This year, our members will work on projects focused on a range of human rights issues worldwide. In each project, our members work under the supervision of leading international or domestic human rights NGOs and civil society organizations. Learn more about several of our previous projects below!
Exploring Legal Frameworks for Counterterrorism (2025-26)
Students worked with the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), an independent human rights organization in Northern Ireland founded during the Troubles. Students conducted comparative legal research on the regulation of state agents across different jurisdictions. This research focused on undercover officers and informants who infiltrate domestic organizations for counterterrorism and security purposes. Students explored the extent to which different legal regimes authorize criminal conduct by state agents, as well as key human rights issues arising from governments’ use of state agents. Students used this analysis to prepare research memoranda to assist CAJ and other partners in better understanding state practice and legal frameworks in an under-researched area of counterterrorism law.
Accountability for War Crimes in Sudan (2025-26)
Since April 2023, armed conflict in Sudan has severely impacted civilians. Belligerents have caused mass displacement, killed families, perpetrated sexual violence, detained activists, and systematically destroyed property. Students worked in collaboration with LexCollective, a global network of legal minds with diverse expertise, and the Sudan Human Rights Hub to investigate potential war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the armed conflict in Sudan. Students prepared a memorandum exploring the war crime of starvation under international law, analyzing instances in which the crime may have been committed in Sudan, and examining how the war crime of starvation differs from the related crime against humanity of extermination. Students also explored how their findings could be used in non-judicial accountability mechanisms.
Supporting Shrimp Industry Workers in India (2025-26)
Students supported Corporate Accountability Lab on a project focused on the shrimp industry in India. This project was developed in response to a 2024 Corporate Accountability Lab report entitled “Hidden Harvest: Human Rights and Environmental Abuses in India’s Shrimp Industry,” which illuminated severe human rights and environmental abuses in the Indian shrimp sector. Students conducted legal and factual research in support of CAL, drawing on relevant jurisprudence as well as factual sources.
Examining Amnesties in Post-Conflict Contexts: Lessons for Syria (2025-26)
Since the fall of the Assad regime in 2024, the Syrian interim government’s transitional justice efforts—including the potential use of amnesties—remain uncertain. Students worked with a Huquqyat—a women-led organization of self-identifying women legal practitioners working on accountability processes for Syria—on a research project examining the use and legality of temporary and conditional amnesties in post-conflict and post-authoritarian settings. The team conducted research on transitional justice processes from different contexts to examine how amnesties have interacted with victims’ rights and how international bodies have interpreted the legality and implications of amnesties for international crimes in the aftermath of mass atrocities. The research was intended to support Huquqyat’s knowledge-production for advocacy and stakeholder engagement.
Prosecuting Human Rights Violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2025-26)
In 2021, an armed conflict broke out between M23—a non-state armed group backed by the Rwandan government—and the Congolese military in a remote area of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Thousands of civilians have been killed, and millions have been displaced. Students worked in partnership with an international NGO to explore avenues for holding high-level perpetrators of the violence accountable. Research covered alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as other violations of international law, committed in the context of the ongoing armed conflict in eastern DRC. Students prepared a legal submission in a domestic jurisdiction that outlined alleged crimes committed by specific perpetrators and made the case for accountability measures, including potential sanctions.
Effective Clearance of Landmines in Yemen (2024-25)
Advocates partnered with Human Rights Watch (HRW) on a project exploring potential international law violations associated with landmine use in Yemen, including violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Students considered, for instance, how landmines can result in violations of civil and political rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights. Students used this research to draft a legal memorandum that outlined the different ways in which landmines could result in violations of international law. The memorandum supported HRW’s efforts to advocate for an end to the use of antipersonnel landmines in Yemen, as well as to advocate for greater support for landmine clearance efforts to respond to displaced communities’ needs.
Defending Sexual Orientation and Gender Rights in Africa (2024-25)
Advocates partnered with the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA), a Pan-African and feminist initiative that aims to change the way that strategic litigation is used to enable broader access to justice and to support those who seek to hold states accountable for violations of women’s human rights and sexual rights. As part of their efforts to advance Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression (SOGIE) rights in Africa, ISLA undertook a comparative legal analysis to understand the interplay between law, politics, and societal attitudes in the Americas and Europe. To support these efforts, students analyzed SOGIE rights litigation before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights to identify their potential applicability in the African human rights system.
Additional previous projects have included:
- Assisting with a legislative advocacy project to advance corporate accountability in state courts in the wake of Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, in conjunction with the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable and EarthRights International;
- Drafting and submitting a brief to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of a survivor of torture in close collaboration with a Russian human rights organization;
- Conducting field research on the persecution of the Ahmadiyya minority in Bangladesh; and
- Writing an Amicus Brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in a case regarding torture in Somalia.