Prof. Hannah Garry leads clinic
- By Gilien Silsby
USC Law’s director of the new International Human Rights Clinic, Hannah Garry, was just 21 years old when she began investigating and documenting human rights abuses against refugees in East Africa.
Hired by Oxford University, Garry spent 18 months as a researcher assigned to interview, photograph and report on exploited refugees from abuses in exile,” she says. “I knew I wanted to help in a more tangible way. I wanted to be able to help them advocate for their rights through law.”
Garry graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, and within two years she was back in Africa and then at The Hague, working for the Appeals Chamber Judges at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. She worked on cases trying perpetrators of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Garry, who joined USC Law last August, is now training the next generation of lawyers to work in international tribunals to fight against human rights abuses.
With her newly launched International Human Rights Clinic, Garry selected six USC Law students to work for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).
It is the first time law students at an American university will assist in the decision-making process at these tribunals. Students will partner with judges and their legal staff to bring to justice those most responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes perpetrated in Rwanda in the 1990s and in Cambodia in the 1970s.
The USC Law students selected have a range of experience with many already having worked or studied overseas. Jamie Hoffman ’11 was a volunteer legal advocate for Asylum Access Tanzania last summer.
“Working with refugees has given me a unique perspective on war crimes and genocide,” she says. “I have grown to understand the importance of justice and it’s something I’m personally committed to.”
Jesse Leff ’06, a legal officer for the Trial Chambers at the ICTR, helped Garry secure a partnership with the tribunal and played a key role in figuring out how the clinic might assist the tribunals and judges.
Leff, who interned at the ICTR while a USC Law student, also offered ideas for the cases and types of assignments students could get involved with and volunteered to act as a facilitator and supervise student work.
As the clinic evolves, students will learn how to use international law as a tool for social justice in domestic and international cases.
To learn more about the international human rights clinic and how you can join this new clinic’s struggle for global justice, visit (http://law.usc.edu/ihrc).
Rwanda, Sudan and the Congo. She documented rapes, recruitment of child soldiers, torture and forced labor.
After witnessing an entire Sudanese refugee village razed to the ground at gunpoint by the Ugandan army while the United Nations stood by, Garry decided she no longer wanted to be a neutral observer on the sidelines.
“I was appalled to find that after fleeing from unspeakable atrocities, refugees were facing serious
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