The Promise Institute for Human Rights

The Promise Institute faculty E. Tendayi Achiume, and Promise Chair in Human Rights, Kimberlé Crenshaw, are leading voices against systemic racism and police brutality in the United States. Deputy Director, Cathy Sweetser, is involved in litigating cases related to the rights of unhoused people and detained people in Los Angeles as well as slavery and forced labor abroad, and our students are involved with this work through our Human Rights Litigation Clinic. Human Rights in the Americas Project Director, Joe Berra, is working with Indigenous community groups in Honduras to challenge the construction of a hydroelectric dam.

The Promise Institute supports the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, E. Tendayi Achiume. Students support the work of the Special Rapporteur through her Human Rights Clinic. 

Recent reports from Special Rapporteur Achiume include 

• Racial discrimination and emerging digital technologies (2020)
• Reparations for colonialism and slavery (2019)
• Natural resource extractivism and racial equality (2019)
• The threat of nationalist populism (2018)

Co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, the session brought together practitioners and scholars to identify areas in need of conceptual development to ensure racial equality in the application of new technologies. This convening informs the report of the UN Special Rapporteur delivered to the United Nations Human Rights Council in July 2020.

Promise Institute Executive Director Kate Mackintosh was Co-Deputy Chair of a panel of leading international lawyers and judges who drafted a definition of “ecocide” as a potential international crime alongside terms including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The group was convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation following requests from government leaders in Sweden. Its work began as international human rights advocates marked the 75th anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials.

For Mackintosh and the Promise Institute, the ecocide work continues recent initiatives to curb crimes in the environmental sphere. The institute co-sponsored a 2020 symposium, “Human Rights and the Climate Crisis,” which drew more than 250 participants and featured keynote addresses from Honduran activist Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres and Kumi Naidoo, the former Executive Director of Greenpeace and Secretary General of Amnesty International.

Following that symposium, Mackintosh convened an expert workshop on the potential for international criminal law to address environmental harm whose report is available here. The group was asked to provide legal advice to the European Parliament on how to bolster environmental protection through international criminal law. The European Commission has since agreed that a crime of ecocide will be part of reflections around amending its existing directive on environmental crimes.

In June 2021, the panel's ecocide definition was announced and garnered major global press coverage. Ecocide has since been endorsed by figures such as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who cited climate and environmental issues have put the world at the "verge of the abyss." Guterres further noted "it would be desirable to add the ecocide...as a crime in the International Criminal Court." (Source Article)

For more on ecocide and the Promise Institute's involvement, please visit our ecocide page, and EcocideLaw.com.

The Promise Institute is proud to support the Migration and Technology Monitor, an initiative that monitors the use of surveillance technologies, automation, and the use of Artificial Intelligence to screen, track, and make decisions about people crossing borders. The Monitor's work highlights the far-reaching impacts on people’s rights and lives.

UN Special Rapporteur E. Tendayi Achiume is reconceptualizing the way we think about colonialism, race, and borders together with international law and critical race scholars. The 2022 Promise Institute Symposium will look at the question of borders in the context of the pandemic. 

The Promise Institute provides funds to subsidize student travel to the U.S.-Mexico border to provide Know-Your-Rights trainings to asylum seekers impacted by the U.S.' Remain in Mexico Policy.

The Human Rights Litigation Clinic supports student research, advocacy, and litigation in support of immigration detainees held in local facilities.

Promise Institute Assistant Director Jess Peake recently received a UC Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grant to launch a Human Rights Open Source Digital Investigations Lab at UCLA Law, in collaboration with the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center and the UC Santa Cruz Research Center for the Americas.  The Lab launched in Spring 2021, giving UCLA Law students the opportunity to receive training in cutting-edge open source investigation methodology and to use those skills to investigate and authenticate human rights violations around the world.

The work of the Migration Technology Monitor is the continuation of early work done by UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, E. Tendayi Achiume in collaboration with the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. This included two convenings hosted at UCLA, and those convenings informed Special Rapporteur Achiume's report to the UN Human Rights Council, Racial Discrimination and Emerging Digital Technologies.

The Promise Institute also issued a report following one of these convenings: Human Rights, Racial Equality & New Information Technologies: Mapping the Structural Threats. 

