Browse Clearinghouse articles by category

September-October 2011

Human rights arguments offer front-line legal aid lawyers an expanded set of tools in representation of low-income clients. This special issue of Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy applies a human rights lens to poverty law practice. With contributions from expert advocates across the country who work at the intersection of international human rights and poverty law, articles discuss new strategies, analyze how international human rights law applies to traditional legal aid issues like health, housing, and workers’ rights, and offer case studies of successful use of human rights arguments on behalf of low-income clients.

The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law acknowledges with thanks the Ford Foundation, The Libra Foundation, and the Francis Beidler Foundation for their generous support in publishing this special issue of Clearinghouse Review.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Grassroots Corporate Campaigns for Workers’ Human Rights
Although human rights obligations generally apply to governments, low-wage workers in the most exploited employment sectors are holding corporate actors as well to human rights standards. Workers’ advocacy tools range from the media to corporations’ own professed commitment to “social responsibility.” The Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida reached agreement with large corporate purchasers of tomatoes to require growers’ adherence to a code of conduct toward workers; United Workers in Baltimore won a living wage at Camden Yards baseball stadium and continues human rights-based organizing among workers at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related Articles
- Mariah McGill, Using Human Rights to Move Beyond the Politically Possible (Jan.-Feb. 2011)
- Harry J. Holzer, Better Jobs for Poor Workers: Linking Economic and Workforce Development to Fight Poverty (Nov.-Dec. 2008)
- Rebecca Smith, Day Labor Legislative Victories (Jan.-Feb. 2006)
- Rebecca Smith, Cynthia Mark, and Anita Sinha, Protecting the Labor and Employment Rights of Immigrant Workers (Sept.-Oct. 2004)
By Katherine L. Caldwell
Oklahoma’s Anti-Sharia and Other Antitransnational Law Proposals: A Backgrounder for Domestic Human Rights Advocates
Many state legislatures have recently considered limits on state court judges’ use of transnational law (foreign or international law). Several such efforts specifically targeted Sharia. Oklahoma voters took the most extreme action when they approved a constitutional amendment to ban state courts from even considering transnational law. These developments threaten judicial independence and may have strategic and ethical implications for human rights advocates.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related Articles
- Caroline Bettinger-López, The Inter-American Human Rights System: A Primer (March-April 2009)
- Martha F. Davis, Human Rights in the Trenches: Using International Human Rights Law in “Everyday” Legal Aid Cases (Nov.-Dec. 2007)
By Martha F. Davis and Emily Abraham
Advancing Human Rights and Justice for All
Human rights and civil rights are intrinsically linked. The emphasis on civil rights--the twentieth-century movement to promote racial justice, rooted in the Cold War--proved shortsighted. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights recognized this in adding “human rights” to its name. In the face of growing poverty and inequality in the United States, the human rights perspective can help us expand our understanding of how to respond to poverty.

By Wade Henderson
Using Human Rights Mechanisms of the United Nations to Advance Economic Justice
Even though the United States has not ratified all of the international treaties that form the core of international human rights law, American poverty lawyers can still use the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations to work toward economic justice. By participating in treaty reviews and meeting with individuals or groups who are visiting through U.N. “Special Procedures” mechanisms, legal services lawyers can heighten awareness of their clients’ concerns both domestically and internationally, thus laying the groundwork for positive social and economic change.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related Articles
- Caroline Bettinger-López, The Inter-American Human Rights System: A Primer (March-April 2009)
- Eric Tars, Who Knows What Lurks in the Hearts of Human Rights Violators? The Shadow (Reporter) Knows—Human Rights Shadow Reporting: A Strategic Tool for Domestic Justice (Jan.-Feb. 2009)
- Youmna Chala and Chivy Sok, Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women: A Strategy for Local Implementation (July-August 2008)
By Risa E. Kaufman and JoAnn Kamuf Ward
A Human Rights Framework to Empower Clients: The Australia Experience
American poverty lawyers are not alone in their struggle to incorporate human rights principles into their daily work. In Australia international human rights arguments have historically been viewed with skepticism. Nevertheless, poverty lawyers there are using U.N. human rights mechanisms and adopting international human rights standards in their daily work. The examples from the Federation of Community Legal Centres and the Public Interest Law Clearing Housing can serve as models for American advocates looking for new ways to put human rights to work for their clients.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related Articles
- Gillian MacNaughton, Human Rights Frameworks, Strategies, and Tools for the Poverty Lawyer’s Toolbox (Jan.-Feb. 2011)
- Peter Sabonis, Using a Human Rights Framework at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau (Jan.-Feb. 2011)
- Eric Tars, Who Knows What Lurks in the Hearts of Human Rights Violators? The Shadow (Reporter) Knows—Human Rights Shadow Reporting: A Strategic Tool for Domestic Justice (Jan.-Feb. 2009)
By Hugh de Kretser, Jacqui Bell, and Lucy Adams
The Human Right to Health Care in the United States
Across the United States there is a growing demand for national, state, and local governments to recognize and implement health care as a human right. While the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act offers the promise of expanded and affordable health insurance coverage, it falls short from a human rights perspective. Drawing on human rights principles derived from international law, several state and local initiatives serve as inspiring alternatives. They incorporate universally recognized human rights principles--universality, equality, transparency, participation, and accountability--into health care reforms.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.

