News

During the spring semester, second-year law student Madeleine Kim ’25 spent hours poring over reports about the Nepali Civil War, which lasted a decade starting in the mid-1990s. She dug into the nuances of Nepali law, researched legislative reforms that happened in the aftermath of the war, and studied their impact on women and the LGBTIQ+ community. 

Cinema Libre Studio premiered the film "I Am Gitmo" on May 2, 2024, at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, CA. The evening celebrated the launch of the CLSNOW streaming platform and included the presentation of the CLSNOW Human Rights Award to Minnesota Law Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Honorary King's Counsel, Regents Professor, Robina Chair in Law, Public Policy, and Society, and faculty director of the Human Rights Center. 

Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin has been named Honorary King's Counsel (KC Hon) by His Majesty The King of England, who approved the appointment of 95 barristers and solicitors as new King’s Counsel (KC) in England and Wales and five new Honorary King’s Counsel (KC Honoris Causa). Honorary KCs are awarded to those who have made a major contribution to the law of England and Wales, outside practice in the courts.

Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin visited Lviv, Ukraine in December for the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights & the Genocide Convention. The convention was attended by 75 international lawyers from the American Society of International Law and 75 lawyers from the Ukrainian Association of International Law, all dedicated to upholding human rights and international law.

Please join the University of Minnesota Law School in congratulating Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin upon the successful completion of her second term as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. Appointed to this role in 2017, Ní Aoláin worked closely with states and United Nations' entities to advance human right

This past week, Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, University Regents Professor; Robina Chair in Law, Public Policy, and Society; and faculty director of the Human Rights Center at the Law School was the keynote speaker at the launch of the University of Chicago's McKeon Center's Institute on the Formation of Knowledge.

Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin joined European Parliamentarians in Brussels this week for a global conference on the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The event brought the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur, European Union Parliamentarians, former detainees including Mansoor Adayfi, a non-resident Visiting Fellow at the Law School's Human Rights Center, the former Muslim Chaplain to Guantanamo, and detainee lawyers together.

Professor Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin was recently elected to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) for a 5 year term. Established in 1952, the Commission plays a unique and prominent role in defending human rights and the rule of law worldwide. Served by a full-time staff with offices in every region of the world, ICJ is founded on the appointment by ballot of a fixed number of 60 eminent global jurists.

In her role as U.N. Special Rapporteur on the protection of rights while countering terrorism, Prof. Fionnuala Ní Aoláin held a press conference on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland, to report on her end-of-mandate visit to Syria where she called attention to the lingering “mass arbitrary detention” in Syria's infamous al-Hol camp and others like it that she saw during her trip to the region last week—a visit that was billed as the first visit of its kind by an independent human rights expert.