The Promise Institute provided funding to Kamari Clarke, UCLA Professor of Anthropology, for a project on "Evidence and Justice in a Post-Truth World."  This project explores the ways that human rights documentation is inspiring the development of human rights technology applications.

The Human Rights Litigation Clinic has as a key focus accountability for corporations who commit human rights violations.  In Fall 2021 we will relaunch UCLA Law in the Hague, an externship program that allows students to work at an international court in the Hague, the Netherlands, while also studying a course on "International Courts in Practice."

Richard Dicker, International Justice Project Director at Human Rights Watch, was a Distinguished Fellow in Residence at the Promise Institute for the last two spring semesters and will again join us Spring 2022.  During his time at UCLA Law, Richard taught a course on "Prospects for International Justice," and wrote a briefing paper on the future of the International Criminal Court, informed by a convening of experts hosted by the Promise Institute.

Promise Institute Executive Director Kate Mackintosh was part of the panel to develop the law on the crime of ecocide. Work building support for the new law and hastening its adoption will continue in collaboration with students through our Spring 2022 practicum and across an array of global efforts. 

A focus on the Inter-American system for human rights accountability and implementation continues with our course taught by James Cavallaro, former President of the IAComHR, as well as our collaboration with the IAComHR Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights, Soledad Garcia-Muñoz. The Promise Institute is also planning to host a session of the IAComHR in 2023. 

In 2021-2022, in addition to environmental accountability, the Promise Institute plans to continue its work on accountability throughout supply chains of U.S. corporations.  

We are proud to share our 2020 - 2021 Annual Report with you. Please choose either an interactive "book" or a PDF version.

The Promise Institute has issued a statement on the verdict of David Castillo, accused coauthor of Berta Cácares' assassination. View the statement here.

We are proud to have played a role in crafting the new crime of ecocide. Please visit our Page on Ecocide, and EcocideLaw.com to learn more. Media inquiries? Please contact monsanto@law.ucla.edu.

We created a Guide on the Fall 2020 Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict intended to be an impartial resource to assist anyone conducting research on this conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenian.

We thank undergraduate students Kristine Aramyan and Martin Makaryan, and law student Ani Setian for their research assistance.

Our 2021 Symposium addressed International Human Rights and Corporate Accountability. Watch videos and more here.

Watch as UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance E. Tendayi Achiume Testified Before House Judiciary Subcommittee on Slavery Reparations (February 18, 2021)

The Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs 2020 Symposium issue (Volume 25, Issue 1) is available to read without a paywall! Physical copies may be purchased here, while a digital issue is available through HeinOnline.

"Tremors Along the Fault Line: A Critical Perspective on Covid-19 and the Right to Health in the United States," a chapter written by Mara González Souto, Grace Carson and Joseph Berra in El derecho a la salud en Estados Unidos, México, Centroamérica y Panamá en el contexto del COVID-19 (Joaquín A. Mejía Rivera, editor).

Report issued by the Promise Institute and affiliated programs and entities are available here.

ICCforum.com is an innovative online legal journal cooperatively undertaken by the Promise Institute for Human Rights and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC OTP). The Forum allows members of the legal community, governments, academics, and others to debate complex issues of international criminal law faced by the Office of the Prosecutor in the course of its work at the ICC.

UCLA Law students and faculty work with the International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor, legal scholars and practitioners from around the world, as well as technology experts, to run the Forum. Students make a semester-long commitment to the project, researching and analyzing pressing issues that bear on the legal and institutional development of the International Criminal Court and that demand the attention of the prosecutor, Karim Khan.

Professor Richard H. Steinberg is Editor-in-Chief of the Forum, which was launched on September 1, 2010 during the tenure of the first Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

The forum publishes two issues annually, each addressing a pressing legal question facing the Office of the Prosecutor.

The most recent, nineteenth question, is:

What is the universe of cases upon which the ICC should focus? Should the Prosecutor investigate and prosecute a large number of cases whenever Rome Statute legal criteria have been met, or focus on only a small number of those situations, when crimes of the most gravity have taken place? In selecting cases to investigate and prosecute, what should be the threshold for the gravity that warrants investigation of a situation or prosecution of those most responsible?

