CLGJ Global Justice Initiatives

Global justice initiatives are led by dedicated USF School of Law faculty who are committed to advancing the rule of law with justice. Projects have included assisting schools in developing nations, ending juvenile death penalty sentences, defending death row inmates in the American South, and addressing the underlying issues of migration caused by climate change. Students contribute to global justice initiatives by participating in focused internships and research projects.

Global Clinical Internships and Volunteer Human Rights Initiatives

The USF School of Law's International Internship Program educates students to be global lawyers and citizens, able to practice their profession anywhere in the world. Students intern in international law firms or NGOs. The internship program began in Brazil in the 1990s. Sites have included Argentina, China, India, El Salvador, the Philippines, and Spain. Students also volunteer in developing countries such as the Dominican Republic where they have investigated discrimination experienced by Haitian migrant families

Internships and volunteer initiatives allow students to specialize in criminal justice abuses, women's rights, children's rights, genocide, human rights education, environmental law, economic development, international business law, international trade, and intellectual property law.

Human Rights Litigation and Advocacy

The center's involvement in human rights litigation serves a dual function of protecting human rights around the world and educating USF law students in the most effective techniques of a human rights practice. The program is multi-dimensional, covering many different techniques of human rights practice in a variety of countries. Students have participated as researchers, writers, courtroom advocates for clients, and representatives of NGOs before the U.N. Human Rights Council and Commission on the Status of Women.

Clinical programs provide students the opportunity to represent clients and NGOs in the fields of U.S. death penalty litigation, U.S.-based advocacy and litigation for juveniles sentenced to life without parole, and international human rights justice.

International Rule of Law and Legal Education Projects

Under the direction of Dean Jeffrey Brand and Professor Dolores Donovan, the Center for Law and Global Justice sponsors multi-year rule of law and international development projects around the world. The law school's involvement in international development rule of law programs dates to 1993 in Cambodia.

In the past 15 years, USF has administered programs in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, East Timor, and Vietnam. Rule of law programs typically involve legislative and judicial reform; institutional development of law schools; professional training programs for judges, prosecutors and lawyers; and institutional development of human rights NGOs.

USF students participate in international development programs as researchers, writers, teachers of legal English, and administrators. Students work on international rule of law programs in San Francisco and abroad.

Partnerships with Foreign Law Schools

Partnerships with foreign law schools are the foundation for USF's international programs. Students benefit from these partnerships through summer study abroad programs, semester abroad programs (student exchanges), and legal internships. Students also benefit through USF School of Law courses taught by visiting professors from the law faculties of foreign partners.

Cooperation with foreign law schools began in the early 1980s in China and Ireland and has since encompassed partnerships in Argentina, Brazil, the Czech Republic, El Salvador, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Spain, and Vietnam.

Keta Taylor Colby Death Penalty Project

The Keta Taylor Colby Death Penalty Project was established in 2001 to involve law students in the interim reform, and ultimate abolition, of the death penalty in the United States. The project is directed by Professor Steven F. Shatz, who holds the Philip & Muriel Barnett Professorship at USF. The principal program of the project has been the Southern Internship Program, which sends eight to 10 law students to work with capital defense attorneys in the South each summer. Each student is assigned to work with an attorney on one or more cases. The students perform legal research, visit their clients in prison or jail, gather case-related documents, e.g., from trial attorneys' files or public sources (through trips to courts and other agencies or by means of subpoenas or public record act requests), as well as interview lay and expert witnesses and, in some cases, jurors.

Read more about the Keta Taylor Colby Death Penalty Project here.

Project to End Juvenile Life Without Parole Sentences

The Center for Law and Global Justice is helping to shape international law in a national effort to abolish juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences. This is the harshest sentence an individual can receive short of death and violates international human rights standards of juvenile justice. The center works with advocates and juvenile defenders to effectively challenge JLWOP sentences in U.S. courts with international human rights law.

In the past several years Professor Connie de la Vega and Director of Human Rights Programs Michelle Leighton, working with students, have collaborated with NGOs globally to prevent the sentencing of juveniles to life without parole. They have helped draft numerous resolutions and statements adopted by governments that leave no doubt that abolishing juvenile life sentences is so fundamental a rule of international law, so pervasively followed, that it is a norm the United States cannot continue to violate and a rule that U.S. courts should view as instructive in their decisions. Authored by de la Vega and Leighton, the center issued a report on the sentencing of child offenders-those convicted of crimes committed when younger than 18 years of age-to a term of life imprisonment without the possibility of release or parole.

Read more about the Project to End Juvenile Life Without Parole Sentences here.

Climate Change Initiatives

The USF School of Law is at the forefront of research on climate change and its effects on vulnerable populations. Director of Human Rights Programs Michelle Leighton regularly presents on the problems and challenges associated with climate change and migration. As the United Nations University and Munich Re Foundation 2009-10 chair on social vulnerability, she is working to develop human rights standards to protect the poor and most vulnerable in developing countries who are forced to migrate because of climate change. On the domestic side, Professor Alice Kaswan is also a frequent commentator on the topic of environmental law and justice. Kaswan, who practiced environmental law and land use prior to entering academia, writes and presents on local, state, and federal environmental legislation.