Tyler Giannini

Biography

Tyler Giannini is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Clinical Director of HRP at Harvard Law School. Prior to joining HLS, he was a founder and director of EarthRights International (ERI), an organization at the forefront of efforts to link human rights and environmental protection. Giannini spent a decade in Thailand with ERI conducting fact-finding investigations and groundbreaking corporate accountability litigation. He served as co-counsel in the landmark Doe v. Unocal case, a precedent-setting Alien Tort Statute (ATS) suit about the Yadana gas pipeline in Burma, which successfully settled in 2005. He is currently co-counsel in In re South African Apartheid Litigation, a major ATS case that seeks to hold multinationals liable for their support of human rights violations committed by the apartheid state. He is also co-counsel in Mamani v. Sanchez de Lozada, which brings claims against the former Bolivian president and defense minister related to a 2003 civilian massacre. Giannini has authored numerous amicus curiae briefs including, in 2010, two to the United States Supreme Court in Samantar v. Yousuf and Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman. He has authored numerous publications and reports including Prosecuting Apartheid-Era Crimes? A South African Dialogue on Justice (Human Rights Program, Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2009) (with Susan Farbstein, et al.); "Confronting a Rising Tide: A Proposal for a Convention on Climate Change Refugees," 33 Harv. Env. L. Rev. 349 (2009) (with Bonnie Docherty); Down River: The Consequences of Vietnam's Se San River Dams on Life in Cambodia and Their Meaning in International Law (2005) (with Eric Rutkow and Cori Crider); Total Denial Continues: Earth Rights Abuses Along the Yadana and Yetagun Pipelines in Burma (2002) (with Katie Redford, et al.); and Earth Rights: Linking the Quests for Human Rights and Environmental Protection (1999) (with Jed Greer). He teaches in the fields of business and human rights, human rights and the environment, human rights in contemporary South Africa, human rights in Southeast Asia, and ATS litigation, and has led clinical students on numerous missions including in Bolivia, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, Thailand/Burma, South Africa, and South Korea. Giannini holds graduate degrees in law and foreign policy from the University of Virginia, where he was a member of the law review. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar and speaks Thai.

Areas of Interest

• Human Rights