
I have found that
that's been a challenge,
and I think it will
continue to be a challenge.
Again, because we
have social movements
that are developing where people
from the global south, also
due to the rise in
social media and people
being able to get
their voices out
are being able to
articulate that.
There's a huge racial
component to the disparity,
and the disparity that
exists between the global
and north and south.
But that there are
actually connections
between what happens among
social movements in the United
States, and what happens among
social movements in places
like sub-Saharan Africa, or the
Indian subcontinent, or Latin
America.
And I'm not sure that the human
rights movement has figured out
ways of being able to articulate
what some of those connections
are and to be able to create
a space where we can actually
frame, say, policing issues, or
disproportionate lack of access
to health care among
native populations
or among African-American
populations in the United
States as being human
rights issues in the way
that we are able
to frame violence
that takes place
in Syria or Congo
as being human rights issues.
And I think that, again, is
sort of a rhetorical challenge,
but it's also an ethical
and a legal challenge,
and a policy challenge
that I think that, again,
the human rights
movement has grappled
with since its inception.
And that's not going to change.
And that's OK because
these kinds of movements,
and making change, and changing
our world is a dynamic thing.
And we were talking yesterday
about the idea that progress
is something that we
think we've come very far,
and then we realize that we
actually take steps backward,
and we need to start over again.
And that's part of the
human condition, right?
So that's, I think,
undergirding all of my comments,
and maybe some of
the other comments,
is that that's where we are.
And recognizing
that but also being
willing to grapple
with that and continue
to grapple with that is the
gift and the pain of doing
human rights work.
So I just wanted
to shift quickly
to talk about my
experience in the clinic.
My clinical experience
was in some ways
complicated because I
came to Harvard, as I
said, to work in this clinic.
And I'm really glad
that that's what I did.
I had great colleagues
and great advisors,
and built some really
wonderful relationships
that were really important to me
to kind of expand my thinking,
but also to recognize
the way the ways
that students and faculty
here are just amazing.
Like, people do
really amazing work,
and they are such
critical thinkers.
And it was important for me
to be able to be in a space
where I could do
lots of hard work,
but also be able to observe
my colleagues and classmates
in their awesomeness.
And what I mean by
their awesomeness
is I do think that I
had the experience of--
so I had the experience
of being basically,
I think, the only
African-American in my class
who really was involved in the
clinic in the way that I was.
But also, I was
in a space where I
could have conversations
with people that were
honest about what that means.
What it means to be in a place
where most of the advocates
don't look like the people on
whose behalf are advocating,
and the ways that
they're sort of grappling
with those questions and
thinking about those questions.
The other thing that
I really appreciated
about being in the
clinic was that I got
to invest a lot of time here.
And not just because I
got to spend a lot of time
in the offices, but because
the projects I worked on I
was able to be involved
in from start to finish.
And that meant a lot
because it meant that--
we've talked about building
networks and building
relationships with
people on the ground
and in local communities, and I
was able to do that and really
go back.
The main project I worked on
over the course of my time
here, it took me
to South Africa.
And I was able to
spend two years
getting to know the people we
worked with and interviewed,
and building
relationships with them,
and really grappling with
some of the challenges that
came up in our research.
So I mean, it could just be a
function of this place having
a lot of resources,
but I also think
it's also a function
of the willingness
on the part of the
faculty to invest
in the relationships with local
organizations and local people
to see things through.
And that was a really
important takeaway for me.
So thank you.
TYLER GIANNINI: Kriz.
KRIZNA GOMEZ: Yeah.
Hi, good morning.
So before this workshop
started, Jerry Neuman,
who was my professor in
international human rights law,
dropped by saying
he couldn't make it
because he has his class.
I actually see him over there.
And so I asked him,
so how are you, Jerry?
He said, I'm good.
The world is in crisis.
But all things
considered, I'm good.
I said, Jerry, I am not going to
talk about the world in crisis.
I am going to talk about this.
And I showed him my cheat
sheet, and the top word is hope.
And that's what I'm
going to talk about.