By Gillian MacNaughton
Human Rights in State Courts: An Overview and Recommendations for Legal Advocacy
U.S. state courts are often more willing to entertain human rights arguments than their federal counterparts. Because of their comparative independence, state-court judges are more receptive to using international treaties and conventions as persuasive authority. Poverty lawyers who litigate in state courts should consider using international human rights instruments as interpretive guides for state constitutional and statutory rights; the results may be a pleasant surprise.
Related Articles
- Gillian MacNaughton, Human Rights Frameworks, Strategies, and Tools for the Poverty Lawyer’s Toolbox (Jan.-Feb. 2011)
- Martha F. Davis, Human Rights in the Trenches: Using International Human Rights Law in “Everyday” Legal Aid Cases (Nov.-Dec. 2007)
- Maria Foscarinis, Brad Paul, Bruce Porter, and Andrew Scherer, The Human Right to Housing: Making the Case in U.S. Advocacy (July-Aug. 2004)
By The Opportunity Agenda
Claiming Our Role as Human Rights Lawyers: How a Human Rights Framework Can Advance Our Advocacy: A Webinar Panel Discussion
In a webinar panel discussion held in June 2011, attorneys from a broad array of organizations discussed how they use a human rights framework in representing clients and offered examples of the framework’s impact. Panelists from a Legal Services Corporation-funded program (Maryland Legal Aid), an environmental justice organization in rural Louisiana (Advocates for Environmental Human Rights), a law school clinic emphasizing workers’ human rights (University of Pennsylvania School of Law’s Transnational Legal Clinic), and a national advocacy organization (American Civil Liberties Union Human Rights Program) all find that human rights arguments, crafted carefully and used in appropriate cases, bolster their advocacy.

By Martha F. Davis, Chandra Bhatnagar, Monique Harden, Cheryl Hystad, and Sarah H. Paoletti
Using the Universal Periodic Review to Advance Human Rights: What Happens in Geneva Must Not Stay in Geneva
The Universal Periodic Review is an opportunity for legal services attorneys and community-based advocates to translate clients’ needs and experiences into concrete policy recommendations. Assessing clients’ experiences within the human rights framework in light, for example, of the right to dignity through work, advocates can avail of the periodic review to help advance human rights. Advocates should collectively identify the barriers to the realization of rights spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and propose solutions where domestic litigation strategies have proven insufficient.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.

By Sarah H. Paoletti
The "Right to Live": Civil Legal Services and Human Rights
The right to income support--called, in international human rights law, “social security”--is perhaps the most basic of human rights and is at the heart of advocacy on behalf of low-income clients. Founders of the movement for civil legal services for the poor, closely linked in its early days to the welfare rights movement that was vibrant then, strategized about achieving recognition of a “constitutional right to live.” After U.S. Supreme Court decisions cut short that effort, advocacy turned to the state level. As economic hardship deepens for clients, a human rights focus offers new tools for achieving a right to social security.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related Articles
- Gillian MacNaughton, Human Rights Frameworks, Strategies, and Tools for the Poverty Lawyer’s Toolbox (Jan.–Feb. 2011)
- Martha F. Davis, Human Rights in the Trenches: Using International Human Rights Law in “Everyday” Legal Aid Cases (Nov.-Dec. 2007)
By Wendy Pollack
Mossville, Louisiana: A Community's Fight for the Human Right to a Healthy Environment
Representing an African American community burdened with environmental pollution, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights sent the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights a petition claiming that the U.S. environmental protection system violates the community members’ human rights.

