News

During the summer 2007 the Human Rights Program of Harvard Law School (HRP) will offer a pilot summer course in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Academic credit will be offered for students enrolled in the J.D. program.

The course will be taught by Clinical Professor James Cavallaro. Students enrolled in the course must be resident in Buenos Aires during June and July, and be placed and working with a human rights organization for a period of ten (10) weeks. Students must also be passively fluent in Spanish. HRP will assist students in securing summer positions in human rights, as well as provide funding for travel and related expenses in accordance with the guidelines of its summer fellowship program. Harvard Law School (HLS) will not charge any fees other than regular tuition costs for the 2007-2008 academic year to those students who participate in this pilot program. Academic credit will be awarded in the fall semester after the summer course is completed.

Students interested in the course in Buenos Aires should contact Mike Jones, Communications Coordinator of the Human Rights Program (mijones@law.harvard.edu) and Clinical Professor James Cavallaro (jcavalla@law.harvard.edu) or apply by Friday, February 16, 2007.

A description of the course follows:

Human Rights Practice in Latin America: Seminar
Clinical Professor James Cavallaro
Summer 2007
1 unit (Pass/Fail or Graded)

Overview:
This seminar introduces students to the history and continuing challenges of human rights advocacy in Latin America, with a focus on the Southern Cone and, in particular, Argentina.

Logistics:
The course will be taught primarily in English, but passive fluency in Spanish will be required. The seminar will meet once a week, over a period of six weeks, for two hours (for a total of 12 class hours) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A number of students equal to those from HLS will be admitted from the graduate program at the University of Palermo, Buenos Aires. A professor from the University of Palermo will serve as a facilitator of discussions in the seminar. This facilitator and the Palermo students will be permitted to participate in the course in Spanish, but will be required to be fluent in English. HLS students will participate, both in oral interventions and in written submissions, in English (or, should they prefer, Spanish).

The course is designed for students who will be working in Buenos Aires over the summer in human rights organizations or in other institutions, provided their work involves a significant human rights component. Independently from the course itself, the Human Rights Program will facilitate student placement in human rights work in Buenos Aires for the summer.

Course Summary:
The seminar will provide an overview and critique of the development of the human rights movement in Latin America, considering first its basis in grass roots religious communities, political activists, and pro-democracy struggles against military dictatorships and toward democratization. The seminar will then assess the movement’s more recent growth and professionalization. The course will also examine the growth of human rights in public discourse and practice, and the challenges this expansion presents for the Latin American human rights movement.

Over the course of the summer, we will evaluate a wide range of advocacy strategies, including domestic and international litigation, documentation and report writing, as well as grassroots mobilization and media campaigns. While the course will embrace the entire region, it will focus primarily on Argentina and the Southern Cone of South America. Seminar sessions will involve analysis of the work of local rights organizations and of students, who will be asked to draw on their experience with human rights during the summer in class discussion.

Course Requirements:
Readings for each week will consist of approximately 120-250 pages of selected texts on human rights in Latin America in either English or Spanish. All of these readings (both those in English and Spanish) are mandatory. Students will be required to draft and submit brief reflection papers (500-1,000 words each, roughly 2-4 double spaced pages) each week. The papers will critique the course readings and the human rights work of students themselves over the course of the summer. Grading will be based on these papers and class participation in the seminar.

Application Instructions and Deadlines:
The deadline for applications is February 16, 2007 at 5:00PM.

Apply either in person (submit to Ms. Meredith Hubbell, HRP, Pound 401) or by email: to mhubbell@law.harvard.edu AND mijones@law.harvard.edu.

Applications Should Include the Following:
1.) Cover page listing the following information in the following order: