Uganda: Attitudes Toward Peace and Justice
UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center has been involved in several projects related to the situation in northern Uganda, where the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has inflicted a war killing thousands and displacing millions. Reports of the findings can be found here.

Guantánamo and Its Aftermath
Human Rights Center and the International Human Rights Law Clinic at Boalt Hall School of Law, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, conducted a two-year study of released Guantánamo Bay detainees, examining the impact of U.S. detention practices on prisoners and their families and communities during and after their confinement. The full report and related materials can be found here. The clinic and the HRC also produced a policy paper on the reintegration of former prisoners in their respective communities, which can be read here .

Iraq: Lifting the Fog of War
Human Rights Center staff has been involved with projects in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, teaming up with Human Rights Watch and the International Center for Transitional Justice. Publications resulting from the multiple trips can be found here .

Kosovo: A Village Destroyed
Eric Stover of the Human Rights Center and Fred Abrahams (formerly of Human Rights Watch) collaborated on a research project—resulting in a book—investigating the 1999 massacre at Cuska, a village in Kosovo. A link to an online version of the book and related information can be found here.

Hurricane Katrina
The International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Human Rights Center worked with Tulane University’s Payson Center for International Development to study the situation of workers in New Orleans who flocked to the city for clean-up and rebuilding work opportunities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Inadequate legal protection made workers—many of whom were undocumented—vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. The full report can be downloaded here.

The International Human Rights Law Clinic was also involved in the study as well as with other projects relating to the human rights situation in the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Katrina. Read about their efforts here.

Human Rights in Burma
UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center has researched and reported on the impact of military rule and civil war on human rights in the Southeast Asian country of Burma, examining the effects of U.S. sanctions and the poor health conditions as a result of the situation. Reports as well as links to articles from national news organizations can be found here.

After the Tsunami: Human Rights of Vulnerable Populations
UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center, in an effort with the International Human Rights Law Clinic, sent researchers to five different countries affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to investigate the human rights issues related to the disaster as well as the responses to human rights abuses. The full report can be found here.

Human Trafficking and Globalization (2002-05)
The Human Rights Center’s Globalization Project, initiated in 2002, focuses on human rights abuses that result from economic integration. Among its projects was a collaboration with Free the Slaves and the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University, examining forced labor and contemporary forms of slavery in the U.S. The studies from this project as well as others can be found here.

Human Rights Protections for Domestic Workers
Students from the International Human Rights Law Clinic, working with the Human Rights Center, produced a policy paper analyzing federal law regarding immigration, trafficking, labor, and employment to highlight gaps in protection for workers. A link to the paper can be found here.

Communities in Crisis: Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia (2000-04)
The Communities in Crisis Project, initiated by the Human Rights Center in 2000, focuses on the aftermath of war and genocide in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and how the pursuit of international justice affects the local processes of social reconstruction. Information about the two books resulting from the project can be found here.

Cambodia
Decades after the Khmer Rouge inflicted horror upon Cambodia in a short but brutal time period, the search for justice continues. In 2007, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) was established and in 2008, the Human Rights Center conducted a population-based survey to examine knowledge and attitudes toward social reconstruction in general and the new tribunal in particular, presenting the results in Cambodia in January 2009. The full report can be downloaded here.

The War Crimes Studies Center is also involved in projects in Cambodia, including a series of films aimed at ordinary Cambodians designed to provide insight on the reason for the ECCC. More information can be found here.

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DCR)
Teaming up with the Payson Center for International Development at Tulane University and the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Human Rights Center conducted empirical research in war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo to study the population’s exposure to violence and their needs and concerns, as well as their attitudes toward transitional justice mechanisms and peace and justice. Read the report here.

El Salvador: DNA Reunification Project
The Human Rights Center works closely with Asociación Pro-Búsqueda de Niñas y Niños Desaparecidos, an NGO in San Salvador that reunites young adults who were kidnapped or given up for adoption as children during the bloody years of El Salvador´s civil war. DNA testing is often used to determine kinship and the Human Rights Center is particularly involved in communicating with transnational adoptees in North America and Europe. Learn more about the project, including successful family reunions, here.

Rwanda
UC Berkeley has been involved in human rights work surrounding the 1994 genocide in Rwanda on multiple fronts. Harvey Weinstein and Timothy Longman of the Human Rights Center partnered with Sarah W. Freedman of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education to create working groups comprised of educators and students developing a new curriculum for teaching about the genocide. The final project report and the curriculum can be viewed here.