For other questions addressed by the forum please visit www.iccforum.com

The Promise Human Rights Blog was founded in 2019 as a platform for UCLA Law students to advance domestic and international human rights. It is run by J.D. and LL.M. candidates dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights, in Los Angeles and globally. 

Visit the blog at www.promisehumanrights.blog

Sign up for our newsletter here!

Past Newsletters Include: 

Fall 2020

• Back to school for the Promise Institute
• Trump's attacks on Critical Race Theory
• Promise Spearheads Accountability For Crimes Against The Environment
• Alarm At Civilian Victims Of Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh Conflict
• Supreme Court Brief Filed On Child Slavery In The Chocolate Industry
• The Migration and Technology Monitor Launches at the Promise Institute
• Human Rights in the Americas

Spring 2020 – Summer 2020

• Promise Institute Online Resources
• News and action at the Promise Institute!
• Promise Institute launches new Human Rights in the Americas Project
• Congratulations to the Class of 2020!
• News from the Promise Institute (June 1)
• News from the Promise Institute (June 8)
• News from the Promise Institute (June 15)
• Juneteenth
• Poetry in Residence at the Promise Institute
• Human Rights, Racial Equality and New IT
• Crossroads for the International Criminal Court

The Promise Institute submits amicus briefs in cases that involve issues of international human rights.

Find amicus briefs that the Promise Institute has authored or co-sign here.

Our growing catalog of videos highlights our five thematic areas and include: 

• Events
• Symposia
• Interviews with human rights leaders
• and more!

Visit our Promise Institute YouTube Channel to see them all, and subscribe to stay updated. 

Each season on our podcast, we host practitioners and thought leaders for critical conversations on human rights. Subscribe to the show on

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• BuzzSprout

We created a Guide on the Fall 2020 Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict intended to be an impartial resource to assist anyone conducting research on this conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenian.

We thank undergraduate students Kristine Aramyan and Martin Makaryan, and law student Ani Setian for their research assistance.

We are excited to offer career counseling and post-graduate fellowships to our students. Learn more on our Careers Page.

Aaron Acosta ('18) is a Transitional Justice Researcher at Dejusticia, a Colombian NGO based in Bogotá, as well as an associate researcher at the UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub. Currently, Aaron's work focuses on corporate accountability for economic actors in the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and victims' access to land restitution in Colombia's land restitution process. Before being employed by Dejusticia, Aaron spent a year at Dejusticia as a Promise Institute for Human Rights Fellow, where he researched transitional justice issues and International Humanitarian Law in the Colombian context.

Since graduating law school in 2017, Natasha Babazadeh has pursued opportunities to advance her public-interest litigation and advocacy skills. Recently, through its Honors Program, Natasha started working in the Appellate Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. She writes briefs for and argue cases before federal appellate courts on a variety of civil rights issues, including housing and employment discrimination, police brutality, desegregation in schools, hate crimes, and so much more. Prior to this, Natasha clerked in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (Nashville) and in the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago). And before that, she served as an Appellate Advocacy Fellow with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, D.C. Through UCLA Law's Promise Institute and International and Comparative Law Program (ICLP), I took many courses, attended events, and built relationships that have helped me to pursue my dreams of being a human rights lawyer on both a domestic and international level.

Laura Bloom earned her JD from UCLA School of Law in 2018 with an International and Comparative Law Specialization. Since then, Laura has worked for the UK-based legal charity, Reprieve. Reprieve supports individuals facing extreme human rights abuses, including the death penalty and abusive counter-terror measures such as arbitrary detention and torture. As part of their Secret Prisons Team, Laura provides legal and investigative support to clients detained in North East Syria and Guantanamo Bay, and assists former Guantanamo Bay detainees as they try to rebuild their lives.

Of her time at UCLA Law, Laura says "I would not be where I am today without the support of the Promise Institute and the UCLA International and Comparative Law Program. Through UCLA, I was able to take a range of human rights courses that have proved crucial to my professional development. I also conducted research for Professor Aslı Bâli, spent a semester at the UN OHCHR, interned at a grassroots organization in Benin, and served as rapporteur at a human rights conference in Nepal. Finally, I began my career at Reprieve as an inaugural Promise Institute Fellow. Today, I continue to benefit from the support and advice of professors and administrators within the Promise Institute and the International and Comparative Law Program. I am so grateful for the opportunities I have had at UCLA and to be in a position where I can meaningfully work on issues I care deeply about."

