2024
- January 31: Professor Martha Davis, an internationally recognized expert on human rights, is a finalist for a position as the UN independent expert on a democratic and equitable world order. Seventeen eligible candidates were considered, and Davis is among the top three candidates ranked as best qualified to fulfil the UN mandate for the position, which promotes and encourages respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all and respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, peace, democracy, justice, equality, the rule of law, pluralism, development, better standards of living and solidarity. (more)
- January 25: For the second time in two years, PHRGE submitted testimony to the Massachusetts General Court’s Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security in support of the proposed Safe Communities Act (S.1510/H.2288), which seeks to protect the civil rights and safety of all Massachusetts residents by limiting the involvement of local law enforcement officers in federal immigration enforcement. (more)
- January 9: During an ABA webinar titled, “A National Human Rights Institution for the U.S.: Why Don't We Have One?,” Professor Martha Davis and her co-panelists agreed that a presidential commission should study the need for such an institution. (more)
2023
- November 27: A group of the nation’s preeminent law professors and legal scholars, including Professor Martha Davis, has submitted an amicus brief in Texas v. Zurawski, a case challenging Texas’ abortion ban. The brief filed November 21 argues that the Texas state constitution provides independent protection for the life and health of pregnant people, and that this protection is violated by the operation of the Texas statute that purports to ban abortion except in the case of a life-threatening medical emergencies. (more)
- November 3: PHRGE is claiming meaningful success in the just-released UN Human Rights Committee’s concluding observations on water rights following PHRGE’s presentation of a report on the discriminatory nature of water access in the United States. PHRGE faculty director Professor Martha Davis and students Jennifer Loveland-Rose ’25 and Zain Walker ’24 traveled to Geneva in October to present the PHRGE report, “Drinking Water Access and Affordability and U.S. Compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” on behalf of Food & Water Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights and residents of Jackson, Mississippi, who continue to suffer from decades of disinvestment in their city’s water infrastructure.
- October 27: PHRGE has released a new report, “Safe Communities in Massachusetts: The Response of Massachusetts Municipalities to the Immigration Enforcement Policies of the Trump Administration.” The report, co-authored by Elizabeth Ennen ’08, director of PHRGE, Andra Lehotay de León ’23 and Colleen Maney ’20, details how towns and cities in Massachusetts responded to Trump-era immigration policies by enacting “safe community” or “sanctuary” policies at the municipal level. These policies are designed to express support for immigrants and to decrease the participation of local police departments in federal immigration enforcement.
- September 13: PHRGE has partnered with Food & Water Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights and community members of Jackson, Mississippi, to submit a coalition report on drinking water access and affordability to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. As part of its 139th session which convenes in Geneva on October 9, the Committee will conduct a review of the U.S. with regards its implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). (more)
- August 30: In recognition of its national leadership in preparing students for public interest lawyering, Northeastern University School of Law has been ranked No. 2 for public interest in the 2023 “back to school” issue of preLaw magazine. The magazine also awarded the school “A+” grades in health law and human rights. (more)
- August 14: PHRGE is pleased to welcome its fall scholars, Julia Canney ’25 and Alina Carrillo ’25. (more)
- May 3: PHRGE has released the latest publication in its series on water and human rights in the U.S., “Data on Tap: Realizing Human Rights through Water Utility Reporting Laws. This briefing paper examines U.S. initiatives to promote water policy transparency through the lens of the human right to information. (more)
- March 22: For World Water Day 2023, PHRGE collaborated with the University of Miami Human Rights Clinic and the Indigenous Safe Housing Center on two new, accessible fact sheets on the human right to water. One fact sheet provides general information about the right, including government obligations to ensure access to water. The other fact sheet addresses issues relating to indigenous water rights, including access to water for spiritual and cultural uses.
- March 6: Sanea Lamas ’24 calls for the fundamental human right to water in a new opinion piece that supports Mass. legislation to advance water equity through utility reporting requirements, including reporting on the number of water shut offs. Lamas focused on this issue during her fall '22 coop with PHRGE, where she made important contributions to its longstanding project on the human right to water. (more)
2022
- December 16: PHRGE is pleased to welcome its spring scholars: Princess Diaz-Bîrca ’23, Emma Nyabisi Onsongo LLM ’23 and Isabella Ulm ’24. (more)
- November 17: Professor Martha Davis, a faculty co-director for PHRGE and an internationally recognized expert on human rights, has been appointed as a 2022-2023 fellow of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. The hub of the Harvard Kennedy School’s research, teaching and training in the human rights domain, the Carr Center embraces a dual mission: to educate students and the next generation of leaders from around the world in human rights policy and practice and to convene and provide policy-relevant knowledge to international organizations, governments, policymakers and businesses. (more)
- October 20: PHRGE has released the latest publication in its series on water and human rights in the US, “How Five Creative Water Utilities Are Assisting “Hard-to-Reach” Renters as Water Rates Rise.” The briefing paper examines innovative water assistance programs that reach renters and its release coincides with Imagine a Day Without Water, a national day of action that brings together diverse stakeholders to highlight how water is essential, invaluable and in need of investment. (more)
- October 1: Professor Martha Davis, a faculty co-director for PHRGE and an internationally recognized expert on human rights, contributed a chapter to the winner of the inaugural European Society of International Law Collaborative Book Prize. Her chapter, “Finding International Law ‘Close to Home’: The Case of Human Rights Cities,” appears in Research Handbook on International Law and Cities (Elgar, 2021), edited by Helmut Aust, Janne Nijman, Helmut Aust, and Miha Marcenko. (more)
- August 18: Jennifer Wakefield ’23, a current PHRGE co-op student who recently attended the U.S. CERD Review in Geneva alongside Professor Martha Davis, writes about her experience in a blog for Human Rights at Home: “The six days that we spent at the United Nations were transformative, illuminating and empowering.” (more)
- August 16: Professor Martha Davis reflects on the U.S. CERD Review 2022 in her latest blog for Human Rights at Home. For those who attended the UN’s periodic review of U.S. compliance with its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racism (CERD) last week, “Geneva was a place for imagining an America where human rights and racial justice are firmly enshrined and respected,” she writes. (more)
- August 16: PHRGE is pleased to welcome its fall scholars, Tiffany Wang ’24 and Lauren Yamaguch ’24. (more)
- June 15: Northeastern Law’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) and NuLawLab has collaborated with the Northeastern History Department to design a unique resource for the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief: an interactive map of indigenous religious rights worldwide. Funded by a Northeastern University seed grant, the Northeastern team developed the mapping tool and researched countries’ compliance with religious protections outlined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), submitting the tool to the UN Special Rapporteur in response to a call for inputs. (more)
- June 15: PHRGE has submitted two shadow reports to the UN Committee for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which will be reviewing U.S. compliance with the Race Convention in August. One report, “Race and Representation in the United States: Civil Right to Counsel as a Human Right,” submitted on behalf of the National Coalition on the Civil Right to Civil Counsel (NCCRC), describes the racial impacts of the lack of a guarantee of civil counsel in cases such as housing evictions. The other report, “Toward An Effective National Human Rights Institution for the United States of America,” submitted on behalf of the International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies (IAOHRA), describes issues of systemic racism being addressed by local human rights commissions across the country and makes the case for the creation of a national human rights institution to coordinate and support these local responses. (more)
- May 9: Professor Brook Baker ’76 is among the members of an international coalition of human rights groups, public health experts and civil society organizations that submitted inputs and submitted a petition to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) arguing that Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) are in violation of international human rights law by failing to intervene on inequitable and racially discriminatory rollout of COVID vaccines and other healthcare technologies. (more)
- February 7: Northeastern Law’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) recently submitted testimony to the Massachusetts General Court’s Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security in support of the proposed Safe Communities Act (H.2418/S.1579), which seeks to protect the civil rights and safety of all Massachusetts residents by limiting state law enforcement’s involvement in federal immigration enforcement. (more)
- January 21: Professor Martha Davis, faculty director for Northeastern Law’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy, will brief the US Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) today at noon about the serious crisis of water affordability in Massachusetts. A member of the Commission's Massachusetts State Advisory Committee (Mass. SAC), Davis will present the findings of the Committee's report, Turning off the Tap: Massachusetts' Looming Water Affordability Crisis, issued by the Massachusetts State Advisory Committee (SAC) to the USCCR in December 2020. Northeastern Law students Nilo Asgari ’22, Linnea Brandt ’22, Samantha Cardwell '21 and Liam O'Leary ’20 also assisted the SAC in preparing the report, which urges Massachusetts to adopt the principle that water is a human right and to take affirmative steps to get ahead of the affordability crisis before it spirals out of control. (more)
News Archive
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- October 5: Professor Martha Davis has been selected to receive the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) 2021 William R. Boggess Award for her co-authored paper “An Experiment in Making Water Affordable: Philadelphia’s Tiered Assistance Program (TAP),” which was published in the March 2020 issue of the Journal of the American Water Resources Association.
