New York University School of Law has long been at the forefront of scholarly work on civil liberties and human rights. In 2002, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice was established to bring together and expand the rich array of teaching, research, clinical, internship, and publishing activities undertaken within the Law School on issues of international human rights law.
What's New
PRESS RELEASE
Statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions on his mission to Ecuador
Professor Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, delivered a statement today at the conclusion of his 5-15 July 2010 mission to Ecuador. His mission investigated hired killings, killings by police, insecurity and killings at the Colombia-Ecuador border by armed actors, lynchings, indigenous justice, social cleansing, and impunity for killings.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CENTER
Center Director, Margaret Satterthwaite, awarded funds for human rights research study in Haiti
The timing couldn't have been better. On June 22, Associate Professor of Clinical Law Margaret Satterthwaite '99 learned that the University's Global Public Health Research Challenge Fund had awarded her $15,000 for a human-rights research study in post-earthquake Haiti. That very day, she was in Haiti, meeting with partner organizations on the project, which will examine whether services for gender-based violence and food and water aid are implemented in a way that advances women's human rights. “Since the earthquake, gender-based violence has become a serious human rights and public health problem in Haiti, with women reporting that they are vulnerable to rape and harassment in the camps, especially when accessing food, water, and sanitation services,” says Satterthwaite.
PRESS RELEASE
Release of UN Special Rapporteur Statement on Flotilla Inquiry
(11 June 2010) Today, Professor Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, released a statement calling for any Israeli Inquiry into the flotilla incident to be set up in accordance with international standards. He stated that for the inquiry to be credible, it must be independent of the government, it must be given full legal authority to investigate, and its final report must be made public. He also stated that it must be able to interview all key witnesses, including military personnel, and that it should have access to all video and other records of the incident, including those confiscated from civilians.
His comments were based on conclusions drawn from his previous detailed study on the international standards relevant to inquiries.
The statement and the inquiry study are attached. For further information on the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, and for access to his reports, please visit www.extrajudicialexecutions.org
HIGHLIGHT FROM THE CENTER
Rules for Drone Wars: Six Questions for Philip Alston
9 June 2010, Harper's Magazine, Scott Horton
"Last week the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, NYU law professor Philip G. Alston, issued a study on targeted killings in which he exhaustively reviewed and critiqued the United States’s use of drones, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I put six questions to Prof. Alston about his conclusions."
HIGHLIGHT FROM THE CENTER
Op-ed: Sex and the City 2's Wardrobe Malfunction
(4 June 2010) My girlfriends and I watched every episode of Sex and the City, and the first movie, together. We knew its limits, but still loved its interesting and outrageous women and their amazing (and sometimes disastrous) wardrobes. The show celebrated how one group of American women lives, loves, works, and plays, and refused to judge the four friends. It was therefore shocking to see Sex and the City 2 work overtime to stereotype women in Muslim countries as subjugated and ignorant.
Sex and the City 2 turns truly ugly when it fixates on the wardrobe of veiled Muslim women in Abu Dhabi, UAE -- the holiday destination of the film's four main characters. The film is unsubtle in its disapproval of women who wear the veil: the characters crack jokes about burqinis and Carrie -- in the film's lowest point -- openly mocks a local woman for eating French fries under her veil. When the gals stumble across a women's book club and discover bright clothes (designer of course) lurk beneath the burqa, it is unclear whether they're more shocked that veiled women eat, read, swim, and gossip or that they too like fashion. What is clear is the message that we can, and should, judge women and their entire religion or culture based solely on what they wear.
HIGHLIGHT FROM THE CENTER
Professor Philip Alston presents final reports to the UN Human Rights Council, receives worldwide media attention
Professor Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, presented 10 reports this week during his annual presentation to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on 3-4 June 2010. Alston is mandated by the UN to investigate allegations of unlawful killings in all countries around the world.
The reports presented by Alston, who is also John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at NYU, included his annual report, which assesses the key activities over the six years of his mandate, proposes wide-ranging reforms, and reviews the law and policy of unlawful killings, as well as country reports on his fact-finding missions (on Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Albania) and follow-up country reports (on Brazil and the Central African Republic). He also presented a report of all the communications he engaged in with Governments over the last year, and three in-depth reports on targeted killings, election-related killings and police accountability. All of these reports, and the accompanying press statements and extensive media coverage, are available at www.extrajudicialexecutions.org.
* * *
For further information, please contact Sarah Knuckey, Director of the Project on Extrajudicial Executions at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, NYU School of Law at sarah.knuckey@nyu.edu; or visit www.extrajudicialexecutions.org. The Project on Extrajudicial Executions provides support and advice to the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, and carries out legal and policy research on unlawful killings.