Amanda Brown earned her JD from UCLA School of Law in 2020 with specializations in Critical Race Studies, International and Comparative Law, and Public Interest Law and Policy. As a recipient of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law & UC Office of the President Public Service Law Fellowship, Amanda is working to counter the fortressing of borders and to defend the rights of people on the move. As a Legal Trainee on the Migration team of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and as a Legal Researcher with the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), Amanda is using strategic litigation to challenge border violence, pushbacks, racial discrimination and other human rights violations in the context of migration. She credits the faculty of the Promise Institute with giving her the skills, knowledge, exposure and mentorship to pursue this work, and thanks Professor Achiume in particular for the relevant guidance extended in her International Human Rights Law clinic and course and her semesters of supervision on independent research. Amanda regards Professor Achiume's teaching as having significantly advanced her work on the intersections of race and migration and as having equipped her to file a recent communication with the UN Human Rights Committee, where she was GLAN's lead author of a complaint filed against Greece alleging the enforced disappearance of a Syrian refugee. During law school, Amanda worked with various organizations on projects relating to statelessness, sea rescue, immigration and asylum services, and human rights accountability in global migration governance. She served as a Research Assistant for the Promise Institute during her 2L and 3L years and was the founding editor of the Promise Human Rights Blog.

Kathleen Bush-Joseph received her Juris Doctor from UCLA School of Law in 2016. She specialized in International and Comparative Law and received the Morris Greenspan Memorial Prize for top performance in international law among the graduating class. After law school, Kathleen received the support of UCLA Law as a Public Interest Fellow and worked with a local non-governmental organization in Benin doing international human rights and refugee law. Kathleen then did tenant eviction defense in New York City Housing Court with the Legal Aid Society. Next, Kathleen consulted at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva. Presently, Kathleen is a Staff Attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago. Within the Immigrant Children's Protection Project, she represents unaccompanied children who are applying for asylum and other forms of immigration relief.

The international and comparative law staff at UCLA inspired Kathleen to pursue her interests in international human rights and refugee law. With the support of her fellow students and alumni, she interned at the OHCHR and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She also did a semester of law school abroad at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

Astghik Hairapetian graduated with a J.D. in 2020 and is currently working with the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) as an intern in the Human Mobility Project. The work involves a number of issues related to migration in Mesoamerica, such as the impact of COVID-19 on immigration detention centers and the Asylum Cooperative Agreements the U.S. has entered into with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The project is based primarily in CEJIL's Costa Rica office, and Astghik is completing the internship remotely.  While a student at UCLA Law, Astghik was closely affiliated with the Promise Institute: she took part in the Human Rights in Action Clinic International Field Experience in Honduras while in law school, competed in the Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court Competition, and worked on a variety of Promise Institute projects.

Paula Mora graduated in 2020 with a specialization in Human Rights and in International and Comparative Law at UCLA and was the recipient of the Promise Institute LL.M. award for outstanding contributions to the field of human rights upon graduation.  Paula is currently undertaking a prestigious fellowship at the Office of the Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights (ESCER) at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.  Paula is conducting research on the situation of ESCER in the Americas, drafting country reports, as well as press releases. Additionally, she is supporting a project to develop guidelines and standards from the Inter-American System on climate change from a human rights perspective.

Ben Shea graduated from UCLA Law in 2014 specializing in international human rights law. After becoming a member of the New York Bar, Ben moved to Geneva, Switzerland to pursue further studies and to seek career opportunities in international organizations. He currently works for the Business and Human Rights Unit of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In that position, Ben leads the work of the office's Accountability and Remedy Project, which seeks to enhance accountability and access to remedy in cases of business-related human rights abuse. Ben is also part of the secretariat of an intergovernmental working group tasked with elaborating an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises. UCLA Law provided Ben the substantive knowledge and practical experiences needed to engage in international human rights legal work. Ben credits the invaluable support of the faculty, and the connections he made through events and friendships, at UCLA Law for his career opportunities.

