Save the Date: October 22nd – Advancing U.S. Social Justice Through Human Rights

On October 22nd, the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute will celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Bringing Human Rights Home (BHRH) Lawyers’ Network with an event entitled Advancing U.S. Social Justice Through Human Rights. 

The BHRH Lawyers’ Network connects over 800 lawyers from the domestic civil rights, human rights, and legal services communities to share information and develop strategies for integrating human rights to advance U.S. social justice advocacy.  

The October 22nd celebration will feature a keynote address by Caroline Bettinger-López, the White House Advisor on Violence Against Women and the director (on leave) of the University of Miami School of Law’s Human Rights Clinic.  Following the keynote address, the Institute will host a panel of prominent academics and advocates drawn from the BHRH Network membership discussing issues including national security, racial justice, movement building, homelessness and housing, working with legal services and human rights litigation. Experts will reflect on how a human rights framework has made a difference in advancing domestic social justice advocacy efforts over the past 15 years, ways in which the field has grown and shifted, and lessons learned from both successful and unsuccessful efforts to integrate human rights at home.  An evening reception will follow the day’s events.

In addition to the October 22 celebration, this fall the Institute is hosting a series of talks focusing on human rights in the United States.  Included in this series is Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (Oct. 7); Larry Cox, co-director of Kairos: The Center on Religions, Rights and Social Justice, and former executive director of Amnesty International USA (October 13); and Katrina Anderson, senior human rights counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights.   More information about the October 22nd event and speaker series can be found here.  To RSVP for the October 22nd event, contact Greta Moseson at gmoses@columbia.law.edu.