- July 22: Northeastern Law’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy has released the latest publication in its series on water and human rights in the US, “Voluntary Local Reviews and the Human Right to Water.” The briefing paper examines the treatment of the human right to water in three Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs) prepared by US cities and reports on the local implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) no. 6: “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.”
- June 30: Professor Martha Davis, faculty director for Northeastern Law’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy and NuLawLab, is the co-editor of a newly published book, COVID-19 and Human Rights (Routledge, 2021). This timely collection, co-edited with Morten Kjaerum, adjunct professor at University of Aalborg, Denmark, and director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden, and Amanda Lyons, lecturer in law and executive director of the Human Rights Center at University of Minnesota Law School, brings together original explorations of the COVID-19 pandemic and its wide-ranging, global effects on human rights. (more)
- April 29: In partnership with Northeastern Law's Domestic Violence Institute (DVI), PHRGE has issued a new report, “The State of Housing for Domestic Violence Victims in Boston During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Assessment of Boston as a Human Rights City.” The report lays out six human rights recommendations for Boston to implement to ensure that domestic violence victims’ human rights to safe and adequate housing are protected during the COVID-19 pandemic and similar public health challenges. (more)
- March 29: Professor Martha Davis, faculty director for Northeastern Law’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy and the NuLawLab, is a co-editor of the newly published Research Handbook on Human Rights and Poverty (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021). The book explores the nexus between human rights, poverty and inequality as a critical lens for understanding and addressing key challenges of the coming decades. (more)
- March 5: Professor Martha Davis has joined the academic advisory council for the ERA Project, a new law and policy think tank housed at Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. Headed by Katherine Franke ’86, director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law and James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, the ERA Project develops rigorous academic research, policy papers, expert guidance and strategic leadership to support the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the US Constitution. (more)
- February 2: As a member of the Massachusetts State Advisory Committee (Mass. SAC) of the US Commission on Civil Rights, Professor Martha Davis co-authored a newly-released report on Water Affordability in Massachusetts. Northeastern Law students Nilo Asgari ’22, Linnea Brandt ’22, Samantha Cardwell '22 and Liam O'Leary ’20 also worked on the report. (more)
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- October 8: Professor Martha Davis joined a panel of leading scholars and activists to discuss the additional challenges and risks Romani people are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The webinar was hosted by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights as part of its series on Responses to COVID-19 at Local, National, and International Levels.
- October 6: In a co-authored blog for the American Constitution Society (ACS), Professor Martha Davis highlights Justice Ginsburg's human rights-based approach to equality as a "critical aspect of her legacy."
- August 12: PHRGE is pleased to welcome two new appointees, Alexandra August ’22 and Annery Miranda ’22, to its prestigious fellowship program. (more)
- August 8: Professor Martha Davis has teamed up with Rajat Khosla, human rights advisor for the Department of Reproductive Health Research at the World Health Organization, to author a new article that explores evolving human rights norms and standards relating to infertility. In “Infertility and Human Rights: A Jurisprudential Survey” (40 Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 1, 2020), Davis and Khosla argue that the failure to prevent infertility, the failure to treat infertility and the failure to recognize and respond to infertility and conditional childlessness raise human rights concerns. (more)
- July 22: In conjunction with her participation in Professor Martha Davis’ Human Rights in the United States seminar, Roshni Patel ’20 is the lead author of a new chapter on the water and human rights, supplementing the 2014 edition of Human Rights in the US: A Handbook for Legal Aid Attorneys. The chapter reflects an ongoing collaboration between the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE), co-directed by Davis, and Maryland Legal Aid (MLA). Frank Vitale ’14, senior attorney for human rights at MLA, worked closely with Patel as she developed the chapter and expects to put it to use in MLA’s practice. (more)
- June 22: Over the past three months, Elizabeth Ennen ’08, director of Northeastern Law’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE), has served as a leader of the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission's COVID-19 Task Force Pro Bono Committee. Today the Committee launched a new online portal connecting attorneys and law students to pandemic-related pro bono opportunities that serve low-income residents of the Commonwealth. (more)
- June 8: In the second of a symposium of posts reflecting on the murder of George Floyd, the “Human Rights at Home” blog invites PHRGE Faculty Co-Director Margaret Woo to address “Racism and the Asian American Divide.” (more)
- May 25: In a co-authored op-ed, Professor Brook Baker urges the president of South Africa to declare his support for the Solidarity Call to Action on the COVID-19 technology pool, which will be officially launched on 29 May 2020: “We remind President Ramaphosa that there is work to be done at home amending South Africa’s Patents Act, and instituting emergency measures to temporarily suspend patenting of COVID-19 medical products and to provide for automatic or mandatory compulsory licenses on such products should voluntary measures prove unsuccessful.” (more)
- May 21: Northeastern Law welcomed almost 1,000 participants across Zoom and YouTube to a live, virtual commencement celebration of the Class of 2020 on Thursday, May 21, 2020. More than 200 JD, LLM and MLS graduates were joined by family and friends from the across the globe for the festivities, which included remarks by students, faculty and staff as well as celebratory videos to mark the occasion. (more)
- May 5: The Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) at Northeastern University School of Law is pleased to welcome two new appointees, Cecilia MacArthur ’22 and Andrea Satchwell ’21, to its prestigious fellowship program. (more)
- April 20: "Unless timely action is taken, South Africa could be faced with a new form of “pharmaceutical apartheid,” like that experienced in the early days of the AIDS response, when access to medicines here was blocked by decisions made by rich countries and pharmaceutical companies in the Global North," writes Professor Brook Baker in a co-authored op-ed for Spotlight. (more)
- April 6: "With water, as with access to education, the tragedies of the pandemic are making clear how interconnected we are, and how deeply societal inequality hurts us all," writes Professor Martha Davis in a blog for the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights. (more)
- April 5: "Community-wide responses will help to ensure ""affordable water for all,"" says Martha Davis, newly named University Distinguished Professor. (more)
- April 3: "Although we can expect some pricing moderation by industry in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as it seeks to refurbish its tarnished reputation, the industry’s long-term goals are clear: more monopoly protections for a longer period of time and more opportunities to charge ever higher prices," cautions Professor Brook Baker in a piece for Health GAP. "If industry succeeds, we will reap the consequences." (more)
- March 25: Professor Brook Baker responds to Costa Rica’s request for an emergency COVID-19 Technology Intellectual Property Pool (TIPP) for all countries: “Simply put, no exclusive rights should stand in the way of governments’ and the global community’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.” (more)
- February 24: The Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) at Northeastern University School of Law is pleased to welcome three new appointees, Jeanette Kernizan Adelson ’21, Colleen Maney ’20 and Eric Quetglas-Larrauri LLM ’20 to its prestigious fellowship program. (more)
- January 16: “There is increasing popular support for recognition of women’s rights in the Constitution, and I think that’s only going to continue,” Professor Martha Davis tells The Cut. “This is a campaign that’s gone on for 96 years, and it has not gone away. There’s a lot of energy, and it’s just going to keep going.” (more)
- January 12: Victor Madrigal-Borloz visited Northeastern Law y and shared his experience as the United Nation’s first independent expert on sexuality and gender identity. “In situations of complete exclusion, states refuse to acknowledge individuals as good citizens, as contributors to society,” he said. “In that sense, the key factor is to acknowledge politically, that LGBT persons, that persons of sexual diversity and gender diversity, bring contribution to society.” (more)
- January 8: After a tortured 40-year journey, the Equal Rights Amendment could hit the benchmark it needs to become enshrined in the U.S. Constitution next week. "Nobody thought this would be easy," Professor Martha Davis tells NBC News. "It's been many decades and generations in the making, and there's excitement that it's moving forward." (more)
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- December 10: Professor Martha Davis, co-director of PHRGE, has filed an amicus brief on behalf of Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights and LatinoJustice PRLDEF opposing a Florida law prohibiting sanctuary policies and requiring local police to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Davis argues that the law, SB 168, is unconstitutional and a threat to the state’s most vulnerable residents.
