How do we meet increased student demand for meaningful international experience as budgets dwindle across the country? Must we reduce direct client representation and rely on more “academic” work such as amicus briefs?
This session will present a recent project of the International Human Rights Clinic at Seattle University School of Law and examine it over several phases. The case involved: researching and drafting a merits petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; requesting and obtaining precautionary measures from the Commission; using those measures (which instructed Mexico to protect the health of our wrongfully-incarcerated client) to leverage negotiations with federal authorities to achieve our client’s release; and eventually obtaining a wide-ranging settlement for our client and his family.
We will examine how we engaged clinical students in each phase of the project, over about five years—discussing the many positive experiences, as well as our mistakes and miscues. We will also consider how costs can be managed for such litigation, and emphasize the centrality of trusted partnerships “on the ground” in the foreign country. Another major objective of the session is to encourage participants to share their successful methodologies for international human rights litigation.