Blog post by IHRC Student Attorneys: Brittany Delbridge and Timothy Cojocnean.
Hooray, We Get To Travel!
Seven weeks into our third semester of law school, we learned our international field work was approved, and that we would be leaving in a few short weeks for an immersive experience in Human Rights work. Specifically, we had the opportunity to travel to Nicaragua as part of the research phase of our assignment with Santa Clara’s International Human Rights Clinic (“IHRC”). At the IHRC, all student attorneys are given the autonomy to choose their own clinical assignments and the freedom to decide how to approach their problems.
Students travel to Nicaragua to meet with clients.
Our project was an extension of a previous team’s work with a group of clients in Nicaragua who were illegally fired for being in the wrong union. We picked through their files, learning intimate details about these individuals. We read first hand accounts of their struggle through the hardships of discrimination and unemployment.
What we did not fully comprehend was how much faith our clients were putting in us, two student attorneys, to advocate on their behalf. Our clients were relying on us to provide closure to their struggle; to calm the storm of physical, emotional,and psychological suffering that grew each day they were forced to live with the indignity of lack of access to timely and effective justice.
Here’s The Problem
Our clients have spent years waiting for justice in their own domestic courts. They sought the assistance of the IHRC to seek legal remedies using international human rights mechanisms. Nicaragua’s highest court had released judgments ordering both reinstatement and backpay to our clients. The Nicaraguan executive branch, however, failed to enforce these judgments.
But We Need A Plan
To complement other ongoing litigation strategies the Clinic is pursuing, we proposed an alternative avenue to justice. We proposed submitting a request to hold a thematic hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. We were certain that our clients would probably have some questions about what a thematic hearing is, so we practiced our explanations and gained valuable feedback from our supervising attorneys and peers.
A thematic hearing is a non-adversarial, non-judicial opportunity for the Inter-American Commission to invite a State to engage in a proactive dialogue to work towards collaborative solutions to correct or stop human rights violations. A thematic hearing is also a unique opportunity to create global awareness about a human rights problem and to “name and shame” States that violate human rights. We learned how difficult it is to get out of the law student framework and talk to our clients in everyday language. Accordingly, we strategized how to explain the Commission to them so they could make an informed decision about what they wanted to do.
And We Need Proof
We discussed with our partners how to best substantiate our request. This venture meant interviewing clients, Nicaraguan public sector labor union leaders, and possibly other experts. Traveling to Nicaragua gave us the added advantage of providing moral support to our clients, updating them on the status of our efforts, and proposing our new plan of action. We intended to reassure them that there was still hope, and that we had not given up.
To substantiate our claims about lack of access to justice, we utilized web sources as well. Our team collected data from the online database of the Central American Court of Justice (CCJ). Comparing the high number of Nicaraguan unenforced labor judgments brought before the CCJ (18) to the total number of CCJ cases against Nicaragua (21), demonstrates how widespread lack of access to timely and effective justice is in Nicaragua.
We’ve Got Skills!
While we sharpened a number of professional development skills, perhaps the most beneficial practice was the opportunity to prepare for and conduct field work in a bilingual setting. Our team prepared extensively to consult with our clients and interview union leaders and experts. Foreseeing the unpredictability that cultural and technological barriers would entail, we resolved to be proactive and maintain professional optimism and flexibility. Furthermore, two Spanish-speaking members of our partner organizations joined our team. We collaborated with them extensively, despite the language barrier. While the prospect of conducting our interviews in Spanish was daunting, it helped us cultivate our own Spanish language skills throughout the trip.
My Clinic Is Cooler Than Your Class
One of the most positive and memorable aspects of preparing for and executing this work was the level of autonomy we were given as we strategized how to best frame our issue, handle client interactions, and conduct our field research. As student attorneys, our team had full discretion in choosing who to interview, what to ask, and how to ask it – with constant supervision,guidance and feedback, of course. While at first we felt overwhelmed, our freedom eventually led us to identify creative ways to approach our issue. Our team was able to use a variety of tactics to obtain the information necessary to substantiate our request before the Commission.
Conducting client and expert interviews was perhaps the most challenging, yet rewarding, experience of our trip. Despite extensive interview preparation, last minute changes to the itinerary forced us to think on our feet to continue actively and creatively trying to obtain the data that we needed.
Our Hearts Grew Three Sizes That Day
Meeting with our clients was eye opening. The first client we met was a mechanic, he was early to our meeting, and he stayed late to help us clean up. He told us about his struggle to support his family financially after he lost his job. He told us how much he was relying on us to help him maintain his strength for his family. The next client we met was a doctor, we listened to her tell us about how many more hours she must now work for half the pay in order to support her children. She told us how hard it is to hold onto hope, and that despite all her struggles, she still is resilient in seeking justice. The last client we met was a statistician, he shared his own personal story. He spoke of his wife and her declining health. He told us how she had to leave the country to find work and medical care and the strain that this puts on their relationship and health. He shared the burden he carries to support his family and the faith he has in our ability to help him.
We listened to their stories, sympathizing but maintaining the delicate balance between understanding, and managing our clients’ expectations. We needed to find a way to show our clients that we care, and are doing our best, but still make sure they understood that no matter how hard we try, it is ultimately up to the State of Nicaragua to provide them with a remedy. Looking into our clients’ eyes, full of hope, and telling them we may not succeed was one of the hardest things we have ever done.
Students meet with clients and partners. From left: Araceli Peña (GMIES); Brittany Delbridge (IHRC Student Attorney); Client #1; Britton Schwartz (IHRC Supervising Attorney); Fidelina Mena (ANEP), and Timothy Cojocnean (IHRC Student Attorney).
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
As we attempted to settle back into the hustle and bustle of our 2L lives, we could not help but feel a good deal differently about our project. We found that meeting our clients had renewed our sense of purpose in seeking justice for those unable to do so for themselves. Further, we had an overwhelming urge to fight for our clients in more than just writing our request to the Commission. We wanted to get creative with our approaches and legal arguments, and we wanted to do the same in our other clinic projects as well.
After our trip, we followed through with the decision to submit a thematic hearing request. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will determine this spring whether to hold our hearing. While we await the Commission’s decision, we will continue exploring other pathways to justice for our clients. Specifically, we will shift our efforts away from the Inter-American System, and now focus on the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations (UN). Although we have submitted our thematic hearing request, it is important to continue to manage our clients’ expectations and continue to seek other ways to help them achieve justice.
Our Clinic journey to submit the thematic hearing request to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights taught us not only how to access justice in the Inter-American System, but also what it means to be an advocate. We learned how to address clients, collaborate with partners, and work constructively with our peers. Our journey took us 2,348 miles away into a completely different world. Once there, meeting our clients transformed us into passionate, motivated and relentless advocates. The most important lesson we learned, however, is that even as student attorneys we can have meaningful impacts in the lives of clients all over the globe.
IHRC meets with clients and partners in Nicaragua. From left: Timothy Cojocnean (IHRC Student Attorney); Araceli Peña; local union leader; Fidelina Mena (ANEP); Brittany Delbridge (IHRC Student Attorney), and Britton Schwartz (IHRC Supervising Attorney).
