Human Rights Clinic - Projects & Cases

The Human Rights Clinic works to strengthen responses to gender-based violence, including domestic violence and sexual assault, locally in Miami, nationally and globally, through the Human Rights Program’s COURAGE Initiative.

The Human Rights Clinic represents Jessica Lenahan, the petitioner in Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) v. United States—a groundbreaking decision from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) finding the U.S. in violation of its human rights obligations in the context of domestic violence.

Criminalization of Survivors

• On April 3, 2025, the Miami Law Human Rights Clinic (HRC), in collaboration with the UNC Criminalized Survivor, Detention & Justice Clinic, Georgetown Law Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity, the Gender, Prison, and Trauma Clinic at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, and the Battered Women’s Justice Project, submitted a new report to the United Nations Human Rights Council entitled From the Cradle to the Grave: The Lifelong Criminalization of Survivors. This report documents the ways in which survivors of gender-based violence—particularly women and girls—are systematically criminalized across their lives. It sheds light on how early trauma, poverty, racial injustice, and gender-based violence intersect with carceral systems that fail to protect and instead perpetuate harm. The report provides a human rights framework for understanding the lived experiences of criminalized survivors and identifies state failures to uphold international obligations under human rights law. It highlights patterns of discrimination, gaps in protection, and the urgent need for policy reform.
• Building upon the findings of the report, the side-event, From the Cradle to the Grave: The Lifelong Criminalization of Survivors, was convened virtually as part of the Fourth Session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent at the United Nations in New York City on April 15, 2025. Organized by the Miami Law Human Rights Clinic, the event gathered a distinguished panel of global experts, legal practitioners, activists, and policymakers to explore the international dimensions of survivor criminalization. Through testimony and analysis, participants illuminated the global reach of systemic failures that disproportionately impact Black women and women of African descent and emphasized the urgent need for international solidarity, accountability, and reform. The side-event, serving as a catalyst for broader dialogue within the Forum, underscored the importance of centering survivor experiences in both human rights advocacy and policy-making to dismantle entrenched patterns of injustice.
  
  

 Stand Your Ground Laws

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

• In March 2014, the Human Rights Clinic participated in a thematic hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to look at the impact of Stand Your Ground laws on minority groups throughout the United States. Clinic partners included the Dream Defenders, Community Justice Project of Florida Legal Services, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Free Marissa Now Campaign. Additionally, Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, and Ronald Davis, the father of Jordan Davis, both spoke as part of our delegation before the Commission.
  
  

The video of the hearing can be found here.

A copy of the Petitioners’ testimonies can be found here. 

Professor Bettinger-Lopez appeared on Jamaica Radio's Behind the Headlines on March 25, 2014 to discuss the hearing.

Click here and here for blog posts by Professor Deena Hurwitz (UVA) about the hearing.

United Nations Human Rights Committee

• In September 2013, the Human Rights Clinic drafted and submitted a “shadow report” on Domestic Violence, Gun Violence, and "Stand Your Ground" Laws to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in anticipation of the review of the United States' compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in Geneva in March 2014.

ABA (American Bar Association) Advocacy

The Human Rights Clinic participated in the ABA National Task Force’s Hearing on Stand Your Ground Law – Miami Law 3L Charlotte Cassel discussed the application of the Stand Your Ground law to victims of domestic violence belonging to ethnic and racial minorities and framed the issue in terms of international human rights.

The Human Rights Clinic has worked with law clinics and advocates across the country to develop Resolutions Recognizing Freedom from Domestic Violence as a Fundamental Human Right.

• HRC students' resolution declaring that "freedom from domestic violence is a fundamental human right" is approved by Miami-Dade County Commission.
• Miami Herald op-ed co-authored by HRC student Michael Stevenson and Commissioner Sally Heyman about the resolution.
• Professor Margaret Drew and students from the University of Cincinnati prepared a toolkit on local DV resolutions.

In August 2014, the Miami Human rights Clinic, along with the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, and the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, published Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault in the United States: A Human Rights Based Approach & Practice Guide. 

In January 2014, the clinic hosted a webinar on “New Perspectives in Gender Justice in Clinic Teaching.” The webinar focused on the case of Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) v. United States of America, the clinic’s work on implementing the Inter-American Commission’s 2011 decision, and how local governments can resolve to recognize freedom from domestic violence as a fundamental human right.

Gen2026 Team

On April 3, 2025, the Miami Law Human Rights Clinic (HRC) and the Centre for Sport and Human Rights (CSHR) released a new report, Keeping the Game Safe: Addressing Child Safeguarding, Gender-Based Violence, and Human Rights in the FIFA World Cup 2026.

This report reflects our Clinic’s collaboration with CSHR in 2024-25, and reflects on best practices in child safeguarding, gender-based violence prevention, and implementing human rights frameworks related to the venues, sport organizations, and municipalities connected with the FIFA World Cup 2026. This report highlights key learnings from past mega-sporting events, existing legislative and institutional frameworks, and recommendations for safeguarding children at the FIFA World Cup 2026.