- November 20: "CDC and AIDS service organizations should not be in the unenviable position of having to rely on continued high prices charged by Gilead to get dimes on the dollar of what should otherwise be appropriated by Congress on a sustainable basis," writes Professor Brook Baker in his latest opinion piece for the Health GAP blog. (more)
- November 8: Professor Lucy Williams, an internationally recognized authority on welfare law and low-wage labor, has been honored with a professional achievement alumni award by the University of Chicago.
- November 4: The Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) at Northeastern University School of Law is pleased to welcome two new appointees, Kaila Clark ’20 and Emma Halas-O’Connor ’20, to its prestigious fellowship program.
- October 21: Professor Martha Davis visited NYU School of Law to mark the 50th anniversary of Goldberg v. Kelly, the topic of her seminal book, Brutal Need: Lawyers and the Welfare Rights Movement (Yale University Press, 1995). She joined a panel of experts to discuss the impact of the ruling and the meaning of due process and justice for low-income Americans. (more)
- September 20: Professor Brook Baker shares Health GAP's rapid assessment of the "Lower Drug Costs Now Act of 2019." (more)
- September 9: In both health law and human rights, Northeastern University School of Law has been recognized with an “A+” grade in the 2019 “back to school” issue of preLaw magazine.
- August 14: Listen back: Professor Martha Davis, lead author of a report investigating water affordability policies in a dozen Massachusetts cities, is interviewed on WBUR's Radio Boston. (more)
- July 26: The Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) welcomes two new appointees to its prestigious fellowship program. Congratulations Catalina Carbonell ’21 and Kristen Tully ’20 who will work with partner organizations to protect and promote human rights.
- July 24: “We can’t afford to ignore the impact of rising water prices on the state’s low-income residents,” writes Professor Martha Davis, lead author of a new PHRGE report titled "A Drop in the Bucket: Water Affordability Policies in Twelve Massachusetts Communities," in a piece for WBUR's Cognoscenti. (more)
- July 22: PHRGE has published its fourth publication in a series on the human right to water, “A Drop in the Bucket: Water Affordability Policies in Twelve Massachusetts Communities."
- July 9: 3 drug giants have successfully blocked the drug pricing transparency rule that was due to take effect earlier this week. Marketplace looks to Professor Brook Baker for his expert opinion. (more)
- June 18:In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Alfred Brownell, PHRGE Distinguished Scholar in Residence and 2019 Goldman Prize recipient, talks about how Liberia became so overrun by extractive industries and the steps its government can now take to ensure a brighter future for its citizens and natural resources. (more)
- May 1: The Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) welcomes four new appointees to its prestigious fellowship program. Congratulations to Catherine Houser ’20, Tania Murillo ’20, Khalafalla Osman ’21 and Nick Sabin ’20, who will work with partner organizations to protect and promote human rights.
- April 29: Alfred Brownell, Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the School of Law's Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE), has been awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for his extraordinary work protecting land rights.
- April 5: Dean James Hackney and Associate Dean Margaret Woo visited China to introduce the law school’s new Online LLM program and to discuss possible collaborations in research, teaching and student exchange between Northeastern and various Chinese schools.
- March 21: To mark World Water Day on Friday, March 22, 2019, the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy has released a new publication, The Human Right to Water: Using Freedom of Information Laws to Understand Rising Water Rates.
- February 9: “About Face,” “Fighting the Currents,” “Standing Up for Justice” and many more stories await readers in the winter 2019 issue of Northeastern Law magazine. (more)
- February 8: In his latest contribution to the Health GAP blog, Professor Brook Baker provides an analysis of the Global Fund’s target for its upcoming replenishment cycle. (more)
- February 1: The Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) welcomes four new appointees to its prestigious fellowship program. Congratulations to Kristine Chacko '20, Janae Choquette '19, Jessica Faunce '20 and Rebecca Singleton ’20, who will work with partner organizations to protect and promote human rights.
- November 20: "CDC and AIDS service organizations should not be in the unenviable position of having to rely on continued high prices charged by Gilead to get dimes on the dollar of what should otherwise be appropriated by Congress on a sustainable basis," writes Professor Brook Baker in his latest opinion piece for the Health GAP blog. (more)
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- November 2018: PHRGE Senior Fellow Maria Green was among the civil society representatives at the plenary session of the 8th Meeting of the UN Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDGs Indicators in Stockholm, Sweden. Maria was an invited participant in the subsequent UN IAEG-SDGs Working Meeting on Data Disaggregation.
- October 16, The Institute of International Education Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF) has selected Alfred Brownell, PHRGE Distinguished Scholar in Residence, to receive its inaugural Beau Biden Chair. Dr. Jill Biden, former Second Lady of the United States, 2009–2017, presented the award to Brownell at the IIE’s annual gala in New York City on October 15.
- August 28, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Martha Davis, and Risa Kaufman of the Center for Reproductive Rights, published a blog post and an Issue Brief for the American Constitution Society on Truth is Truth: U.S. Abortion Law in the Global Context.
- July 21-24, PHRGE’s Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Alfred Brownell, was an invited participant at the Carter Center’s Human Rights Defender Forum, “Restoring Faith in Freedom,” held in Atlanta.
- July 20, Alfred Brownell, PHRGE’s Distinguished Scholar in Residence, won a significant legal victory in the struggle to stop the destruction of tropical forest lands in Liberia when the Appeal Panel of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) denied Golden Agric Resources’ appeal against complaints Brownell and his colleagues filed against this company in 2012 on behalf of poor communities and indigenous peoples in Liberia.
- July 23, The Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy is pleased to announce four new appointees to its prestigious fellowship program: Lili Giacoma ’19, Stefanie Gonzales ’19, Thera McAvoy ’20 and Marecca Vertin ’19.
- May 23, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Martha Davis, served on a panel, The Reception and Integration of Refugees: A Task for Local Authorities?, organized by the Cities of Refuge Research Group and held at the University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands.
- April 6, Alfred Brownell, PHRGE’s Distinguished Scholar in Residence, served on a panel, A Shift in Constitutional Frameworks in Environmental Law, Business, and Development in Africa, at the African Legal Conference 2018 at the American University Washington College of Law.
- March 22, PHRGE's Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Alfred Brownell, presented on Taking Back the Land: Strategies Towards Community Control of Land at a Displacement Research & Action event at MIT.
- March 9, PHRGE's Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Alfred Brownell, was an invited panelist for a discussion on Recognition, Relocation and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the 23rd Annual Tulane Environmental Law & Policy Summit.
- February 21, PHRGE's Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Alfred Brownell, was an invited speaker at the BJIL Riesenfeld Symposium on Litigation to Advance International Environmental Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law.
- February 6, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Martha Davis, and Faculty Affiliate, Serena Parekh, published a post to the Human Rights at Home Blog titled “New White Paper on Sanctuary Cities/Safe Communities.”
- January 31, PHRGE’s Executive Director, Kevin Murray and Sara Kominers ’15 co-authored a new PHRGE publication entitled, “The Human Right to Water: A Primer for Lawyers and Community Leaders.”
- January 24, PHRGE's Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Alfred Brownell, Devan Braun '18, published a post to Rightscapes on "Land Rights as a Crucial Strategy for Combatting Climate Change."
- December 12, PHRGE Co-director Martha Davis, and two NUSL students, Alicia Cook and Maraya Best, contributed to the new WaterLex publication, “The Human rights to Water and Sanitation: An Annotated Selection of International Law and Mechanisms.”
- December 8, The Fund for Global Human Rights interviewed PHRGE’s Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Alfred Brownell, about “Rights, Risk, and Resilience in Liberia.”
- December 7 & 8, PHRGE held its 12th annual Human Rights Institute entitled, “Land Rights in the Era of Land Grabbing: The Land Tenure Security Index,” hosted by Visiting Scholar, Alfred Brownell.
- November 5, PHRGE Visiting Scholar, Alfred Brownell, introduced PHRGE’s 2017 Human Rights Institute at the Community Resilience Flash Talk event organized by Northeastern’s Global Resilience Institute.
- November 3, PHRGE's Executive Director Kevin Murray presented on "Trump's Populism and Human Rights in the US" at the iSERP conference in Medellín, Colombia.
