CPIAC is deeply woven into Northeastern Law’s academic and interdisciplinary fabric through its faculty co-directors and affiliated programs that connect the center to clinics, co-ops and pro bono initiatives across the law school and university. This campus-wide reach lets CPIAC channel Northeastern’s public interest mission into concrete opportunities like fellowships, clinics and cross-disciplinary projects on issues from environmental justice to criminal justice reform to human rights..
Beyond Northeastern, CPIAC extends its work into national and international networks. Through its affiliation with ESCR-Net, the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, CPIAC students — under Professor Lucy Williams’ supervision — have contributed to a case law database used by a collaborative initiative of more than 280 NGOs, social movements and advocates across more than 75 countries working to build a global movement to make human rights and social justice a reality for all. Students have distilled lengthy international social and economic rights rulings from countries like India, Colombia and South Africa into concise summaries, giving global advocates who lack major research libraries direct access to that jurisprudence.
CPIAC is also tied to iSERP (the International Social and Economic Rights Project), an informal, international network of lawyers, judges, other human rights advocates and academics focusing on social and economic rights. Notably, Northeastern Law’s Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration and other campus groups hosted iSERP member Dr. Amaya Alvez Marin, a renowned member of the faculty of the University of Concepción in Chile, illustrating how CPIAC actively brings global human rights scholars and practitioners into direct dialogue with the Northeastern community.