Columbia Law School founded the Human Rights Institute (HRI) in 1998 to help train the next generation of lawyers, teachers, and human rights professionals as well as to bring together international and domestic academics, activists, and policy makers to think and act on human rights issues in innovative ways. The Institute engages in cutting-edge advocacy and policy strategy in addition to scholastic research; it is dedicated to building bridges between theory and practice.
The Human Rights
Clinic at the Law School is one of the primary vehicles for HRI‘s project work.
The Clinic works with governments, think tanks, and civil society organizations
to provide legal expertise. Past projects include advising the governments of
Liberia and the
Democratic
Republic of Congo on contract reviews and renegotiations, assisting Sao Tome
yPrincipe on revising its Oil Revenue Management Laws, and working with World
Bank consultants on the Chad-Cameroon pipeline.
Our
team worked with law students to do comprehensive analysis of at least two
major oil and mining contacts. The business student project team gathered
relevant oil and mining industry information required to create model of the
contract and run sensitivity analysis based on various scenarios. Law students provided
legal analysis of the contracts as well as provide legal support to the
business student team.
Deliverables
Economic
model that can be given to host government officials and local activists for
use and adaption for other contracts Report detailing assumptions, findings,
and how the contracts could be improved, if relevant, etc
PowerPoint
presentation summarizing key findings for presentation to government officials
and local activists (this may require two separate presentations, depending on
the skill and experience level of the government/local activists)
Training
sessions for government officials and activists (optional)