- November 2, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Lucy Williams, and Faculty Affiliate, Karl Klare, convened the 8th annual gathering of the International Social and Economic Rights Project (iSERP), hosted by Universidad EAFIT in Medellín, Colombia.
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- October 24, Writing in the Northeastern Law Review Forum, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Brook Baker, comments on increasing access to medicines in South Africa as a result of revamped intellectual property strategies.
- October 25, David Morales, human rights director of Cristosal spoke at a PHRGE Forum entitled, “Human Rights and Impunity in the Age of Trump: Caso El Mozote.” (video available)
- October 6, Northeastern Law student and PHRGE Fellow Matt Barg questions new trends of the pharmaceutical industry in his Rightscapes post, "Do Pharma Companies Still Deserve Legal Protections?" Matt did research on the pharmaceutical industry while working as a PHRGE Fellow with Oxfam America’s Private Sector Office in 2017.
- October 4, PHRGE collaborated with several US advocacy organizations and legal service agencies to present submissions to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, in advance of his upcoming visit to the United States. Students in Prof. Martha Davis’s class on U.S. Human Rights Advocacy drafted the submissions, which addressed the issue of the right to counsel in civil matters and the human right to water.
- September 29, PHRGE’s Executive Director, Kevin Murray gave a talk on “The Human Rights Cities Movement in the United States,” to the Boston Human Rights Cities Project meeting at Encuentro 5.
- September 28, PHRGE Visiting Scholar, Alfred Brownell gave a talk to the Tufts Environmental Studies Program entitled, “Thoughts from West Africa: Two decades of protecting human rights and the environment.”
- September 5, Siri Nelson '19 was named winner of the 2017 Valerie Gordon human rights essay contest for her essay, "Black Lives Matter in Every Town: An Argument for Scaling Up Existing Reconciliatory Practices in the United States."
- September 11, Jason Blanchette ’18 published a post to PHRGE’s blog entitled, “Trump: More Monopoly Pricing in Developing Countries Would Not Reduce U.S. Pharma Prices.”
- September 6 , Jillian Tuck ’12, former PHRGE Fellow and Assistant Director, spoke at a PHRGE Forum entitled “From Law School to Human Rights Leadership: A Personal Account”
- September 5, PHRGE and the Black Law Students co-hosted Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, as the 2017 Valerie Gordon/New Pages lecturer.
- August 29, Professor Martha Davis writes in the Human Rights at Home blog on the decision of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to call formally on the United States to “reject and condemn” racist speech in the wake of racist demonstrations in Charlottesville, VA.
- August 17, Professor Aziza Ahmed was named a 2017-18 Law and Public Affairs Fellow by Princeton University’s Law and Public Affairs Program.
- July 27, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis, received a Fulbright Specialist award for 2017-18 to work with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Lund, Sweden on research related to local implementation of human rights using the mechanism of human rights cities.
- July 11, PHRGE faculty affiliate, Aziza Ahmed, published a post to the blog of the American Constitution Societydemonstrating that the Trump administration’s new rules on the distribution of Federal health funds broaden earlier limits by prohibiting grants to any organization promoting or performing abortions as an element of family planning programs, even when such funds would not be used in connection with abortion.
- July 1, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Brook Baker, writing for the Health Global Access Project, criticizes a recent Canadian Supreme Court Decision, which will make obtaining patents easier for Big Pharma.
- June 27, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Brook Baker examines an anticipated Executive Order from President Trump that may open another pathway for the pharmaceutical industry to amass super-monopoly profits.
- June 20, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Martha Davis delivered the paper entitled, “Let Justice Roll Down: Gaps in the U.S. Legal Infrastructure for Water and Sanitation Equality,” at Law and Society International Meeting in Mexico City.
- June 16, Second-year Northeastern Law student and PHRGE Intern, Tanisha Canty, explores the significance of U.S. non-recognition of the human right to water in her Rightscapes post, “It Isn’t Just About Flint: Water As A Human Right in the United States.”
- June 13, A Boston Globe op-ed by PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Martha Davis, highlights the significance for gender equality of the Supreme Court's Morales-Santana decision.
- June 10, PHRGE Visiting Scholar, Alfred Brownell, spoke on the panel, "International Organizing to Realize the Human Right to Water," at the 2nd International Gathering of Social Movements on Water in Detroit.
- May 26, PHRGE Fellows, Morgan Wilson and Tara Dunn, selected as student speakers at Northeastern School of Law’s 2017 Commencement.
- May 24, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Brook Baker dissects the license negotiated by the Medicines Patent Pool to make the new retroviral drug, dolutegravir, available as a generic in all low and middle-income countries.
- April 19, Kevin Murray spoke at a PHRGE Forum at Northeastern School of Law entitled, “Berta Cáceres, Indigenous Rights and the Violence of Development in Honduras.”
- April 12, PHRGE published “The Human Right to Water: A Research Guide and Annotated Bibliography,” by PHRGE faculty affiliate, Jootaek Lee and Maraya Best ’18
- April 4, PHRGE’s Executive Director, Kevin Murray and Intern, Aja Watkins, report on a Boston City Council resolution to make public schools in Boston sanctuary schools that decline to cooperate with Federal immigration officials.
- March 29, PHRGE announces the 2017 Valerie Gordon Lecturer, Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy. This year’s lecture will take place on Tuesday, September 5 at 7PM at Matthews Arena and is presented in collaboration with the event sponsor, The Northeastern University Honors Program.
- March 17, Based on her recent co-op experience in Mexico, NUSL student, Caroline Kelley, explores potential threats to immigrant workers accessing employment in the United States via the H-2 Visa programs during a Trump administration.
- March 10, ESCR-Net named PHRGE Visiting Scholar, Alfred Brownell, to the Advisory Group of its System of Solidarity(SOS), the mechanism through which it provides protection to human rights defenders facing persecution for their work on economic, social and cultural rights issues.
- March 9, In, “Parole: The Death of Due Process,” NUSL student, Tara Dunn voices the challenges and rewards of her coop job with District of Columbia, Public Defender Services.
- March 3, In this post to the Health Affairs Blog, faculty affiliate, Aziza Ahmed, captures the connections between seemingly disparate actions by US officials and the loss of reproductive control by women in the US and globally.
- March 1, The Eugene Weekly profiled PHRGE Visiting Scholar, Alfred Brownell, in its cover story, “Under Fire: Environmental Attorneys Face Attack.”
- February 25 - March 5, PHRGE’s Executive Director, Kevin Murray, represented PHRGE on a delegation sponsored by Boston-based, Grassroots International, to take part in a series of events to recognize the one-year anniversary of the murder of environmental activist, Berta Cáceres in Honduras.
- February 24 - March 2, PHRGE Visiting Scholar, Alfred Brownell, was participated in the annual meeting of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW) in Eugene, OR.
- February 21 – 24, Accountability Counsel invited PHRGE’s Visiting Scholar, Alfred Brownell, to participate in the 2017 gathering of its International Advocates’ Working Group in San Francisco
- February 15, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director, Professor Lucy Williams gave a keynote address on the constitutionality of human rights and how poverty is antithetical to the ideals of democracy at the University of Southern California’s Social Work School’s All School Day.
- February 2, PHRGE Executive Director Kevin Murray introduced the program’s new visiting scholar with, “Alfred Brownell’s Long Walk to Northeastern.”
- January 26 & 27, PHRGE Executive Director Kevin Murray participated a conference, “The Right to Water,” sponsored by the Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- January 26, PHRGE Visiting Scholar Alfred Brownell gave a talk on "Sustainable Oil Palm Cultivation in West Africa”at the Boston headquarters of the sustainable business organization, Ceres.
- January 5, Alfred Brownell, Liberian human rights and environmental lawyer, joined PHRGE as a visiting scholar
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- December 16, In Rightscapes, Devan Braun ’18 examines how international arbitration mechanisms can shield corporations from human rights accountability.
- December 14, ESCR-Net, a global network of organizations working to advance economic and social rights, published a report on the 2016 PHRGE Human Rights Institute.
- December 13, PHRGE and Opportunity Agenda jointly released an update of their 2014 report, “Human Rights in State Courts.”
- December 12, The National Human Rights City Network joins PHRGE in releasing a statement of participants in the 11th PHRGE Human Rights Institute.
