International Human Rights
Clinical Professor Chi Mgbako discusses the important work of the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic.
Become a human rights defender.
The Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic will train you to become a strategic, reflective, and creative social justice advocate.
The clinic works in partnership with grassroots justice organizations, international NGOs, and foreign law schools on projects focused primarily on gender equity, anti-carceral human rights advocacy, sex workers' rights, access to justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and racial equity.
The IHRC has worked on numerous projects, for example, petitions to United Nations Human Rights bodies documenting abuses against African sex workers and people in prison; human rights trainings on women and HIV/AIDS, queer refugee rights, and female genital cutting; reports on police abuse of marginalized communities, employment discrimination against transgender people, and access to safe abortion; legal research for public interest lawsuits challenging the forced HIV testing of sex workers and championing marriage equality; mobile legal aid clinics in rural communities; and global gender equality education campaigns.
Founded and led by Professor Chi Adanna Mgbako, a celebrated human rights advocate and scholar, the Clinic employs a range of advocacy methods, including legal and policy analysis, fact finding and report writing, submissions before human rights bodies, legislative drafting, comparative legal research for public interest litigation, and direct legal assistance.