Not only because I think that's
the response to the challenges
to the human rights
movement, but I
think our failure
to embrace that,
not only at a psychological
level, but at a tactical level
is causing some
of the challenges
we have of the human
rights movement.
So before I go
into the hope part,
I'm going to talk about
the despair part, right?
The way I see it, we just
finished a two-year research
precisely on the challenges
to the human rights movement,
especially presented
by populist governments
and populist movements.
Actually, here's that book.
I'd love not to have to
carry them back to Bogota,
so if you can
please grab a copy,
my husband and I will
be very grateful.
So the two parts
of that despair--
the first are the internal
critiques or challenges
within the human
rights movement, right?
And Meghan alluded to it,
and some of the panelists
alluded to it.
They're old.
The challenges or
the allegations
against the human rights
movement by human rights
practitioners ourselves is that,
first, we're too technical.
We use human rights jargon.
We use the law in a way
that we lose people.
We lose communities.
And you always hear this, we
have to build constituencies,
like an afterthought.
But we've become technocrats
at what we do, for good reason.
Especially at the beginning
of the human rights
movement during its
flourishing after the Cold War,
where international
law and law in general
was the tool to address some
of the atrocities in the world.
The second one is
we're too detached.
And by detached, not
just to the public
because of our
being too technical,
but also within the movement.
You always hear this
word silos, right?
AUDIENCE: What's the word?
KRIZNA GOMEZ: Silos.
AUDIENCE: Silos.
KRIZNA GOMEZ: So you have legal
human rights organizations,
NGOs, like my organization.
And how often do NGOs actually
work with social movements
or e-activists?
Individuals who don't
even identify themselves
as human rights people,
they just want change,
or they speak that language
of social justice and not
necessarily rights or the UN
Declaration of Human Rights.
The third one is we're
supposedly too old.
By old I don't mean age
like Tyler referred to it.
But age-- too old in
terms of our tactics.
And there are two top
tactics that we've been using
in the human rights movement.
The first one is
naming and shaming.
And that's presents
a problem at a time
when governments have no shame.
Before, a corruption scandal
can bring down a government.
Now, Erdogan has had how many
corruption scandals, and he's
going strong?
Orban in Hungary, as well.
And let's not even talk about
the country we're in right now.
And the second one is a
law-centered discourse or law
as the tool.
It is one of the powerful tools
historically and until today,
but many human rights
organizations, especially
lawyers, were trained,
like what Meghan said.
And we always think first about
the law when sometimes the law
is not the response,
especially at a time when
governments love using the law.
They love changing
constitutions.
They love passing
legislative reforms.
They love holding elections
to do the opposite
of what we want to do.
In the book, we discuss
some of the common things
in the playbook of populists.
The first thing is
you come to power,
you change the constitution
through a proper constitutional
amendment process, right?
You do an election to
perpetrate yourself in power.
So as lawyers,
having lost our tool.
And now governments are using
the exact same tool we've
been using to work against us.
How do you grapple with that?
The second part of the despair
is precisely these governments.
We try to focus on populist
governments instead
of authoritarian governments
or dictatorships.
Some call them competitive
authoritarianisms
or democracies without rights.
We focus on populism,
and by that,
I'm going to speak
briefly by what we mean.
And I think having
that understanding
of what we mean by
populists and what they do
or their nature
allows us to respond
more effectively to them.
The first characteristic,
for us, of populous
is that they're anti-elitism.
They speak using a
moral claim of an elite
that they're
supposedly representing
the real people against.
So they frame that we
are the real people.
Everyone else who's not the
real people are the others.
And the definition of who
the elite is is very fluid.
There is no objective
definition to that.
Here in the United States,
Trump who's a billionaire
calls himself as fighting
the elite in DC, right?
In Hungary, the elite would
be the Muslim immigrants
who are against the interests
of Christian Hungarians, whose
rights and interests
are being threatened
by the influx of immigrants
across the border.
In India, it would
be the Muslim Indians
who are threatening the life
and the traditions of Hindu
Indians.
So there's that pitting of
the elite versus the other
that's such a powerful narrative
that I think we were not
trained anywhere in
our work to deal with,
because we were taught to put
out a report, a book, something
like this.
These are the facts.