- December 8, Professor Martha Davis delivered the keynote address of the 2016 PHRGE Institute entitled, “From Global to Local: The Transformative Potential of Human Rights Cities.”
- December 8 & 9, PHRGE hosted over 150 academics, advocates and activists at its 11th annual Human Rights Institute entitled, “Global Justice Goes Local: The Emergence of Human Rights Cities.”
- December 2, PHRGE's executive director, Kevin Murray, places the 2016 PHRGE Human Rights Institute in the context of the current US political transition in his Rightscapes post, “Human Rights Under Trump: Taking on the Challenge."
- December 1, Northeastern University School of Law news announcement highlights 11th PHRGE Institute.
- November 5, Jonathan Kaufman, Executive Director of Advocates for Community Alternatives, publishes “Liberian Human Rights Defenders In Hiding After Government Crackdown.”
- October 27, PHRGE Research Assistant, Mary Slattery, published “Health Care in the United States: A Right for All or None?” on Rightscapes.
- October 4, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis, joined ten international human rights organizations in filing an amicus brief in Lynch vs.Morales-Santana an equal protection challenge to sex-based residency requirements in the Federal Immigration and Nationality Act.”
- October 3, On PHRGE’s Rightscapes blog, third-year student Anel Morales posted, "Lack of access to health care for immigrants in the United States: A human rights violation?," a reflection on the injustice of withholding health care from non-citizens.
- September 27, Professor Martha Davis reflects on the absence of real answers to the human rights questions posed in the first presidential debate.
- September 8 – 11, PHRGE’s Executive Director, Kevin Murray participated in the Global Consultation on Privatization and the Right to Education in Nairobi, Kenya.
- August 1, Gillian MacNaughton and Mariah McGill, PHRGE’s former Executive Director and Assistant Director, respectively, published an article entitled, "The Struggle to Achieve the Human Right to Health Care."
- July 20, Brook Baker published an article in the Indian online publication, The Wire, on the dangers of opening India's pharmaceutical industry to foreign direct investment.
- July 19, From the perspective of universal human rights, Martha Davis reflects on the celebration of "American exceptionalism" at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
- July 17,NUSL’s print magazine, Northeastern Law, published “Thirsting for Justice,” an article highlighting the work of PHRGE and other NUSL students and faculty in support of the recognition of the human right to water in the United States.
- July 6, On the Human Rights at Home Blog, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis, reports on the Supreme’s Court’s decision to reviewMorales-Santana v. Lynch, a case alleging sex discrimination in US Citizenship Law.
- July 5, After testifying before the UN Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights on violations of the human rights of Roma people, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis, reflects on the Committee's concluding observations regarding that country.
- June 29, PHRGE Senior Fellow, Gillian MacNaughton, and Research Fellow, Mariah McGill, published “The Struggle to Achieve the Human Right to Health Care,” an analysis of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act through a human rights lens.
- June 13, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis spoke at an event at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Lund, Sweden in honor of the release of her new book, Global Urban Justice: The Rise of Human Rights Cities.
- June 8-10, PHRGE Executive Director, Kevin Murray, represented Northeastern University at the Global Congress of the Scholars at Risk Network in Montreal.
- June 3, Cambridge University Press releases, Global Urban Justice: The Rise of Human Rights Cities, coedited by PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis, Barbara Oomen, Utrecht University (The Netherlands) and Michele Grigolo, Nottingham Trent University (England).
- May 26-27, PHRGE's Executive Director, Kevin Murray, participated in a national gathering of U.S. Human Rights Cities activists in Washington, DC, hosted by the Steering Committee of the Washington Human Rights City Project and the American Friends Service Committee.
- May 23, In a video produced by his coop employer, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, PHRGE Fellow, Emmanuel Sam discusses his life, his legal education and his "desire to give voice to the voiceless."
- May 6, PHRGE Fellow, Alefiyah Ezzi, authored a post on the RIGHTSCAPES blog entitled, "Still Dazzled by the Facts and Figures" about her work with Oxfam America and her research into corporate tax loopholes.
- May 5, PHRGE Fellow, Jacqueline Kelley, authored a post on the RIGHTSCAPES blog entitled, "A Fighting Chance: Legal Responses to the Humanitarian Border Crisis" about her work with ProBAR in South Texas.
- May 5, PHRGE Fellow, Emmanuel Sam, authored a post on the RIGHTSCAPES blog entitled, "The Experience of Working in an Established Human Rights Institution"about his fellowship at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden.
- May 4, PHRGE Fellow, Morgan Wilson, authored a post on the RIGHTSCAPES blog entitled, "Understanding Family Planning - Poor Medical Care, Forced Sterilization and the Genocide of Tribal Peoples and ‘Backward Castes’" about her work with Human Rights Law Network in India.
- May 2, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis authored a post on the Human Rights at Home blog entitled "Human Rights at Sea".
- April 26, PHRGE faculty affiliate, Jootaek Lee, offered a seminar entitled "An Introduction to International Human Rights Legal Research" at NUSL.
- April 14, PHRGE and NUSL's Human Rights Caucus hosted a screening of the film, "The Harvest/ La Cosecha: The Story of the Children Who Feed America."
- April 13, PHRGE and the Kemet Chapter of the Black Law Students Association co-sponsored the 2016 Valerie Gordon Human Rights Lecture by Morten Kjaerum of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, entitled "Racism and Inclusion: Where is Europe Heading?"
- April 12, Along with Northeastern's Social Justice Resource Center, PHRGE co-sponsored a community dialogue entitled, "Revolutionaries to Refugees: Understanding Syria’s Crisis."
- April 12, PHRGE co-sponsored a Public Conversations Project dialogue with Northeastern's Center for Spirituality, Dialogue and Service entitled "Talking Migration: A Northeastern Community Dialogue."
- April 11, PHRGE and the Boston College Center for Human Rights and International Justice co-hosted a Forum entitled "The Ones Left Behind: The Impact of Migration on Communities in Rural Guatemala"
- April 8, The Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Lund University (Sweden) published a report by PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis entitled “Inconvenient Human Rights: Access to Water and Sanitation in Sweden’s Informal Roma Settlements.”
- April 7, PHRGE hosted a Regional Faculty Colloquium given by Professor Nikos Passas of Northeastern's Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Nicolas Giannakopoulos of the University of Geneva (Switzerland). The topic of the talk was "Refugee Crisis in Europe: Human Rights and the Negative Externalities of Bad Policies."
- April 7, Along with the Committee is Solidarity with the People of El Salvador and the Northeastern chapter of the Latin American Law Students Association, PHRGE hosted a speech former Salvadoran Supreme Court Justice, Mirna Perla Jiménez entitled "The Human Rights of Migrants: A Central American Perspective."
- March 28, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis authored a post on the Human Rights at Home blog entitled "US Mayors Join Others Worldwide in Promoting Inclusive Growth."
- March 28, PHRGE Fellow, Hilary Deignan, authored a post on the RIGHTSCAPES blog entitled,“Something Like Home”about her work with theCentre for Disability Law and Policy in Galway, Ireland.
- March 24 – 27, PHRGE Faculty Co-Directors, Lucy Williams and Margaret Woo, Executive Director, Kevin Murray and Faculty Affiliates, Aziza Ahmed and Karl Klare will present at the conference,"Social and Economic Rights Litigation: The Next Generation,"to be held at theCentre for Policy Research in Delhi, India.
- March 23, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis authored a post on the Human Rights at Home blog entitled,“At the UN: A Week for Women.”
- March 21, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis spoke at theInternational Human Rights Law and the City workshop at the University of Genoa.
- March 19, PHRGE's Executive Director, Kevin Murray, spoke on education rights at the Annual Issues Conference of Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts.
- March 8, PHRGE Co-Director Brook Baker's articled entitled "Trans-Pacific Partnership Provisions in Intellectual Property, Transparency, and Investment Chapters Threaten Access to Medicines in the US and Elsewhere" details how the recently negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) would negatively impact access to affordable medicines in the United States and elsewhere.
- March 3, Jootaek “Juice” Lee, a PHRGE faculty affiliate, has contributed to a new comprehensive and unique research guide to Mexican law.
- February 11, PHRGE Fellow, George Amos, authored a piece on the RIGHTSCAPES blog entitled, “My Voice and Human Rights Advocacy” about his experience working for the Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development in Nigeria.
- February 2, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis authored a piece on the Human Rights at Home blog entitled, "Will the Flint Water Crisis Light a Fire?"
