Sharie Cassioppi, 2L, Awarded Human Rights Fellowship By World Without Genocide

World Without Genocide, a St. Paul-based human rights organization, has awarded a Benjamin B. Ferencz Fellowship in Human Rights to Sharie Cassioppi, 2L.

The fellowships provide financial support through World Without Genocide for work on core areas of human rights including research, policy development, and action at local, state, national, and international levels.

Cassioppi, who currently works as a legal intern for the International Leadership Institute, was selected to pursue the goal of raising public awareness about reparations for systemic injustice.

“I plan to research comparative economic, social, legal, and policy factors of reparations for survivors and descendants of the Holocaust, Japanese internment, Namibian genocide, and Black slavery in the United States,” says Cassioppi. “Our goals are to raise awareness of the legal issues, including presenting a CLE course in February, and to advocate for policy development at local, national, and international levels. Ultimately, there is no restorative justice or restitution that will make up for the horrors of slavery in the U.S., but there are real economic actions that the government can take to address some of the lasting effects.”

The fellowship is named for one of the world’s leading advocates for human rights, Benjamin B. Ferencz. In Nuremberg, Germany, in 1947, Ferencz prosecuted members of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads responsible for the deaths of more than a million Jews during the Holocaust. He received convictions for every one of the accused. Ferencz has committed his life to advocating for justice and peace around the world. He was a key figure in the development of the International Criminal Court.