Research & Impact

Several Human Rights Center faculty specialize in the area of conflict and security, including the laws of war, national security law, international criminal law, international security regimes, transitional justice, and the intersection with the protection and defense of human rights in situations of extremity, insecurity, and war.

In 2017, the Human Rights Center’s Faculty Director Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council as the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. In 2020 she was re-elected by member states for another three-year term. Under this UN Mandate, Professor Ní Aoláin is an independent expert, working closely with states, United Nations entities, and civil society organizations to advance human rights protections in some of the most difficult contexts in the world. 

The Human Rights Center is proud to support Professor Ní Aoláin in this groundbreaking, global human rights work. The Center has expert researchers based in Minneapolis, New York, and Paris and hires 8-10 law students per year to support the work of the mandate.

Human Rights Center experts in Conflict & Security: Oren Gross, Neha Jain, Helen Kinsella, Fionnuala Ni Aolain, Alan Rozenshtein

The Center supports a wide range of work by faculty and students across the areas of business and human rights, economic and environmental justice, and economic and development policies. 

Projects in this area span across the local, national, and international level and include work on economic and social rights, including water, housing, and food. Each year the Center supports students to work with frontline human rights organizations across the United States dedicated to securing economic and social rights and advocating for systemic change. 

Under Prof. David Weissbrodt, the Center was a leader in developing the UN Draft Norms on the responsibilities of transnational corporations, which greatly impacted and advanced the field now understood as Business and Human Rights. Center faculty have ongoing research and advocacy work in: patterns of human rights violations and abuses committed in the context of business operations and global supply chains, how human rights law and standards ought to inform business policy and practices, and the intersection of human rights and international trade.

Human Rights Center experts in Development, Business, and Economic Policy: Cosette Creamer, Jennie Green, Oren Gross, Amanda Lyons, Michele Statz

A cross-cutting priority for the Human Rights Center, many of our faculty and students are involved in research and engagement related to feminist approaches to law, advancing women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and gender justice. This work includes research and advocacy related to gender-based violence in conflict, the role of multinational businesses in championing LGBTQ rights, the situation of LGBTQ refugees and asylum-seekers, and a variety of student fellowships focused on training opportunities in gender justice. International Women’s Rights Action Watch was founded at the University of Minnesota in 1986 and has been housed at the Human Rights Center since 1998. 

Human Rights Center experts in Gender Justice: Jennie Green, Helen Kinsella, Amanda Lyons, Steve Meili, Fionnuala Ni Aolain

In a context of global migration crises and rising nationalistic and xenophobic responses, this research area looks at the human rights situation of non-citizens (refugees and asylum-seekers) globally and draws lessons from ongoing casework and advocacy. Recent faculty projects include  supporting the work of Prof. Steve Meili in his research in Uganda, South Africa, the UK, Colombia, and Mexico into new strategies for advocates around the world to draw on constitutionalized human rights norms to defend the rights of migrants. 

This is a legacy priority area for the Human Rights Center, which facilitated the installation of an asylum clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School starting in 19XX. Minnesota Law School is a national leader in immigration and asylum law and the Human Rights Center complements the work of the Binger Center for New Americans by focusing on global trends in the asylum regime, the relation with human rights law, and the situation of non-citizens in countries other than the United States.

Human Rights Center experts in Rights of Non-Citizens: Jennie Green, Steve Meili

This area of work focuses on the critical assessment of the international human rights legal framework and understanding and assessing the variety of mechanisms and strategies for engaging in human rights advocacy. 

The Center has an important legacy of work researching and teaching on the evolution of the human rights regime, the particular relevance of human rights in the United States, current strategies for engagement, and ways forward. The widely recognized Online Human Rights Library, which long served as a vital resource for activists, students, practitioners, and scholars around the world, is archived and still available for consultation. 

Human Rights Center experts in Human Rights History, Theory, and Practice: Cosette Creamer, Chris Roberts

The Human Rights Litigation and International Advocacy Clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School is led by Professor Jennie Green, its founding director. The Center and the Clinic work together closely on a range of projects. The Clinic is a year-long academic course at the Law School that allows students to get hands-on training in the skills, strategies, and ethics of human rights lawyering while offering tangible support to partners and clients. The Clinic partners with grassroots activists, nongovernmental organizations, and leading law firms to engage in human rights litigation in federal or state courts and advocacy before the United Nations, as well as before federal and state legislative and executive branches.

The Human Rights Lab is an interdisciplinary space for faculty, students, and partners to investigate and model ways that cutting-edge research can be used more effectively with NGOs, communities, institutions, and policymakers to reduce inequalities in the enjoyment of human rights. The Human Rights Lab is jointly administered by the Human Rights Center at the Law School and Human Rights Program in the College of Liberal Arts. The Lab emerged from the intercollegiate human rights faculty network with over 40 members and was catalyzed by the University’s Grand Challenges strategic initiative and the award of two competitive Grand Challenge Exploratory Research Grants starting in 2017. To date the Lab has supported more than 30 projects in Minnesota and around the world. 

Learn more about the Human Rights Lab