Human rights clinics work alongside partners, communities, and affected individuals around the world to advance justice, prevent and remedy human rights violations, and address the structural disparities that lead to abuse and inequality. All of our clinic partners have shown deep commitment and resilience while engaging in creative, inspiring advocacy and resistance. Alongside our partners, we aim to teach students to become strategic, creative, ethical, and resilient lawyers, able to engage with the world’s most complex and ever-shifting challenges.
The Stanford International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic and the University of Chicago Global Human Rights Clinic are engaging in a multi-year project to advance LGBTQI+ rights globally. In some contexts, the criminalization of homosexuality, targeting of sexual and gender minorities, and ongoing stigma against the population mean that LGBTQI+ persons are under constant risk. LGBTQI+ groups often work to challenge perceptions, policies, and laws that discriminate on the basis of identity. However, the road to ensuring equality in law and in practice is often bumpy, and advocates experience setbacks in the process. Through dialogue with activists around the world, many of whom engage in this work despite severe personal costs and risks, we are documenting: how can advocates respond to legal, political, and societal ‘losses’? How do we cultivate hope and the resilience to resist in the face of losses? How can we build cross-movement? How can we change narratives, and influence public perception and opinion on issues that relate to identity?
This session will draw on lessons from this project to explore the role of clinics in supporting movements working on stigmatized issues that have experienced significant setbacks and/or backlash. It will also examine the role of clinics as a hub for cross-movement learning and transnational exchange, and the role of such exchange in fostering resilience and resistance.