These are the legal arguments.
This is the law, the
violation of the law.
And these are the solutions.
The second one is this
anti-pluralism of populists,
meaning they're not against--
they're not against debate.
They're not against elections.
They like contests
but not genuine ones.
And because their
claim is a moral claim
as to who the people
is there's no way
that you can win against them.
And understanding those
two, I think, is key for us
to really grapple with this big
challenge of the human rights
movement.
Now, these two have
cost the certain frame
of peril and crisis
that Jerry referred to
before we started this morning.
And it's everywhere.
You see human rights reports.
The titles are--
I remember some.
They're global civic
space emergency,
democracy under siege,
democracy and crisis,
et cetera, et cetera.
And they have factual
basis for that.
But using that frame of
peril in crisis, this
is the predominant
frame, causes us
first to lose people
outside of the movement,
and second to lose people
within the movement.
Within the movement,
it causes depression
within the human
rights community when
you feel like you
work 20 hours a day,
and you feel like the
world is falling apart.
I had that more than a year ago.
I was at my office.
I had a few difficult months.
And then I was in
the office, and I
had that light bulb moment after
those months of reflection.
When I said, OK, I'm going
to leave human rights.
That's what I'm going to do.
And that was caused
by months of thinking,
what impact am I making?
The world is under siege.
The world is falling apart.
So what's the point, right?
Well, I've come
from the other side.
I'm right here, and I'm
a renewed human being.
But that's one.
And the second one is--
there's this fantastic blog
by the head of brand of
Amnesty International.
His name is Thomas Coombes.
The title of his blog
was Hope, not despair,
and why we should communicate
hope instead of fear
in human rights.
And there are cognitive
science studies
that show that when you
trigger fear in people,
you trigger their base
instincts of defense.
So when people are fearful,
especially when they
read titles like that of
the world under siege,
they tend to be more defensive
and more conservative.
But when you make people feel
safe and when they have joy,
they tend to get in
touch with the upstairs
part of their brain that has
to do with empathy and rational
response.
But how do you do
that when we're
trained to write reports that
have tied those of democracy
in crisis?
And we talk about
violations and not
so much about the victories,
or the life of a refugee
rebuilding his or
her life after being
integrated into a community.
We talk about refugee
influx, and violations,
and the terrible conditions,
but not so much about joy.
Not so much about hope.
There's a fantastic
book by Kathryn Sikkink.
If you haven't read it,
I suggest you get it.
It's entitled Evidence for Hope.
And she says we
should have hope,
but not because we
should have hope.
But there is data supporting
that there is hope.
She says that it's
actually not true.
She did a statistical study
showing that, in fact, we
are at a much better place
now in terms of human rights
than before.
There are many
reasons why we think
human rights is in crisis.
That it's the end
times of human rights.
But in fact, if you look at it,
there are less genocide today.
The infant mortality
rate is much lower.
Our socioeconomic conditions in
different parts of the world,
of course, with exceptions,
are much better.
But there are a number
of reasons why we tend
to focus on negative things.
The first is
psychologically we're
wired to have bias for
negative information, right?
And the second one is
we've pushed the goal post.
We've actually, for example,
in domestic violence,
expanded the definition of
what domestic violence is.
Necessarily, you will
then have more cases
of domestic violence reported,
either because the definition
is broader, and
perhaps because people
know more on how to report
cases of domestic violence.
And she said that we should
be careful in putting out
there this frame
of crisis and peril
because you can lose
people within the movement,
and you can lose people
outside the movement.
So I'm going to go now
to the part about hope,
this frame of hope and renewal.
And it's hope on the basis of
fact and the basis of action.
And with the clinic--
so I've always
been quite a reflexive person.
But I think the
clinic made it worse.
I took the course
of Tyler and Susan
on human rights
advocacy and litigation.
And one word I took
away from that,
I am not sure I remembered
everything else,
was reflexivity.
So the first human rights course
I organized after my alum,
I was like, we have
to have a module
about reflexivity
and human rights.
So that course has been
going on for five years now.
And that module on
reflexivity is still there,
and that's your
fault. So therefore,
practicing my
reflexivity today, I'm
going to leave with,
I think, three things
that the clinic has
been doing a lot of.