- January 29, Martha Davis published an article entitled "Bringing It Home: Human Rights Treaties and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the United States," in the magazine, Human Rights, of the American Bar Association.
- January 27, PHRGE's Executive Director, Kevin Murray will testifed on the panel entitled, "Impoverishment, Inequalities and Human Rights" at the Sixth Consultation on the Situation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights hosted by the ESCR Unit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, DC.
- >January 13, PHRGE Co-Director, Martha Davis co-authored a piece on the Human Rights at Home blog entitled, "The State of the Human Rights Union."
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December 16, PHRGE's Senior Fellow, Gillian MacNaughton, and Research Fellow, Mariah McGill, were among the authors of an article published in the journal, Health and Human Rights. The piece explores the impact of the human rights framework used by the Vermont Workers' Center to advocate for changes in that state's health care system.
December 10-11, At the 6th biannual conference of the US Human Rights Network, in Austin, TX, PHRGE's Executive Director Kevin Murray presented as part of the panel entitled: "H20 Justice: Effective Advocacy for our Right to Water." Murray was joined on the panel by Colin Bailey of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water (CA), May Nguyen of Tulane University's Environmental Law Clinic, Sandy Nguyen ofCoastal Communities Consulting (LA) and Duane Chili Yazzie of the Shiprock Chapter of the Navajo Nation.
December 8, Martha Davis gave a lecture entitled "The Human Right to Water and Sanitation: Malmo's "Sorgenfri" Roma Settlement and Beyond" on December at the Swedish Foundation for Human Rights in Stockholm. Professor Davis is studying the Sorgenfri case and other aspects of the realization of the human right to water in Sweden while on a Fulbright Fellowship to the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the University of Lund, Sweden."
December 4, Assistant Director Jillian Tuck spoke to the psychiatry department at Virginia Commonwealth Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, as part of their Grand Rounds presentation series. She discussed the contours of the current global refugee crisis, the mental health implications for those affected, and ways health professionals can get involved in advocacy work.
December 1, PHRGE Fellow, Michael Godbe, contributed to aFederal Trade commission complaint filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against Google for Education. The complaint, part of EFF's "Spying on Students" campaign, alleges that Google for Education is collecting and data mining the personal information of schoolchildren, including their Internet searches.
November 18, PHRGE partnered with Paris-based organization Global Potential to present: "Youth Voices: Perspectives on Climate Change", a town-hall style discussion focused on helping to form a climate agenda for the next generation.
November 17, Faculty Co-Director, Martha Davis published a timely article on the Human Rights at Home blog entitled, "The Human Cost of the Refugee Backlash.
November 16, The website OpenDemocracy has sponsored an online debate on the challenges of evaluating human rights work. Executive Director, Kevin Murray contributed to the discussion with a post entitled, "The Evaluation Menu: More than just Technical Choices."
November 5-6, Each year, PHRGE hosts an annual human rights institute on a cutting edge economic, social and cultural rights issue.This year, PHRGE’s Institute convened scholars and advocates to explore how a human rights framework can be applied to water rights advocacy and implementation, with specific attention to accessibility, affordability and quality. The keynote speech was delivered by Patricia Jones, Senior Program Leader on the Human Right to Water at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC).
November 2, PHRGE's Kevin Murray and Aja Watkins have published a post on the human rights impact of nontraditional private education on the Right to Education Project blog.
October 29, PHRGE Assistant Director Jillian Tuck presented a skill-building workshop at the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Participants in the workshop developed a greater understanding of the legal framework for seeking asylum in the U.S., and learned how to effectively collaborate with attorneys representing immigrant children by writing medical-legal affidavits and testifying in immigration court.
October 26, In collaboration with the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA), PHRGE presented "Tahoe on Trial: Guatemalan Communities Defend Land and Life" which featured a talk from Mr. Llan Carlos Davila from the Diocesan Committee in Defense of Nature (CODIDENA). Llan Carlos spoke about CODIDENA’s efforts to halt the development and expansion of Tahoe Resources’ Escobalmine in southeastern Guatemala through popular education, grassroots base-building and the organizing of six municipal referenda during which more than 50,0000 have voted against mining in their territories.
October 20, Deborah Popowski, Lecturer on Law and Clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School, presented a faculty colloquium on a theme she is currently exploring: "Torture and the Legal Academy". The coloquium offered faculty and PHRGE fellows a chance to contribute Deborah's research on the controversial issue of the legitimization of torture by the legal academy.
September 30, PHRGE Affiliated Faculty member and Internaional Legal Librarian Jootaek "Juice" Lee presented an "International Legal Research Seminar" to teach the basics of international human rights legal research.
September 28, PHRGE partnered with Northeastern's Social Justice Resource Center to offer a "Know Your Rights - Stop and Search" training as part of Northeasten's annual "Social Justice Week". The training focused on educating students on their rights when confronted by a member of law enforcement.
July 22, Sucharita Varanasi, the MediCapt Project Manager and Senior Program Officer at Physicians for Human Rights presented a forum entitled "Creating Human Rights Technology: Documentation of Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo". She hosted a talk on the program's efforts to develop mobile application technology to document human rights abuses in low-resourced settings.
August 20, PHRGE's Karl Klare delivered the prestigious Stellenbosch Lecture at South Africa's Stellenbosch University: "Self-Realization, Human Rights and Separation of Powers: A Democracy-Seeking Approach".
Professor Wendy Parmet co-authored a perspective piece published in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled Shifting Vaccination Politics – The End of Personal-Belief Exemptions in California. The article highlights recent willingness of some states to reduce situations of parents legitimately refusing to vaccinate their children and yet still send them to schools or day care centers.
Professor Brook Baker answers the U.S. Trade Rep's Top Ten criticisms of India's anti-monopoly pharmaceutical policy.
Professor Brook Baker recently co-authored a new analysis appearing in the Health & Human Rights Journal detailing new medical evidence clarifying that access to antiretrovirals early in the course of HIV improves the health of people living with HIV and enables them to prevent HIV transmission. See the article here: http://www.hhrjournal.org/2015/06/04/evolving-human-rights-and-the-science-of-antiretroviral-medicine/
April 29th, PHRGE hosted a community dialogue entitled “Does the Massachusetts Cap on Charter School Growth Violate Students’ Civil Rights?” Speakers included Matt Cregor of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Senator Pat Jehlen, education law expert Professor Mary O’Connell, and Odette Williamson, a parent with children in both district and charter schools.
PHRGE Fellow Sara N. Kominers recently published a report on sexual violence perpetrated again women farmworkers. The report, which is the culmination of Kominers fellowship with Oxfam America, provides a comprehensive review of existing documentation of women farmworkers who harvest and pack agricultural goods, the factors in agriculture that heighten their risk and the challenges of finding effective solutions. >>View the report here
International Social and Economic Rights Project (iSERP) gathered ESC rights experts from around the world at a conference at NUSL. See full conference program here.
PHRGE-affiliated faculty member, Brook Baker, looked at the case of Hepatitus C drugs to understand the connection between the pricing policies of Gilead Sciences and the company's efforts to control tightly the distribution of its new Hep-C treatment.
Professor Aziza Ahmed on "VAWA @ 20: HIV, Violence Against Women and Criminal Law Interventions"
In 2015, PHRGE Senior Fellow Gillian MacNaughton embarked on a project sponsored by the World Health Organization to examine the role that human rights discourse and analysis played in Vermont’s efforts to enact a universal, publicly funded health care system. The research team also included, among others, PHRGE Research Fellow Mariah McGill ’09. A draft report was submitted to the WHO in April, 2015.
April 22, PHRGE Fellow Sara N. Kominers recently published a report on sexual violence perpetrated again women farmworkers. The report, which is the culmination of Kominers fellowship with Oxfam America, provides a comprehensive review of existing documentation of women farmworkers who harvest and pack agricultural goods, the factors in agriculture that heighten their risk and the challenges of finding effective solutions. (view the report)
February 27 - March 1, Northeastern University School of Law will host the 6th annual conference of the International Social and Economic Rights Project (iSERP) over four days. iSERP is a global network of lawyers, judges, human rights advocates and legal academics who critically examine the effectiveness of social and economic rights in bringing about real change in people’s lives. (read more)
February 2nd, Barbara R. Arnwine, President and Executive Director, National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee) delivered a community lecture entitled "In Pursuit of Systemic Change: Combatting Racial Injustice in Policing and Voting!" (view photos)
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December 29th, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director Professor Martha Davis is interviewed in the Boston Globe regarding abortion clinic buffer zones and free speech.
