Human Rights Methodology for Clinical Instruction: Legal Theory and Interdisciplinary Practices to Realize Human Rights Outcomes

Authors

Diane Desierto, Notre Dame Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Publication Information

58_Int'l Law. 341 (2025).

Abstract

The interdisciplinary fact-finding and analytical methodologies of global human rights law, when translated to experiential learning practices (e.g., in the form of human rights legal assessments that integrate international law with domestic law and inject rigorous plausibility evaluations of client claims applicable to global as well as domestic fora) can usefully enhance and expand United States law school clinical teaching practices and the transfer of practical lawyering skills. By teaching law students: (1) the wide range of available human rights factfinding and empirical tools; (2) the techniques for broad use and application of primary and secondary evidentiary sources; and (3) developing empathetic practices of appropriate and professional accompaniment for human rights claimants, United States law clinics' conceptual and pedagogical approaches to victim redress and reparative justice could be further strengthened and reinforced as to the wholistic investigation, verification, and presentation of facts on behalf of survivors of human rights violations. Purposely internalizing global human rights legal analysis within the prism of existing United States law school clinical practices, while also leveraging robust interdisciplinary human rights fact-finding frameworks for case assessment and evaluation as well as human rights reparations and jurisdictional planning, can ultimately enrich law students' understanding and experience of the remedial design for complex human rights violations, well beyond standard disciplinary confines of American domestic tort, criminal, constitutional, transactional, and contract law.

Recommended Citation

Diane Desierto, Human Rights Methodology for Clinical Instruction: Legal Theory and Interdisciplinary Practices to Realize Human Rights Outcomes, 58_Int'l Law. 341 (2025)..
Available at: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/1793