And I think it's
something for us
to think about in our daily
work-- which the first one is
emotion; the second
one is innovation;
and the third one
is collaboration.
What do I mean by emotion?
I said that we tend
to talk in jargon
and technical language,
the right to this and that,
which is important.
I'm not discounting that at all.
But often, the success
of populist governments
in getting so much
public support
is their ability to reach
into people's emotions,
into their values, the use
of stories and narratives.
Do we do that in our work?
Do we see ourselves as
responsible for also reaching
into what matters to people
and not just what we think
should matter?
In that chapter, there are
two beautiful examples.
One from Hungary by the
Hungarian Civil Liberties
Union.
And the second one is this
caravan of love in India
where they really use this
emotion and this values
and stories to reach
to people at a time
when they are under siege.
So the Hungarian
Civil Liberties Union,
you must know what's
going on in Hungary.
Viktor Orban just won a super
majority in the parliament,
and his first legislative
effort is the Soros package,
which is a set of
laws that is supposed
to crackdown against NGOs
supported by George Soros--
basically liberal NGOs.
Because he's saying
that Soros is the devil.
And so what they
did was they were
being attacked as foreign
spies, paid mercenaries.
These are really the terms
that he uses in the media,
not unlike what's going on
now in the United States.
So what HCLU did is to not
respond to those attacks.
They didn't go out there
with a press release saying
we are not paid mercenaries.
They didn't even
repeat any of the words
that were used against them
or against civil society.
Instead, they launched a
campaign called #HCLUisneeded.
In doing that, what they
did was they put out
their stories, personal
stories of their staff
of why they decided to
work in human rights,
and why they decided
to work HCLU.
It really says, hi, I'm Chris.
I'm this age today.
I decided to work here
because this and that.
And they also put out their
stories of their clients,
not on their most controversial
issues that are divisive,
but on issues that most
Hungarians can identify with--
on disability, on pension, et
cetera, saying HCLU helped me,
this and that--
to make people feel that human
rights is for everyone, not
just for minorities.
It is for minorities and
everyone in the community.
They did not repeat the message.
We were running a lab recently
with the International
Network of Civil
Liberties Organizations.
ACLU was in the room.
HCLU was in the room.
And there was a group
that said, we're
going to launch a campaign
where we're going to do a march.
And we're going to say
we are not terrorists.
And then one of the experts
in the room from Green Peace
was like, you realize by
launching that campaign,
you are repeating the message
that there's an allegation
that you are terrorists?
Which HCLU did was to not
repeat the message at all
and tell their own story.
They used stories.
They talked to musicians,
people with huge following
in social media.
They asked families to
talk to their families
and share on Facebook about--
HCLU is needed.
And one day there was
a protest in front
of the parliament in Hungary.
They did not organize
that protest.
And people started chanting
HCLU is needed, HCLU is needed.
So it got entrenched in
people's imagination,
the public imagination.
It was beautiful.
The other one in
India is Harsh Mander,
who was for 10 years the
commissioner on the Right
to Food case of the
Supreme Court of India's.
So he's a lawyer.
He's a jurist.
There has been a surge in
the case of public lynchings
of Muslims in India.
So what he decided to
do, he wrote a blog,
and then he called for
a caravan to be done.
They traveled from the
east to west of India,
entirely crowdfunded,
all volunteer-based,
to travel to the
sites of lynching
and talk to the families
of those who were lynched
and who were killed.
And there was no talk of the
law or of any legal issue there.
He was just there,
and his colleagues
were there to listen
to the families
and to put out that great
symbolism of compassion
and care in Indian society
that is often lost because
of this Hindu-Muslim divide.
But the beautiful part as well
with that is after the caravan,
he partnered with the
Human Rights Law Network,
and they started filing
cases against those who are
responsible for the lynching.
And they just had their
first legal victory.
So the second one is innovation.
We're taught in law
school, and I love
how it was repeated on and on.
And I was just talking to Tyler
about the different initiatives
in the clinic about
the lab, et cetera.
I was trained as a lawyer.
I never thought I would
be doing design thinking.
I was sent to a
training in Stanford.
And I was like, OK, you're going
to learn about design thinking.
And you're going to start
running labs using design
thinking, scenario planning.
I'm going to train Palo
Alto on futures thinking.
Because as a human
rights advocate,
you can't just know the law.
You have to have all
these tools because you
have to treat a problem with
systems thinking in mind.
That means you have
to have all the tools
and all sorts of
discipline that can
help you approach a problem.
The third one is collaboration,
and I touched a bit about it
on ecosystem.
But collaboration with other
fields, not just the law.
Within the law,
with other fields,
and also between the global
north and global south.
I know Thomas spoke
a lot about it.
And being someone from
the global south, that's
also a daily struggle for
me in a different way, which
is how do I promote
collaboration
within the global south?
And how do I promote
collaboration
between the global south
and the global north?
Because we have so much that
we can achieve together.
And so that's a big
chunk of my work
now, which is this
north/south collaboration.
SUSAN FARBSTEIN: I kind of feel
like we should just stop now.
But I think Tyler
and I had a-- so
we had hoped to have time
to speak with all of you
about success and how
we define success.
I think, for the sake
of time, Tyler and I
are just going to share
a few closing thoughts
about that to wrap it up.
Although, I feel like we've
done a wonderful job of kind
of leaving on a
high note, so we'll
try to stay with that theme.
One thing I wanted
to say about success,
first, is that I
think we're doing
a better job with self care.
As people who do
this kind of work,
that's not really something
that's come out today,
but it's worth saying.
That when I started
doing this work,
people did not talk a lot about
the toll that it takes on you.
And now that's something
that's embedded
in our clinic and the way
that we teach and train.
It's something that I think
more and more organizations are
thinking about.
And it's important because we've
heard this as a very long game
that we're playing.
So we have to take
care of ourselves
as if we're going
to be sustainable.
So to me that's one
important mark of success.
I think another theme
that's come out really
clearly today is how much
more collaborative we are,
and how the movement, and
human rights language,
and human rights tactics
are becoming more diffuse.
So, yes, of course,
there's still
all of the criticisms
that are very
present about the kind of the
dominance of the global north.
But I feel that more and more
organizations and individuals
are taking the approach
that Thomas articulated
where we are in the
background, where
we are in a supporting role.
Where the old tactics,
the naming and shaming,
the litigation that Chris spoke
about, are kind of falling away
and are replaced more and
more with something that,
again, we try to teach in the
clinic, which is this community
lawyering approach where we
are in a supporting role, where
we are working in partnership.
And especially in
a moment where we
have heard a lot about
the crisis that we're in
it seems like that
is the only way
forward-- is to
work collaboratively
and to work in a
supporting role.
The final thing
that I wanted to say
is that when I was
thinking about success,
I had this realization that
it feels to me like, even when
we're losing, we're winning.
So part of that comes from being
in this crisis moment, which
hopefully opens up more and more
opportunities for us to think
creatively and
collaboratively in the clinic.
I mean that in the sense
that even when we're losing,
we are still training the
next generation of students
to be able to do
this kind of work.
So even if we don't
have the outcome
that we want on a
particular project
or on a particular
case, I'm totally
confident that the students
who have been working on it
have taken the lessons and
will carry them forward.
And especially
listening to all of you
and realizing that you
all came through here
and are now out in the world
doing this kind of work,
I'm like, oh, we
really are winning.
But the last piece
of that brings me
back to where Thomas started,
which is the Mamani case.
I was looking back
at an op-ed that I
had drafted towards the end
of the trial when, I think,
many of us were concerned
that we were going to lose.
Because you never know with the
jury what the outcome will be.
And I was looking at the points
that I had made in that piece
about the importance
of the case,
about the opportunity for the
clients to tell their stories.
About the defendants
having to sit
in court day in and day
out and answer questions
and answer for
what they had done.
About kind of reaffirming that
US courts are a place where
justice can be sought and maybe
be found about the shaming
aspects of it.
And all of these things
that were so important
were wins regardless
of the outcome.
So yes, it is wonderful and
lovely that we won this case.
