Facing a growing crackdown on dissent around the globe, human rights advocates and scholars are engaged in a creative and critical fight to defend fundamental freedoms. The Bernstein Institute for Human Rights supports a range of education, research, and advocacy initiatives to protect dissent and promote the rule of law. These include:
Education: Conferences and Events
-
Organized Defending Dissent: Civil Society and Human Rights in the Global Crackdown, which brought together 40 human rights activists, lawyers, and scholars from China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Russia, Turkey, and the United States to share legal strategies and tactics to safeguard crucial spaces for dissent and build solidarity across borders. An interactive conference site was built to archive the sessions, including a summary of the strategies and tactics discussed at the conference.
-
Hold educational talks and programs for students and the broader NYU Law community on the intersection of human rights and civil society, such as Human Rights in Hong Kong.
-
Judicial Seminar on International Human Rights Law: The Bernstein Institute for Human Rights and Columbia’s Human Rights Institute co-sponsored three Judicial Seminars on International Human Rights Law. Under different auspices, the Seminar has existed since 1982 and has included more than 300 federal appellate and district court judges, as well as five members of the U.S. Supreme Court. With its distinguished history and stellar human rights faculty, the Seminar brings together federal judges from across the country, and covers topics ranging from foundational international human rights treaties, to comparative exploration of the European, Inter-American, and African human rights systems, as well as substantive sessions on refugee law, national security law, and the law of armed conflict.
Research and Advocacy
Spyware: The Institute convened an interdisciplinary team of technology, digital security, and human rights experts to address the rise in state surveillance of human rights defenders. In partnership with Amnesty International, NYU School of Law's Global Justice Clinic and the Technology Law & Policy Clinic, the Institute engaged in a path-breaking research project to investigate legal accountability measures to address surveillance of human rights defenders around the world.
-
Commercial Spyware and the Surveillance State
-
On March 1, 2019 the NYU Law team submitted a briefing paper on the spyware industry to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. The paper, “Attempted Digital Surveillance as a Completed Human Rights Violation: Why Targeting Human Rights Defenders Infringes on Rights,” responded to the Special Rapporteur’s call for submissions concerning the surveillance industry and human rights.
-
Supported the filing of a petition brought by members and supporters of Amnesty International Israel and others to the Israeli District Court demanding that the Israeli Ministry of Defence (MoD) revoke the explore license of NSO Group, a Israeli company whose spyware products have been used to attack human rights defenders around the world by states such as Saudi Arabia, Mexico, UAE, among others. The NYU team supported the drafting of a key affidavit in the case.
-
To read more about the surveillance project check out an article by the NYU team on Just Security, "CTRL + HALT + Defeat: State-Sponsored Surveillance and the Suppression of Dissent".
-
- International Human Rights Law Research Program
- The Institute supported innovative research and teaching related to international human rights and China, including thematic areas like the Internet, national security and terrorism, and Hong Kong.
Check out radio interviews from The Takeaway with Yara Sallam and Olga Sadovskaya, two human rights defenders who joined us for our 2017 Conference, Defending Dissent: