Past News

CILP - Projects

Political Violence Documentation & Analysis

The Center has been asked to provide training for the staff of the Kenya
National Human Rights Commission, and to assist in the analysis of the
recent violence under various international legal frameworks.

Hate Speech Project

The Center is advising on draft hate speech legislation for compliance with
relevant international standards.

US Attitudes Toward Human Rights Treaty-bodies

The Center has launched an initiative to document and analyze the US
approach to its human rights obligations under international law. The
project entails an examination of the US interpretation of the scope of its
human rights obligations, as well as its understanding of the legal
authority of the human rights treaty-bodies that monitor the implementation
of the treaties to which the US is a party.

See the article posted in the ASIL newsletter

Defense Counsel project

The Center is providing legal advice to defense counsel currently arguing
cases before international criminal courts.

Completed Projects:

Afghanistan Projects on Torture and Women's Rights

This project, completed in 2006, was undertaken at the request of Amnesty International. »Click here for details.«

Inter-state Complicity Project / CIA Renditions in Europe

In response to a request from the Council of Europe, the center has undertaken a project on the issue of European state complicity in alleged unlawful arrest, detention, and rendition perpetrated by United States agents and occurring within the territory of Council of Europe member states. The research focuses on the applicable international legal framework, with emphasis on the secondary rules of state responsibility (e.g. questions of attribution of conduct and derivative responsibility) and the interaction of those rules with the primary rules of human rights law (the European Convention on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention Against Torture).

Congo Project

The Center is advising on the development of victim-centered domestic procedures to complement the Congolese government's referral of cases to the International Criminal Court.

Special Rapporteur Support Project

The Center also undertakes legal research in support of United Nations special rapporteurs and other UN human rights officials. Through this project, the Center is currently examining the contours of the international right of self-defense.

Sri Lankan Supreme Court (Comment on Sept. 15, 2006, Decision)

At the request of the International Women's Rights Action Watch-Asia Pacific www.iwraw-ap.org, Professor John Cerone, director of the Center for International Law and Policy, provided a brief analysis of a recent decision of the Sri Lankan Supreme Court that has implications for international human rights treaties. The threshold issue for the Sri Lankan court was the legal status and relevance within Sri Lankan law of a finding of the Human Rights Committee, the monitoring body established under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Committee found that a Sri Lankan man's conviction violated the ICCPR, and he petitioned the Sri Lankan courts to set aside his conviction based on this finding. Professor Cerone concluded that the Court's findings –(1) that Sri Lanka is not bound by the ICCPR-OP and (2) that the Covenant does not confer rights on individuals – seem to be incorrect as a matter of international law.

Peacekeeper Accountability Project

The Center's work on human rights in post-conflict territories has expanded to include the issue of peacekeeper accountability. The Center's current research focuses on accountability mechanisms for sexual misconduct by civilian and military personnel working on behalf of intergovernmental organizations, including the United Nations.

The International War Crimes Project

Since 1996, the Center has participated in an arrangement with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda , under which New England School of Law students provide legal research and analysis to the war crimes prosecutor on issues pending before the Tribunal. Issues range from the contours of command responsibility to the interpretation of the Genocide Convention. Members of the Public International Law and Policy Group provide the students with guidance and research assistance, and members of the law school faculty supervise and edit the final work product before it is provided to the Tribunal. New England School of Law is one of a handful of law schools in the world with this arrangement with the international prosecutor. Since its establishment, this program has provided more than 100 legal memoranda and hundreds of thousands of pages of supporting research to the international prosecutor. The memos are available at the New England School of Law Library's Research Pages. The Tribunal has cited a memo by a New England School of Law student in a published decision. This program is supported by a grant from the Open Society Institute, a branch of the George Soros Foundation.

U.S. Attitudes Toward International Criminal Courts

The Center for International Law & Policy has been commissioned to undertake a study on US attitudes toward international criminal courts. The Center for International Law & Policy faculty, staff, and students are surveying the shifting disposition of the US government, and its many components, toward international criminal justice as meted out through various international tribunals.
John P. Cerone, U.S. Attitudes toward International Criminal Courts and Tribunals, in The Sword and the Scales: The United States and International Courts and Tribunals (Cesare Romano ed., Cambridge Univ. Press) (forthcoming 2008).