Also, Radha Webley of the War Crimes Studies Center conducted fieldwork in the country in 2003 examining the court system and its role in bringing to justice those responsible for the genocide. The full report is here.

Sierra Leone
UC Berkeley’s War Crimes Studies Center established a trial monitoring program for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which was established to bring to justice those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the African country’s civil war. Daily attendance at court sessions allow for informative reports and papers on the situation, which can be viewed here along with more information about the center’s activities in Sierra Leone.

East Timor
Violence broke out in East Timor in 1999 following a referendum for independence from Indonesia. The Special Panel for Serious Crimes (SPSC) conducted 55 trials over a four-year period, whose records the War Crimes Studies Center has arranged to maintain public access to. The center also maintains the website of the SPSC itself, containing important documents about crimes committed during the violence for which trials were conducted but never completed. Links to the websites with these vital documents can be found here.

Indonesia
The War Crimes Studies Center, teaming with other organizations including the Human Rights Center, has participated in workshops and seminars in Indonesia to educate judges, investigators, and other legal professionals about international humanitarian law and enhance the effectiveness of the judicial system and human rights bodies. Click here for links to pictures and information about the seminars.

World War II Document Archive
The War Crimes Studies Center is maintains a growing collection of documents from World War II, such as trial records of war criminals, that can be in danger of being destroyed. The Center is also involved in an oral history project for war crimes trials in Asia, working with scholars from Singapore and Japan. Learn about these here.

International Convention on Human Rights Research Project
Launched at UC Berkeley’s Boalt School of Law in 2008, the “2048 Project,” as it is known, seeks to “draft an international framework for enforceable human rights” to be in place by 2048, the centennial of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Learn about the project here.

Human Rights in California’s Unincorporated Communities
The International Human Rights Law Clinic works to improve living conditions and health for residents of the Central Valley, where access to clean water, basic infrastructure, and other services remain a problem for many residents—a large number of which are immigrants—who have largely been ignored in political decisions. The project aims to incorporate a human rights framework in their political advocacy. Learn about it here.

Seeking Asylum in the United States
The International Human Rights Law Clinic has been involved in several projects relating to asylum seekers. The clinic participated in a project to investigate the effects of expedited removal on people seeking asylum in the United States, an effort that was recognized with the 2005 Arthur Helton Human Rights Award by the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Both volumes of the report are here.

The clinic also prepared an analysis and review of jurisprudence regarding claims of asylum seekers in the U.S. based on religious persecution and has drafted an analysis of an INS report on the treatment of sexual minorities in Mexico, which has been used in support of claims for asylum from gays and lesbians from the country. The clinic has also been involved in refugee resettlement efforts, studying the treatment of refugees in their first host country, many of whom face religious persecution. The effort resulted in an urging for the U.S. to resettle those facing persecution in their first countries of asylum.

Death Penalty and Human Rights
Students from the Death Penalty Clinic and the International Human Rights Law Clinic worked together to develop arguments that U.S. capital punishment practices violate international standards of human rights. This work assists in the defense of those facing the death penalty, both clients of the clinic and of attorneys nationwide.

The Human Rights of Haitians in the Dominican Republic
The International Human Rights Law Clinic has been involved in different projects in the Dominican Republic relating to the population of Haitians and Domincans of Haitian ancestry. Teaming up with the Center for Justice and International Law and the Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico-Haitianas, it has worked to protect the rights of children born to Haitian migrant workers. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a ruling in response to a complaint filed by the clinic and partner organizations on behalf of two girls who had been denied birth certificates and subsequently denied the right to attend public school. The clinic also conducted a study of the forced migration of Haitians from the country and has initiated legal action against the Dominican Republic in defense of seven families. Learn more about the clinic’s projects and read relevant reports and articles here.

Access to HIV Medicine in Sri Lanka
Clinic students produced a memorandum addressing the need for HIV treatment to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health and the World Bank, resulting in the ministry announcing it will treat HIV-positive individuals with anti-retroviral medicines.

Mexico Labor Project
In collaboration with the Center for Latin American Studies, the clinic launched a project with the goal of informing California unionists of the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement on Mexican workers, including environmental contamination and substandard living conditions. The project included a trip to the San Diego-Tijuana border by a union to view the impact of NAFTA firsthand.

Guatemala
International Human Rights Law Clinic students work with the Fundación Myrna Mack, a Guatemalan human rights organization, to represent family members of citizens who were “disappeared” by security forces during the country’s long civil war that have never been brought to justice, despite evidence of their executions that was made public in 1999. Learn about the students’ important work in Guatemala here.