Tanya Sukhija-Cohen graduated from UCLA Law in 2013. She is currently an attorney at Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai LLP in Pasadena, and she specializes in civil rights, employment, and international human rights law. Prior to joining the firm, Tanya clerked for the Honorable Dena Hanovice Palermo of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. She previously worked as a civil rights attorney at the Law Offices of Dale K. Galipo on cases involving police excessive force, prisoner rights, and wrongful convictions. Straight out of law school, Tanya worked as a Legal Fellow and then as a Program Officer at Equality Now in New York and Kenya, where she represented victims of gender-based violence in impact litigation cases before international human rights tribunals including the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She also engaged in policy advocacy to end violence against women and girls and improve their access to justice in over 40 countries around the world. While at UCLA Law, Tanya worked with the U.S. Department of State monitoring cases involving war crimes and crimes against humanity in The Hague, non-profits in both California and South Africa aimed at ending gender-based violence, and another prominent civil rights law firm in California on cases involving torture and other international human rights violations.

Shireen Tavakoli earned her Juris Doctor (J.D.) with a specialization in International and Comparative Law from UCLA School of Law in 2017. She is one of the first recipients of the Promise Institute Fellowship, which gave her the opportunity to work for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) following her graduation. When her fellowship term ended, Shireen secured a position at UNHCR as a Refugee Status Determination (RSD) Associate. In this role, Shireen adjudicated refugee claims lodged in the Caribbean region, and led the region's strategic litigation efforts. After three years of serving the agency in Washington DC, Shireen moved back to Los Angeles to start her own law firm. In her practice, she advises businesses and startups on international agreements and treaties affecting their operation in a wide range of industries, including entertainment and art. The Promise Institute Fellowship was integral in Shireen's career trajectory; it gave her the opportunity to start a career in international law, and eventually led to her admission at the University of Oxford, where she is currently finalizing her Master of Studies in international human rights law.

Jess Temple graduated from UCLA School of Law in 2016. Of her time at UCLA Law, Jess says: "As an active International and Comparative Law Program (ICLP) student, I gained a substantive foundation and robust legal skillset (in and out of the classroom) related to human rights. Immediately following graduation, and with the instrumental support of ICLP faculty, I secured a fellowship with an international human rights nonprofit working to address access to justice issues, predominantly within the Inter-American and African regional human rights systems. In the wake of the 2016 United States presidential election, I turned my attention to domestic human rights. I worked to amplify the impact of rural legal service and community-based organizations and to provide urgent immigration and criminal justice direct legal services. I continue to apply a human rights framework in my current position as a Staff Attorney at Rubicon Programs, a Bay Area based nonprofit focused on the intersections of economic, racial, and criminal justice. I am responsible for a broad range of civil legal services as a part of an integrated team of legal, financial, employment, and mental health professionals dedicated to providing holistic services to our participants. What strikes me as I look back on my journey so far is how much the connections I made through ICLP have helped me navigate a particular corner of the law, human rights law, that I find immensely rewarding. In an under resourced sector, with comparatively low compensation and high competition, those connections truly make the difference - whether it's an email or conversation about a job posting, a letter of recommendation, a networking opportunity, or mentorship and support, these connections have been incredibly valuable to me personally, and professionally."

Kristi Ueda received her J.D. from UCLA School of Law in 2019 with specializations in International and Comparative Law, Critical Race Studies, and Public Interest Law and Policy. She is currently a Staff Attorney at Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles's Right to Counsel Workgroup, where she represents indigent clients to expand access to justice and prevent homelessness. Previously, she was the Promise Institute for Human Rights Fellow in Human Rights Watch's Africa Division, where she advocated against xenophobic violence and barriers to basic services experienced by asylum seekers, refugees, and other migrants in South Africa. Reflecting on her time in law school, she says, "I owe so much to the Promise Institute and International and Comparative Law Program. Their programming and faculty introduced me to critical scholarship such as Third World Approaches to International Law and supported me to pursue a wide range of experiences to develop my skillset as a human rights lawyer domestically and internationally. With their support and encouragement, I competed in the Jean Pictet International Humanitarian Law Competition, participated in an oral advocacy simulation at the International Criminal Court, and networked at international law conferences around the world. I am so thankful for all of the opportunities I have had and continue to have through the Promise Institute and International and Comparative Law Program."

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Questions? Contact promiseinstitute@law.ucla.edu

Media Inquiries? Contact monsanto@law.ucla.edu