Where we can share when the CHRGJ faculty, staff, students and fellows participate or are recognized in areas unrelated to our Center's main projects.

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.

In his statement to the Council, Alston began by referring to his many years of work promoting the importance of independent investigations into unlawful killings, and asserted the “compelling need for an objective and impartial international investigation” into the attack on the humanitarian flotilla off Gaza, as well as into “allegations that as many as 30,000 persons were killed in Sri Lanka in the closing months of the conflict.”

In his report on targeted killings, Alston acknowledged that they may be lawful in the limited context of armed conflict, but he strongly criticized the use of such killings “far from the battle zone”, and the lack of transparency and accountability in targeted killings operations. He especially questioned the use of CIA-operated drones, because the US does not disclose, “when and where the CIA is authorized to kill, the criteria for individuals who may be killed, how it ensures killings are legal, and what follow-up there is when civilians are illegally killed who is killed, why the attacks were launched.” Alston said that “Intelligence agencies, which by definition are determined to remain unaccountable except to their own paymasters, have no place in running programs that kill people in other countries.”

In his report on election-related killings, Alston noted that it was a phenomenon that received far too little attention. He carried out a detailed study of most of the countries that had experienced such killings over the last 3 years, proposed the first detailed typology for how to understand them, and reforms to reduce their occurrence. His police accountability report found that one of the major causes of police killings was the failure of many Governments to hold police perpetrators to account, and he proposed best practices for creating effective police oversight mechanisms.

In his report on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Alston strongly criticized a UN supported Congolese army operation that led to brutal killings of civilians, and he called for significantly stronger civilian protection by both the Government and the UN. Alston said, “The alarm bells that I have sounded have been largely ignored. We have continued to see poorly planned and under-resourced military operations, reprisal attacks by rebel groups on unprotected civilians, the failure to arrest war criminals serving in the Congolese army, many hundreds of civilians killed, and many more displaced and gravely injured, often at the hands of the very troops whose duty it is to protect civilians.”

Alston also called attention to the death this week of Floribert Chebeya Bahizire, a human rights defender with whom Alston met in the DRC, and who Alston described as “a hugely respected human rights leader” who was “killed in Kinshasa in circumstances which strongly suggest official responsibility.”

In his follow-up report on Brazil, Alston noted that while the Government had been very cooperative and had implemented some important reforms, police continued to kill at alarming levels, and that in some areas, the phenomena of “resistance” killings by police had actually worsened.

Alston’s reports to the Human Rights Council are the last ones he will submit to the Council as Special Rapporteur, as his 6 year Special Rapporteur term will end in July 2010. In his statement to the Council, Alston said, “In reviewing my six years as Special Rapporteur I would suggest that the broad range of activities I have been mandated to undertake by the Council have mattered a great deal. Lives have been saved, lethal practices have been abandoned, greater caution has been shown, and awareness of the issues has grown at many levels.” Alston thanked, the “many State representatives who have been extremely supportive of my work” and the “officials of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.” He also said that he wanted, “to thank my extraordinary colleagues at New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice who have provided invaluable assistance to me.”

He closed by saying, “Most of all, I thank those human rights defenders in the many countries in which I have worked, without whose amazing courage and dedication to the cause my own work would have achieved very little. Many face death on a daily basis in struggling to protect human rights.”

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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.

HIGHLIGHT FROM THE CENTER

NYU makes final round in 2010 Jean-Pictet Competition on International Humanitarian Law

NYU’s team in the 2010 Jean-Pictet Competition on International Humanitarian Law made its way to the final round, for the first time since 2000. The competition took place in Orford, Quebec, Canada, and finished on March 27. The NYU team of Colin Gillespie (’11), Graham Dumas (’11) and J. Benton Heath (’11) were among only three teams to make it through to the Final Round. Eighty-seven teams from 47 countries had applied to compete, out of which 45 participated. The teams are divided into two English-language sections and one French-language section, with one team from each section being selected to compete in the Final Round. The winner this year was the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya of Israel.

