Programming for the coming years will focus on the Project’s signature initiative of Re-Imagining Rights in the Americas, which will culminate with a planned period of sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on the UCLA campus in March 2022.  This initiative will spotlight emerging struggles in the Americas around autonomy for Indigenous peoples, environmental defense, racial justice and state accountability.  It will promote dialog, action and research to expand the legal framework for these struggles, building towards the visit of the Commission.  In its period of sessions, the Commission will hold public hearings on human rights violations by state parties and emerging human rights issues in the Americas.

We are thrilled that James (Jim) Cavallaro will be a visiting professor and  teaching a course on Regional Human Rights Protection: The Inter-American System at UCLA Law in Spring 2021. A former president of the Inter-American Commission, prolific scholar and sought-after voice on international human rights issues, Professor Cavallaro has dedicated his thirty-year career to human rights advocacy and is frequently called upon by the media and civil society to offer his expertise. He is currently the Executive Director of the University Network for Human Rights, which trains undergraduate and graduate students in human rights fact-finding, documentation and advocacy.  This course is a terrific opportunity for our students to learn from an eminent leader in the Inter-American human rights system.

As part of the Reimagining Rights in the Americas initiative, we launched a Spanish/Portuguese speaker series to expand our reach across the Americas.  The inaugural event, El Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos: luces, sombras y nuevos derroteros (“The Inter-American System for Human Rights: lights, shadows and new paths”) was held on International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2020 and featured James Cavallaro, former president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and visiting professor at UCLA Law for Spring 2021 as moderator of a discussion with José Miguel Vivanco (Director of Human Rights Watch Americas Division), Silvia Serrano Guzmán (former attorney with the IACHR) and Claudio Nash Rojas (Constitutional Law expert at the Univ. of Chile).  You can view the event here in Spanish and here with English interpretation. Future events are planned with leaders of Afrodescendent and Indigenous organizations, environmental defenders, and critical human rights scholars in the region.

The Promise Institute is engaged in ongoing collaborative human rights work and litigation in the Inter-American System through the Human Rights in the Americas Project.  Students have the opportunity to participate in this work through advanced clinics, independent study, and pro-bono initiatives.  In August 2020, through the Human Rights in Action Clinic we filed a new petition with our partners in Honduras to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the case of assassinated women’s and land rights leader Margarita Murillo against the state of Honduras.  Contact project director Joseph Berra if interested.

The Promise Institute has a collaborative agreement with the Special Rapporteur for Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The Promise Institute will provide a graduating student who demonstrates an outstanding commitment to human rights in the Americas with an award and post-graduate fellowship opportunity with the Special Rapporteur at the Commission.  Contact Joseph Berra for more information.

Human Rights in the Americas Project Director Joseph Berra is part of the International Observer Mission to the murder trial of Honduran environmental and Indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres. Cáceres was assassinated in March 2016, after winning the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize for her work leading the Lenca community’s fight to stop construction of a dam on the Gualcarque River. Berra represents the Promise Institute on the Mission, which includes 17 national and international human rights organizations from North and South America and Europe. 

From October to December of 2018, eight defendants stood trial for the murder of Berta Cáceres.  Seven were found guilty: the four material authors and three who organized them. The latter group includes a mid-level manager and a former security guard for the dam-building company DESA, and an active duty military intelligence officer.  The executive president of DESA is awaiting trial as the only intellectual author so far to face justice. The family of Berta and the Lenca organization COPINH continue to demand investigation and prosecution of the intellectual authors of the crime, which implicates powerful individuals in Honduran society.  

Berra and Amy Kimbel (UCLA Law 2019) were observers during the first trial. The Mission’s final report and other information on the trial can be found here. The Mission found irregularities and serious deficiencies in the Honduran justice system in the course of the trial, and made recommendations to help overcome endemic structures of impunity. 

Berra is a frequent spokesperson for the Mission due to his expertise on Honduras and work in collaboration with COPINH on Indigenous rights issues. On December 1, 2020 he participated in the forum “Access to Justice, Truth and Judicial Guarantees in the Cause of Berta Cáceres” on the second anniversary of the conviction and on the eve of the prosecution of DESA president David Castillo. You can view the forum (in Spanish) here. Berra will observe the upcoming Castillo trial as part of the Mission, expected to take place in early 2021.