December 6th, PHRGE's Executive Director, Kevin Murray, presented a workshop entitled, "Charter School Expansion and the Right to Education" at a conference in Atlanta organized by the U.S. Human Rights Network.
December 2, Brook Baker quoted in the article, "Canada must learn from NAFTA legal battles"
November 7-8, 2013 PHRGE Human Rights Institute: “Human Rights and Violence Against Women: Applying the Due Diligence Framework.”
- Want more information? See our Institute concept note to learn more about this event
- Check out our 2013 Student Writing Competition Winner: Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin: Food Sovereignty, Safe Water, and Tribal Law, By Rachel M. Vesely.
November 1-2, PHRGE to speak on Millennium Development Goals and Human Trafficking at Millennium Campus Conference to be held at Northeastern!
October 29th, On Fellow Talk: Seth Purcell explains that the Syrian human rights crisis continues, despite the progress on chemical weapons
October 22nd, PHRGE hosted Sudanese hip-hop sensation, Emmanuel Jal, for a conversation on "Hip-Hop and Human Rights" as part of "A Week for Peace with Emmanuel Jal," hosted by Northeastern University's Humanities Center.
October 18th, PHRGE Fellow Kirsten Blume blogs about her experience in Geneva, Switzerland at the UN Human Rights Committee Hearings. Blume is attending the hearings as part of her co-op at NLCHP
October 9th, New NLCHP webinar on human rights advocacy through ICCPR.
September 19th, PHRGE Post-Grad Fellow, Duygu Sener's, latest post on RIGHTSCAPES, "Prelude to an Extradition?"
September 9th, PHRGE 2013 Institute Co-Convenor Margaret Drew of DVI published an editorial entitled, "Victim deserved court's protection" on the implications surrounding the Water's case.
August 18th, New PHRGE Blog, RIGHTSCAPES, features Prof. Martha Davis on the Federal Court decision on the Oklahoma "sharia law" amendment.
July 31st, PHRGE, in conjunction with the Latin American Law Student Association, and Northeastern School of Law’s International Law course, will be presenting "Granito: How to Frame a Dictator." A Documentary about the charging of former dictator Efraín Rios Montt with genocide for his brutal war against the country’s Mayan people in the 1980's.
July 3, Martha Davis on Radio Boston: "Abortion Clinics and Buffer Zones"
May 29, PHRGE Fellow Stephanie Gharakhanian was featured in news@Northeastern. The article profiles her work at ProDESC in Mexico City as a PHRGE fellow.
May 17-19, PHRGE Executive Director Kevin Murray moderated a gathering of drug policy reform activists in Bogotá, Colombia, at the same time the Organization of American States issued a new report on drug policy reform in Latin America. An article about the report is available here.
May 17, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director Martha Davis delivered a talk at Lund University in Sweden on the role of human rights in the United States.
May 17-19, PHRGE Executive Director Kevin Murray moderated a gathering of drug policy reform activists in Bogotá, Colombia at the same time the Organization of American States issued a new report on drug policy reform in Latin America. An article about the report is available hereMay 17, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director Martha Davis delivered a talk at Lund University in Sweden on the role of human rights in the United States.
April 22, Panel Discussion: "What Now? School Assignment and Quality in the Boston Public Schools"
This public event brought together community leaders, a human rights expert and a senior administrator of the BPS to consider what a human rights perspective brings to the contentious public discussion about school assignment in Boston.
>>Watch videoMarch 27, Philip Alston of New York University School of Law delivered the 2013 Valerie Gordon lecture on "Protecting Social Rights: Is the UN Doing Its Job?"
>>Watch video
>>View photosMarch 12, In collaboration with the Seminar on Human Rights: Race, Gender and Culture, PHRGE sponsored a discussion by Cecilie Counts, Legislative Representative for the AFL-CIO entitled “From Free South Africa to U.S. Workers’ Rights: A Public Interest Lawyer’s Journey.”
March 11, Kevin Murray moderated a panel discussion “What Can We Do? A Policy and Advocacy Primer for Nonprofits and Organizations,” at a conference for Boston-area foundations and nonprofits sponsored by Northeastern Students4Giving.
March 7, With sponsorship from the Government of Germany, the Due Diligence Project a PHRGE Affiliated Project, hosted a public panel discussion at the United Nations entitled “Due Diligence from the Ground Up: State Compliance to End Violence against Women in New York City”
February 12, PHRGE’s Executive Director, Kevin Murray, spoke at NUSL’s “Global Law-Palooza,” an event organized by the International Law Society to increase student awareness regarding international and global law resources and opportunities at the Law School.
February 6, PHRGE hosted a stimulating lunch-time seminar on international and human rights legal research, led by Jootaek “Juice” Lee, senior research librarian at NUSL.
February 5, PHRGE co-hosted a reception with the Northeastern University Law Journal to celebrate the release of the Law Journal issue on “Framing Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for Mobilization and Advocacy: Towards a Strategic Agenda.”
January 18, PHRGE hosted a viewing followed by a discussion of a live-streamed program organized by the American Bar Association. The program commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Gideon v. Wainwright Supreme Court decision.
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November 14, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director Martha Davis gave a presentation to the Newton Human Rights Commission on the Boston Principles on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Noncitizens. The talk focused on how the Boston Principles could promote and expand the work of human rights commissions here in the United States.
October 25, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director Martha Davis served as Co-Chair and PHRGE as a Participating Organization for the 2012 Armenian Heritage Foundation Najarian Lecture on Human Rights. Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian delivered the keynote address on October 25 at Faneuil Hall.
October 18, PHRGE co-sponsored “Walking the Word with Colombia’s Indigenous Peoples,” featuring Ms. Ligna Pulido. Ms. Pulido spoke about indigenous activism in Colombia and illuminated the connections between militarization, international trade, land rights and environmental protection.
September 27, Executive Director Kevin Murray moderated the PHRGE Showcase panel, designed to increase knowledge of human rights in the Law School community and participation in PHRGE program activities.
September 13, PHRGE hosted a lively research session on international and comparative human rights law with Kyle Courtney, Manager, Resource Sharing and Faculty Information Delivery at Harvard Law School and PHRGE Affiliated Scholar.
September 5, PHRGE Fellowship panel, featuring current Fellowship employers and former Program Fellows.
June 18, PHRGE hosted Dr. Siobhan McInerney-Lankford, Senior Policy Officer of Operations Policy and Country Services of the World Bank for a lecture on human rights and development.
June 6, PHRGE co-sponsored a web-streamed panel, “UN Guiding Principles for Ethics and Human Rights: What Lawyers Should Know” which explored corporate social responsibility and legal ethics. Moderated by Oxfam America’s Chris Jochnick, the panel featured Sarah Altschuller of Foley Hoag, John Sherman, General Counsel of Shift and Professor Martha Davis, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director.
April 25, Ford Foundation Fellow Mariah McGill hosted the panel “Charter Schools and the Universal Right to Education,” exploring the impact that the charter school movement has had on the universal right to education in the United States. The panel focused on whether charter schools are unfairly excluding students with disabilities and English language learners and the impact of this exclusion on public district school funding. The panel featured Liz Sullivan, Human Right to Education Program Officer at the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative; Kathleen Boundy of the Center for Law and Education; and Marilyn Segal of Citizens for Public Schools.
April 5, Student researchers presented the results of a research project they had completed for PHRGE and the NUSL Health Law Program, in preparation for the 2012 ESCR Institute on “Human Rights and the Social Determinants of Health.”
May 16, Executive Director Gillian MacNaughton presented a lecture “Mainstreaming Human Rights into Impact Assessment” as part of the University of Ottawa’s Videoconference Series on Human Rights Impact Assessment.
March 27, Student researchers presented the work they completed over the past seven months for the Due Diligence Project in a presentation entitled “Ending Worldwide Violence Against Women.”
March 23, In collaboration with the Black Law Students Association, PHRGE hosted the 19th Annual Valerie Gordon Human Rights Lecture featuring Terry McGovern, founder of the HIV Law Project in New York City and currently the Senior Program Officer with the Ford Foundation Human Rights Reducing HIV/AIDS Discrimination and Exclusion Division. Ms. McGovern’s talk was entitled “What are the Human Rights of Women Living with HIV?”
