Human Rights Program at Harvard Law

09/01/2026

Join us on September 10th for an orientation on Human Rights at HLS!

Come hear from the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, Harvard Human Rights Journal, Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights, and the Human Rights Program @ Harvard Law.

⏰ 12:30 pm
📍 WCC 2004
🍕 Pizza will be served!

08/28/2026

📖We invite you to read our most recent piece on Harvard Human Rights Reflections by Sahar Atif, a Sudanese attorney, human rights activist, and Harvard Kennedy School graduate.

Titled, “A Dead Constitution: How Sudan’s Legal Guardrails Were Dismantled and Why War Was the Natural Trajectory”, Atif argues that the systematic dismantling of Sudan's legal guardrails inevitably paved the way for state collapse. She highlights how successive authoritarian regimes repeatedly suspended or rewrite constitutions to consolidate power, exploiting a lack of public awareness of constitutional law to commit human rights abuses with impunity. Atif also proposes a measurable framework to track the erosion of constitutional protections in real time, emphasizing that defending the rule of is critical to preventing future mass atrocities.

🔗Click the link to read the article:

Rubbing my face with all my might, raising my head just to breathe, I am running as fast as I...

08/26/2026

📖We invite you to read our most recent piece on Harvard Human Rights Reflections by Anton Burkov titled, “Presumed Consent, Absent Notice: Russia’s Organ Transplant Law Before the European Court of Human Rights”.

Burkov examines three cases before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) involving the removal of deceased patients’ organs in Russia without their families’ knowledge or consent. He highlights how Russia’s presumed-consent law enabled hospitals to exclude relatives from decisions about organ donation and how parallel litigation can expose systemic legal failures rather than isolated misconduct. Burkov also considers the potential impact and limitations of an ECtHR ruling given Russia’s refusal to enforce post-2022 judgments, while emphasizing the continued value of such decisions as evidence of institutional practices in immigration and asylum proceedings.

Read the full article on Harvard Human Rights Reflections: https://hrp.law.harvard.edu/anton-burkov/

08/25/2026

📣Event Alert: Art, Human Rights, and Memory Activism: Poetry, Music, and Testimony from the Fortunoff Archive

We are pleased to host a discussion with Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, Artist-in-Residence at Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies.

Kwiatkowski’s interdisciplinary “memory art project” explores how art can resist dehumanization, preserve historical memory, and defend democratic pluralism. He will share work from Fortunoff Poems, shaped by Holocaust survivor testimonies, and reflect on memory as an active practice of solidarity.

📅Tuesday, September 15th
⏰12:30 to 1:45 PM EST
📍Griswold 110
🔗Zoom Registration Link: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_suqys7YYThOWnl09VLETZg #/registration

🍕Lunch will be provided!
🔗For more information, visit this link: https://hrp.law.harvard.edu/hrp-event/grzegorz-kwiatkowski/

Click here to register on Zoom. Grzegorz Kwiatkowski is a Polish poet, musician, essayist, activist, and human rights advocate. Since...

08/09/2026

August 9th marks International Day of the World's Indigenous People. This date commemorates the first meeting of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations, held in Geneva in 1982—a critical moment that laid the groundwork for the historic 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Photo Credit: UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

08/02/2026

August 2nd marks Romani Genocide Remembrance Day, a day to commemorate and reflect on the systematic persecution and murder of hundreds of thousands of Roma by the N**i regime and its collaborators during World War II.

This date specifically commemorates the night of August 2-3, 1944, when 2,897 Romani people, largely women, children, and the elderly, were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. This tragic event is a stark reminder of the brutality and scale of the Porajmos, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 220,000 to 500,000 Roma.

Art Credit: Monument designed by Romani artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas in Memory of the Romani Genocide

07/21/2026

A chapter by Gerald L. Neuman, HRP Director and J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law, titled “The United States Will Need International Law” is featured in the new collection "America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance".

In the wake of rising global authoritarianism and transnational megacorporations, Neuman warns that “As the Republic will once more learn, it needs international law.” He reminds us of the framers’ commitment to foreign diplomacy, citing provisions of the U.S. Constitution that evidence their engagement with the institutions of international law. If the U.S. is to restore its international standing, Neuman also emphasizes that the nation must remember a foundational American principle—that all individuals are created equal—which remains a central norm of human rights law.

Professor Neuman’s chapter is part of a broader, timely reflection on the state of the American republic as it reaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Edited by Professors Alexandra Natapoff and Guy-Uriel Charles, "America Unfinished" brings together more than fifty legal scholars from the Harvard Law School faculty to examine the American system of government at a moment when the nation is confronting foundational challenges to its laws, institutions of governance, and civic culture. The collection tackles pressing issues ranging from deep political polarization and the expansion of executive power to the disruptions of the technological revolution. Together, these essays advance the vital conversations necessary to sustain a thriving democratic polity for decades to come.

Click here to learn more and purchase "America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance". https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262060431/america-unfinished/

07/17/2026

Daniel Nagin, Clinical Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the WilmerHale Legal Services Center & Veterans Legal Clinic at Harvard Law School, discusses his essay "A Declaration for Those in Uniform" featured in the new collection "America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance."

🔗 Click the link to watch the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p0xB-zSz4E

📖 Click here to order "America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance": https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262060431/america-unfinished/

Daniel Nagin, Clinical Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the...

07/15/2026

Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard Law School, discusses her essay “Constituting Democracy: Investing in a Virtuous Circle,” featured in the new collection "America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance."

🔗 Click the link to watch the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adtD82_oIJ4

📖 Click here to order "America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance": https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262060431/america-unfinished/

Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard Law...

07/13/2026

I. Glenn Cohen, the James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology & Bioethics at Harvard Law School, discusses his essay "Reproductive Technologies and the Federal Constitutional Vacuum" featured in the new collection "America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance."

🔗 Click the link to watch the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW2IDWR8-30

📖 Click here to order "America Unfinished: 250 Years of Law and Governance": https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262060431/america-unfinished/

I. Glenn Cohen, the James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor ...