Current Projects
I. International Initiatives
Training
In collaboration with the staff of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims in Denmark, IRR founder Jerry Gray is helping to develop a psychological treatment program for the war crimes tribunals based in The Hague, the Netherlands. The proposed programs will provide counseling support for the Tribunals’ victims and witnesses units. In particular, these programs will train counselors in the unique psychological and physical sequelae of victims of human rights violations and teach various coping strategies for victims testifying in war crimes trials. The program will rely in part upon local therapists and the municipal health system to provide these services alongside Tribunal staff. In this regard, the Institute is working with Centrum 45, a Dutch torture treatment center.
In addition to improving services to victims and witnesses involved in the Tribunals' prosecutions, the program will also address the Tribunals' "frontline" staff who are in direct contact with victims, such as interpreters, lawyers, clerks, social workers, etc. In several sessions, Institute trainers have taught tribunal staff trauma management skills to help them respond to the psychological impact of working with victims of grave human rights violations. The Institute is in discussions to extend this work into various sub-units of the Tribunals.
The Institute has also secured two training grants for individuals from the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) to be in residence at the Torture Treatment Center of Oregon under the direction of Dr. David Kinzie. The training will enhance DC-Cam’s Victims of Torture Project, which is providing psychological support to victims of the Khmer Rouge in preparation for the commencement of trials before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. In 2007, the Institute hosted two individuals from DC-Cam for a study tour and series of site visits in the United States with organizations dedicated to providing legal and psychosocial services to victims of trauma.
International Institution Building
IRR founder Jerry Gray has also been working with lawyers, activists, and psychologists to launch the Canadian Center for International Justice (CCIJ), which is affiliated with the Canadian Center for Victims of Torture. CCIJ recently received a major grant from the Law Foundation of Ontario to undertake legal education with (1) immigrant and refugee communities to explain basic legal remedies and available support services and (2) legal professionals about remedies in international, regional and Canadian tribunals. The grant also funds legal research into the extent to which Ontario civil law could provide remedies analogous to the ATS and TVPA in the United States. Prof. Van Schaack is on CCIJ's Legal Advisory Board and Gray is on the Board of Directors.
II. Domestic Initiatives
Litigation Support
IRR is working with lawyers at the Center for Justice and Accountability and therapists with the Institute for the Study of Psychosocial Trauma (ISPT) to develop a pilot program for pro bono lawyers pursuing human rights cases under the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act. The program will assist with the provisions of clinical and social work support for ongoing cases through such institutions as Survivors International, a San Francisco-based torture treatment center. In addition, this program will train lawyers in techniques to minimize the potential that their clients are re-traumatized by the litigation process. Once the litigation reaches the trial phase, the program will ensure that victims and witnesses have adequate support persons with them as they deliver their testimony and undergo cross-examination.
IRR is also contributing to ongoing litigation efforts where the right of victims to seek redress for human rights abuses is at issue.
• IRR joined a brief filed in Matar v. Dichter on appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. A similar brief was filed in the Yousef v. Samantar case involving Somali torture victims. The briefs argue that the lower courts’ interpretation of the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act essentially vitiated the TVPA by allowing individual state actors to invoke sovereign immunity as a defense to claims of torture under the TVPA.
• IRR co-director Beth Van Schaack drafted "friend of the court" (amicus) brief on the treatment to be accorded to detainees in the Al-Odah v. United States and Boumediene v. Bush cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The brief outlines the obligations of signatories to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Protocols to refrain from subjecting individuals detained in armed conflict to all forms of torture, cruel or inhumane treatment, punitive detention conditions, or harsh interrogation tactics. The brief was filed on behalf of a number of experts in international humanitarian law.
• Professor Van Schaack also submitted an amicus brief to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals urging that court to review and reverse a ruling of the district court that had denied class certification to a class of Sudanese plaintiffs alleging that they were the victims of a campaign of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Government of Sudan in conjunction with defendant Talisman Energy, Inc. The brief took the position that unless class certification was allowed, thousands of victims would be effectively denied redress because justice in the Sudan is impossible.
• Professor Van Schaack also contributed to another amicus brief on the question of mental torture in the case of Angel Enrique Villeda Aldana, et al., v. Fresh Del Monte Produce. Adopting the reasoning set forth in that brief, the 11th Circuit held that the intentional infliction of mental pain, even without physical suffering, may constitute torture under the international and domestic definitions of that offense.
Research and Teaching
IRR is developing an anti-impunity curriculum for the undergraduate and graduate level (see bibliography). It is also supporting ongoing research in this area.
Principals from ISPT with support from the IRR Advisory Board member Lynette Parker developed and implemented a course entitled "Trauma, Vicarious Trauma, and Legal Representation of Trauma Victims" for Santa Clara Law School. The course taught law students how to better understand, and thus more effectively advocate on behalf of, clients who have been victims of trauma and who need to testify at trial or prepare written declarations. The course identified the types of trauma suffered by victims of domestic violence, trafficking in persons, political persecution, and torture. It then provided ways for law students to recognize signs of trauma in their clients and various techniques for working with traumatized clients. The course also provided information on how the students can avoid secondary or vicarious trauma, along with the accompanying reduction in effective representation and/or professional burnout. This course was offered through the Katherine and George Alexander Community Law Clinic and complemented clinical skills training (civil and criminal), as well as courses in human rights, immigration, criminal law, and family law. The course is featured as a case study in a recent article by Prof. Parker: Parker, Lynette, Increasing Law Students' Effectiveness When Representing Traumatized Clients: A Case Study of the Katharine & George Alexander Community Law Center, 21 Georgetown Immigration Law Review 163 (2007).
IRR principals regularly give guest lectures on these topics at local law schools, including Stanford Law School and Boalt Hall School of Law. Prof. Van Schaack regularlyblogs (here and here) on issues of accountability for human rights abuses, international criminal law, and the rights of victims and witnesses.
Outreach & Community Involvement
The Institute has co-sponsored a number of events dealing with issues of transitional justice and accountability. For example, Santa Clara hosted an advanced workshop on transitional justice for educators convened by the
The Institute also co-sponsored an interdisciplinary conference organized by the American Friends Service Committee on the topic of Facing State Violence: Truth, Justice and Healing. The Conference was attended by educators, human rights advocates, journalists, legal advocates, therapists, trauma counselors, and concerned members of the public.
Jerry Gray and Beth Van Schaack facilitated sessions at both events. Professor Van Schaack also spoke about the importance of legal accountability at a public forum on justice, peace and reconciliation hosted by the Cambodian-American Community of Oregon in connection with the commencement of trials of surviving members of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.