March 13, PHRGE and the NUSL Women’s Law Caucus cosponsored a screening and discussion of “Aku Siapa” (Who Am I?), a documentary on the politics of veiling in Malaysia and Indonesia by Norhayati Kaprawi. Adjunct Professor Zarizana Abdul Aziz, Co-Director of the Due Diligence Project, led a lively discussion following the film.
March 2, PHRGE Fellow Asia Watson ’12, Faculty Co-Director Dan Danielsen, and Executive Director Gillian MacNaughton presented on the panel “Global Law Field Placements: Preparing Lawyers for Modern Practice” at the Externship 6 Conference hosted by NUSL and Harvard Law School.
February 16, PHRGE presented an informal panel on health and human rights “Global Health and Human Rights Research Projects,” featuring panelists Professor Audrey Chapman, Joseph Healey Jr. Chair in Medical Humanities and Bioethics, Division of Public Health Law and Bioethics, University of Connecticut; Assistant Professor Lisa Forman, Director of the Comparative Program on Health and Society. Professor Brook Baker of NUSL moderated the panel.
January 27, PHRGE hosted another research session on international and comparative human rights law with Harvard Law Librarian Kyle Courtney. December 1-2, 2011: PHRGE co-sponsored “Just Performance: Enacting Justice in the Wake of Violence,” a two-day symposium organized by the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University. The symposium explored the performative dimensions of justice seeking in the aftermath of violence with a focus on Cambodia, Peru and the United States. Dean Emily Spieler welcomed the audience and four current NUSL students, Jonathan Cohen, Findayawah Gbollie, Yasmeen Peer, and Kate Richardson, participated in panel discussions.
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October 20, PHRGE Faculty Co-Director Martha Davis served as Co-Chair and PHRGE as a Participating Organization for the 2011 Armenian Heritage Foundation Najarian Lecture on Human Rights. Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan Humanitarian whose story inspired the Academy Award nominated film “Hotel Rwanda,” delivered the keynote address on October 20 at Faneuil Hall.
October 12, PHRGE hosted another research session with Harvard Law Librarian “Extraordinaire” Kyle Courtney. Professor Courtney delivered another whirlwind presentation on researching international and comparative human rights law.
September 28, Executive Director Gillian MacNaughton moderated the PHRGE showcase panel, which focused on some of PHRGE’s current research projects, including the international due diligence obligations of government to prevent violence against women (Due Diligence Project); the International Social and Economic Rights Project (iSERP); the Human Rights Law Network in India; the Boston Principles on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Noncitizens; and Framing ESCR for Advocacy and Mobilization.
August 3, PHRGE hosted a lively research session on international and comparative human rights law with Kyle Courtney, Manager, Resource Sharing and Faculty Information Delivery at Harvard Law School Law Library and PHRGE Affiliated Scholar. Professor Courtney shared his extensive knowledge of human rights and international legal research with the Northeastern Community.
June 22, PHRGE hosted the webinar: “An Introduction to the Boston Principles on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Noncitizens” moderated by Ford Foundation Fellow Mariah McGill and featuring Professors Hope Lewis and Rachel Rosenbloom.
June 21, Clearinghouse Review hosted an online panel discussion “Claiming Our Rights as Human Rights Lawyers: How a Human Rights Framework Can Advance Our Advocacy” moderated by Professor Martha Davis and featuring Chandra Batnagar Senior Staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Project; Monique Harden, Co-Director of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights in New Orleans; Cheryl Hystad, Director of Advocacy, Maryland Legal Aid Bureau; and Sarah Paoletti, Director of the Transnational Legal Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. The panel explored using a human rights framework to support advocacy work on behalf of low-income clients.
April 28, The panel discussion “Violence Against Women: Conversations with Global Experts” followed a two-day expert meeting of the Due Diligence Project held at Northeastern University School of Law. The panel featured Rashida Manjoo, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and other experts.
April 1, “Human Rights and the Rule of Law Panel Discussion.” This event explored how the rule of law impacts human rights around the world. Co-sponsored by the International Law Society and Human Rights Caucus.
In March 2011, PHRGE coordinated and sponsored a number of events at the School of Law as part of the third annual Northeastern University Human Rights Week. The theme this year was Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals, which tied in well with PHRGE’s mission to promote and implement economic, social and cultural rights in the United States and around the world.
March 31, “Due Diligence on State Responsibility in Relation to Violence Against Women: Standards, Indicators and Good Practices.” Student Researchers, presented the work they completed for the Due Diligence Project.
March 31, “Incentives and Measures for Gender Equity in Employment: Legal and Social Obligations for the Implementation of Gender Policies and Practices in the Workplace.” Student Researchers, presented the project they had completed for the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women.
March 31, “Constricting Human Rights in the United States: An Analysis of Oklahoma’s Anti-International Law Initiatives.” PHRGE Co- Director Martha Davis discussed the impact of anti-international law initiatives at the state level in the United States. Co-sponsored by the International Law Society, the Human Rights Caucus and the American Constitution Society.
March 30, “Research Session on International Human Rights Law.” Harvard Law Librarian Kyle Courtney delivered another whirlwind presentation on researching international and comparative human rights law. Sponsored by PHRGE.
March 29, “Impunity or Justice: Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Kenya.” This event featured a documentary film and discussion about the continuing problem of impunity for rape and sexual violence in Kenya. Co-sponsored by the International Law Society and the Human Rights Caucus.
March 28, “Realizing the Right to Education at Home and Abroad.” This panel discussion explored how school discipline, school financing inequities and other issues contribute to school exclusion and how to use human rights principles to address these problems. Panelists included: Molly A. Hunter, Education Law Center; Marlies Spanjaard, Coordinator of the EdLaw Project; Daniel Squires, Matrix Barristers, United Kingdom; and Liz Sullivan, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative. Co-sponsored by PHRGE, the International Law Society and the Human Rights Caucus.
March 23, Professor Balakrishnan Rajagopal delivered the 2011 Valerie Gordon Lecture “Legalizing Social Rights: Experience from the Global South.” Professor Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Law and Development, is the Director of the Program on Human Rights and Justice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
January 5, Presentation on Researching International and Comparative Human Rights Law. PHRGE hosted a research session with Professor Kyle Courtney, law librarian at Harvard Law School and adjunct professor at Northeastern University School of Law. The session provided an opportunity for Professor Courtney to share his extensive knowledge of human rights and international legal research with the Northeastern Community.
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December 10, 2010: In celebration of International Human Rights Day, PHRGE sponsored three events.
- At a breakfast buffet, PHRGE hosted the Launch of the Draft Boston Principles on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The panel featured NUSL Professors Hope Lewis, Rachel Rosenbloom, Brook Baker and Boston College Professor Daniel Kanstroom, who launched the Draft Principles opening the period for comment by civil society, human rights commissions, ombudsmen and others.
- At a luncheon, we held the PHRGE Showcase Panel moderated by Executive Director Gillian MacNaughton and featuring presentations about five PHRGE projects by panelists Professor Rachel Rosenbloom, Research Associate Deena Sharuk, Ford Foundation Fellow Mariah McGill, PHRGE Fellow Jennifer Harrold, and the Due Diligence Project Co-Coordinator Janine Moussa.
- At teatime, PHRGE held a reception to welcome the new PHRGE affiliated faculty.
December 1, The World AIDS Day event “Universal Access and Human Rights: Panel on Global HIV/AIDS Policy and Practice” featured panelists Brook Baker, Aziza Ahmed, Meredith Harris and Richard Wamal and was co-sponsored by NUSL, the Department of African American Studies, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, the Black Law Student Association, the Latin American Student Association, the National Lawyers Guild NUSL Chapter, the NU Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, and Straight Alliance, the Queer Caucus, Law Students for Reproductive Rights and the Swahili Club.
September 23, PHRGE Co-sponsored the K. George and Carolann S. Najarian, M.D. Inaugural Lecture on Human Rights at Faneuil Hall with Keynote Speaker Kerry Kennedy, author of Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who are Changing Our World.
June 29, “Coming Home: The Dry Storm.” PHRGE hosted the New England Premiere of this award winning documentary on the post-Hurricane Katrina demolition of public housing in New Orleans followed by a discussion with Professor Hope Lewis and the Executive Producer of the film, Ms. Catherine Albisa.