The Jean-Pictet Competition is one of the most challenging and prestigious of the various moot court competitions in the field of international law. Its focus is on international humanitarian law (IHL), and the event is hosted each year by an independent organization and sponsored by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Canadian Red Cross, the Canadian and Swiss foreign ministries, and others. The challenge is to “take law out of the books” by using simulations and role plays to allow the jury to evaluate both the theoretical knowledge and practical understanding of IHL. The situations revolve around a fictitious, but nonetheless realistic scenario of armed conflict.

Philip Alston, one of the Directors of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, which, together with The Hauser Global Law School Program, supported the Team, remarked that “this is a terrific performance by a really dedicated group of students. The Pictet Competition is one of the very best of the moot competitions and for Colin, Graham and Ben to have excelled in it is a great achievement.”

Read more about the Jean-Pictet Competition...

STUDENT HIGHLIGHT

Student Highlight: Reena Arora, Recipient of the 2008-2009 Arthur Helton Global Human Rights Fellowship

After graduating with my J.D., I received the 2008-2009 Arthur Helton Global Human Rights Fellowship to work with the Migrant Assistance Program (MAP Foundation) in Chiang Mai, Thailand for a year. Prior to attending NYU School of Law, I worked with the MAP Foundation in Southern Thailand, assisting Burmese migrant workers after the tsunami wreaked havoc and destruction in the area. I am enormously grateful for the opportunity the fellowship has provided by allowing me to return to work for the MAP Foundation. With my newly acquired skills from law school, I now feel I can really contribute to the organization that generated my initial interest in labor migration and migrant worker rights to begin with.

As a fellow at the MAP Foundation, I primarily work with the Act against Abuse project on labor rights, as well as one known as the POSH project, which promotes occupational health and safety. Overall, I help to manage the legal casework, utilize the information from this casework for advocacy efforts, and prepare domestic and international campaigns. I also recently had a chance to interview migrants for Human Rights Watch, gathering accounts of restrictions being placed on their basic liberties by the Thai government. I also have the opportunity to conduct capacity building workshops for MAP Foundation staff and volunteers on international human rights law as well as human rights investigation and documentation.

In addition to these projects, I work with a regional organization, Mekong Migration Network, of which MAP Foundation is a member. This organization seeks to examine the issues of migrants within the Greater Mekong sub region—which consists of Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Yunnan Province of China. Through the Network, I have helped to develop the curriculum for a three-week training course on labor migration management for government officials in partnership with Mekong Institute, an academic training institute at Khon Kaen University. The Mekong Migration Network also produces an annual resource book on migration; this year’s theme is the impact of cross-border economic zones. I’ve assisted them on this book by helping them develop primary research questionnaires and secondary research to help to analyze the results of the questionnaires using the framework of international human rights law.

At the MAP Foundation I am considered a full-time staff member and have already been offered an opportunity to join the staff after completion of my fellowship, which would allow me to continue my work. I am deeply grateful for the opportunities this fellowship has given me and strongly encourage other law students with a passion for human rights to pursue the fellowship.

Read more about the Arthur Helton Global Human Rights Fellowship and other student opportunities here.

FACULTY HIGHLIGHT

CHRGJ Directors Margaret Satterthwaite and Paul Van Zyl Recognized for Career Achievements

Professor Satterthwaite Receives “Pioneer of Justice and Equality for Women and the Law Award”

On Saturday, March 14th, 2009, CHRGJ’s Faculty Director and Associate Professor of Law Margaret Satterthwaite was publicly honored by the Women’s Association of Law Students at Pace University School of Law, who awarded her with the “2009 Pioneer of Justice and Equality for Women and the Law Award.” At a private awards ceremony, the Dean of Pace Law School, Michelle Simon, and the President of the Women’s Association of Law Students, Carly Lynch, addressed an audience gathered to honor Professor Satterthwaite’s for her dedication to human rights issues throughout her distinguished legal career. Past honorees of the award include Catherine MacKinnon (2008) and Congresswoman Nita Lowey (2004).

CHRGJ’s Director of Transitional Justice, Paul Van Zyl, was named NYU School of Law’s “Alumni of the Month” for March 2009

Van Zyl will also be honored the weekend of April 3rd, when the law school holds its 2009 Alumni reunion, at which he will receive the “Recent Graduate Award” (For more information see, here)