Santa Clara Law International Human Rights Clinic students Amy Askin, Scott Idiart, Gloria Lee, Elizabeth Maushart, Amanda Snyder, and Jayna Sutherland filed an amicus curiae brief before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a case involving a family’s right to seek refugee status in Bolivia. The students co-wrote the brief under the supervision of Clinic Director Francisco J. Rivera Juaristi and Clinic Fellow Britton Schwartz, with assistance from Clinic Graduate Fellow Clayton Cheney. Clinic students Scott Idiart and Amanda Snyder also traveled to Colombia to participate in the oral hearings regarding this case.
As clinic student Gloria Lee explains, this case raises an issue of first impression before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in determining the extent to which the principle of non-refoulement prohibits a State from returning a refugee or asylum seeker to a place where their life, personal integrity, or freedom may be threatened due to his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. We remain confident that the Court will recognize necessary minimum due process guarantees for all refugees and asylum seekers in the Americas.
Clinic student Scott Idiart, speaking on behalf of all students who worked on this brief, said we are hopeful that the Court will issue a broad ruling that will have a far reaching effect in the Americas, and we remain optimistic that the Court will find that Bolivia and other countries cannot return asylum seekers to a country where they may be subject to possible acts of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment without being given an opportunity to be heard and to appeal the decision.
A copy of the amicus brief (in Spanish) may be found here. Click here for additional information about the case in Spanish and here for additional information about the case in English.
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