By Michele Roberts
Furthering the Fight to Make Clean Water a Right in California
Clean drinking water is a human right under international law, and California law recognizes a similar right. Yet more than a million Californians, mostly in rural, agricultural areas, lack access to safe drinking water. Advocates and community groups are using a a variety of strategies, such as litigation and administrative advocacy, to enforce the right to safe water. A “human right to water” package of bills now before the state legislature is expected to enhance advocates’ capacity to enforce the right.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related Articles
- Thomas G. Neltner, Civil Rights Action on Combined Sewer Overflows in Indianapolis (Nov.-Dec. 2005)
- Marcheta Lee Gillam, Steven Fischbach, & Ralph Scott, Poisoned by Poverty: A Call to Improve Health Outcomes for Low-Income and Minority Children (May-June 2005)
- Margot Saunders, The Safe Drinking Water Act--Dilemmas for the Poor (April 1993)
By Phoebe Sarah Seaton, Kara Brodfuehrer, and Megan Beaman
Invoking International Human Rights Law in Litigation: A Maryland Judge’s Perspective
Judges have long considered international human rights law in their decision making, and the U.S. Supreme Court has relied on international law since the country’s founding. State-court judges have similarly considered international law and norms. Advocates representing low-income clients should not hesitate to use human rights arguments in appropriate cases; many judges will welcome thoughtful advocacy using this framework.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.

By Cathy Hollenberg Serrette
The "Human Side" of Human Rights: The Challenge of Sargent Shriver

By Timothy Shriver
Opening the Door to the Human Right to Housing: The Universal Periodic Review and Strategic Federal Advocacy for a Rights-Based Approach to Housing
Housing advocates used the 2010 Universal Periodic Review of the human rights record of the United States to advance housing as a human right in this country. Every four years the U.N. Human Rights Council reviews the human rights compliance of its member states. The Universal Periodic Review requires governments to self-report on their human rights obligations and consult with the public on their reports. The U.S. review allowed advocates to organize communities and educate the U.S. government on the human right to housing.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related Articles
- Maria Foscarinis, Brad Paul, Bruce Porter, and Andrew Scherer, The Human Right to Housing: Making the Case in U.S. Advocacy (July-Aug. 2004)
- Eric Tars, Who Knows What Lurks in the Hearts of Human Rights Violators? The Shadow (Reporter) Knows -- Human Rights Shadow Reporting: A Strategic Tool for Domestic Justice (Jan.-Feb. 2009)
- Gillian MacNaughton, Human Rights Frameworks, Strategies, and Tools for the Poverty Lawyer’s Toolbox (Jan.-Feb. 2011)
- J. Peter Sabonis, Using a Human Rights Framework at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau (Jan.-Feb. 2011)
By Eric S. Tars and Déodonné Bhattarai
Toward a Human Rights Framework in Homelessness Advocacy: Bringing Clients Face-to-Face with the United Nations
Advocates from Legal Services of Northern California are working to persuade local officials in Sacramento to stop criminalizing homelessness and to create a safe ground for people transitioning from homelessness. Together with other advocacy groups, the advocates have helped educate the United Nations about the homeless who live in tent camps along the American River Parkway and do not have access to clean water and sanitation facilities. In June 2011, Legal Services of Northern California filed a complaint against Sacramento; the complaint used international human rights conventions and norms to challenge the city’s continual rousting of homeless campers and blocking campers’ access to clean water and sanitation.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.

By Mona Tawatao and Colin Bailey
How a Human Rights Framework Can Help Turn the Tide in Public Housing Litigation
Demolishing public housing units without replacing them violates the human right to housing of displaced residents. Threatened with displacement, Chicago public housing residents altered the dynamics of litigation against the housing authority and gained new allies and media interest when they raised the human right to housing in their complaint. Asserting their human rights enabled the residents to articulate their claims in universal, easily understood terms and helped lead to a successful resolution of their claims.

Copies of this article are available for individual purchase online for $15 apiece.
Related Articles
- Peter Sabonis, Using a Human Rights Framework at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau (Jan.-Feb. 2011)
- Maria Foscarinis, Brad Paul, Bruce Porter, and Andrew Scherer, The Human Right to Housing: Making the Case in U.S. Advocacy (July-Aug. 2004)
By Richard Wheelock and Sara Kase

Feeds: Atom

Southwest is the official airline of the Shriver Center.

Headquarters:	Boston Office:
50 East Washington Street, Suite 500	89 South Street, Suite 407
Chicago, Illinois, 60602	Boston, Massachusetts, 02111
(312) 263-3830 (voice)	(617) 946-4672 (voice)
(312) 263-3846 (fax)	(617) 275-8991 (fax)