But the value and the success
of it was in doing it.
So I think that
that's where I want
to close in terms of success.
TYLER GIANNINI: I don't
know if I have much to add,
so I'll try to be brief
since we're right at 11:30.
In thinking about
the success, one
of the things that
I started with
was that the law is really
a struggle over power.
And a lot of what we're
doing is, yes, we want
to achieve the rule of law.
But a lot of success
is actually when we
make the law less oppressive.
And kind of thinking about
our success in negative terms
was not where I wanted
to start, but that's
a lot of what my
experience has been
is either holding the
line, pushing back
on the oppression of the law.
But the law, not as a good
thing, but as actually a
place where the powerful
and the privileged
are using it to
instill and entrench
values that are not the ones
that I hold close to my heart.
And that's often
what we're doing.
I think that's why the
doing is actually important.
Because the markers of a
verdict, that Thomas talked
about, we need to celebrate.
Or working with
colleagues who are
able to be advisors to ICAN,
which won the Nobel Peace
Prize for its efforts to get a
treaty to end nuclear weapons.
Those moments need
to be celebrated.
We do.
Those markers need
to be the ones
that we celebrate, pop the
champagne, which we've done.
But it's the smaller
moments between them
that hold it together for me.
And part of what today
and these last two hours
have done for me is instilled,
or reaffirmed for me,
that there's so much collective
knowledge in a room like this.
And that's part of the moments.
These two hours is a moment.
And the way that this
group that I know,
and I've met Chris
for the first time,
and bringing knowledge that
he has brought to the table
into this conversation for me.
That collective knowledge
is part of the success
of what builds movements.
That's the second thing for me.
The other thing, I think,
is that the first hour
was personal.
The second hour was
about movements.
I think we can't
disentangle the two.
And often we talk
about system change,
but system change can
not be disconnected
from the individuals.
And every one of the
people that spoke today
had those connections.
The way Thomas talked
about, yes, this--
it's historic in
the sense of holding
a powerful person to account.
But it starts with individuals.
There's always the
individual that roots us.
And that connection has
to be there and always is.
I've never seen a success where
you have one without the other.
The last piece for
me is that this
is a day of celebrating
HLS in the community.
And we've talked a lot about
service in other settings--
not as much today.
But for me as I thought
about HLS and the community,
I thought about,
this is a school.
It's a law school.
And we talk about
teaching and training.
But for me, a school
is a place of learning.
And that's what we do.
That's what the
collective knowledge is.
And so for me, as I thought
about what sustains me,
this gets to the
self-care, is that I
feel so fortunate to
be a learner every day
in this school, to learn from
Meghan, Kriz, Chris, Thomas,
Sam, and Susan.
Susan and I get to
do it every day with,
almost every day-- not weekends.
SUSAN FARBSTEIN:
A lot of weekends.
TYLER GIANNINI: True.
But also the colleagues I
work with and the students.
And I think I'll close
with these thoughts.
That so much learning comes
from students every day
that we work together.
And over the last
couple of days--
this is kind of the bittersweet
month of graduation's coming.
People are reflecting.
There's lots of time to think
about the last three years,
but also looking forward.
And four things came to mind.
I'll close with this.
One is that the students
show me every day
what it means to be an
advocate by showing up.
And they show up in our clinic.
And they show up in spades.
The hours they put in, the
commitment they put in?
That's the first success
is just showing up.
The second is what Meghan
said-- is they bring
their values to the table.
So they show up,
and they show up
with their values about what
they think the law can be.
And they do that
with their hearts,
but also with their minds.
They combine the two together.
The third thing is they
help create memories,
which I think is a
real part of success
is they help create memories
for me and hopefully for them.
But those memories
and what we do,
and I can look at
them and the ones
that I've worked with
closely over the last month,
and I could probably
point to each of them
and say just one word, and
it would trigger a memory
for both of us.
And I have that with
colleagues, too.
The last piece is that
because this is a school,
I hope that we part
with always remembering
to learn from each other and
the communities we work with.
So we thank you for
today and the discussion
and celebrate the
rest of the day.
It's sunny today.
[APPLAUSE]