• Food Rights Initiative

• Health Rights Initiative

• Housing Rights Initiative

• Stop Deportations to Haiti

• The Human Rights Clinic is collaborating with Catholic Legal Services to advocate for asylum in the U.S. for victims of gender-based violence.
• The Human Rights Clinic filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging rights violations by the U.S. against asylum seekers who have been detained in harsh conditions and arbitrarily denied the chance to apply for asylum on the Southern border.
• The clinic was involved in representing a Haitian immigrant in deportation proceedings, arguing that deporting her would likely result in her being tortured back in Haiti, a violation of the Convention against Torture (CAT).

The Human Rights Clinic co-organized an international “Stop Deportations to Haiti” Campaign in the wake of the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, with advocacy before the United Nations, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and U.S. and Haitian lawmakers.

• Shadow Reports to U.N. Treaty Bodies

On June 30, 2014 the Human Rights and Immigration Clinics contributed to a shadow report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination regarding Deportation from the United States to Haiti: A Violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

The Human Rights Clinic further contributed to a shadow report to the U.N. Human Rights Committee in anticipation of the review of the United States' compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in Geneva in October 2013 on U.S. Deportations to Haiti. In February 2014, the clinic submitted an update to their original shadow report. View our Congressional briefing flyer (March 2012) with the latest updates on Haitian deportations.

• Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Advocacy

The Human Rights Clinic, together with the Immigration Clinic and other partners, brought a “precautionary measures” case before the IACHR asking the United States to immediately stop deportations of Haitian nationals from the U.S. to Haiti in light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis there. The petition was granted for dozens of Haitian nationals. The Clinic worked on a follow-up “merits petition” to the IACHR.

• Engagement with the U.N.'s Independent Expert on human rights in Haiti

The U.N.'s Independent Expert on human rights in Haiti, as well as UM Clinics and South Florida immigration advocates, have renewed their call on the United States, Dominican Republic and others to halt deportations to Haiti.

• Press Release
• UN report, Forced returns of Haitians from third states
• Read the statement presented on July 3, 2012 at the United Nations Human Rights Council by the ACLU, UM's Human Rights and Immigration Clinics, and others concerning Haitian deportations from the U.S. following the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
• ACLU delivered a statement on behalf of several groups at UNHRC urging US government to refrain from deporting Haitians (July 4, 2012).

This project was initially focused on supporting efforts in the Dominican Republic to implement a regularization program for undocumented individuals. In the wake of a September 2013 decision by the Dominican Constitutional Court—which stripped citizenship from hundreds of thousands of Dominican citizens of Haitian descent—the Clinic quickly switched its focus to addressing the harmful consequences of the Court ruling. As part of these efforts, the Clinic submitted a press release and an amicus curiae brief in the case of Benito Tide Méndez et al., v. Dominican Republic before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, focused on the rights of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic.

Twenty second- and third-year students from Professor Carrie Bettinger-López’s International Human Rights Law and Advocacy class teamed with the law school’s Human Rights Clinic and South Florida anti-poverty organizations to produce six reports for the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. The rapporteur, Professor Philip Alston, used the reports to supplement his official visits to several U.S. cities in December 2017. Alston presented his findings on the interlinkages between U.S. poverty and the realization of human rights before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva in early 2018.

Click here for the six consolidated reports submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights.

Click on the links below for the individual reports:

• Examining the Systemic Issues that Prevent Impoverished Women from Gaining Economic Security in Miami-Dade County (The Women’s Fund of Miami-Dade County and Miami Law Human Rights Clinic)
• Farmworker Poverty and Human Rights (Miami Law Human Rights Clinic, in consultation with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers)
• The Intersection Between Poverty and Florida’s Criminal Justice System: Homeless Rights, Bail Reform, Indigent Defendants’ Right to Counsel, and Restoration of Past Offenders’ Right to Vote (The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and Miami Law Human Rights Clinic)
• Immigrants and Extreme Poverty in South Florida (Catholic Charities Legal Services and Miami Law Human Rights Clinic)
• Access to Transportation, Health Care, and Disaster Preparations and Relief in South Florida (Catalyst Miami and Miami Law Human Rights Clinic)
• Human Rights at Home: Miami’s Housing Crisis and its Perpetuation of Poverty (Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc., Community Justice Project, and Miami Law Human Rights Clinic)

The Human Rights Clinic has engaged in advocacy on juvenile justice in the U.S. at the local, state, and national levels. Some of the Florida-focused topics the Clinic has addressed include children funneled into the adult justice system without judicial review; pretrial detention of juveniles in county jails; and conditions of juvenile confinement, including solitary confinement.

In 2013, the Clinic provided research support for a shadow report on Youth Incarcerated in Adult Prisons in the U.S. to the U.N. Human Rights Committee.

In June 2014, the Clinic, along with partner organizations, submitted a Shadow Report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination regarding Criminalization of Minority Youth: Youth Criminally Tried and Incarcerated as Adults.