The Global Human Rights Clinic (GHRC) advances justice and addresses the inequalities and structural disparities that lead to human rights violations worldwide using diverse tactics and interdisciplinary tools. Adi Radhakrishnan, a human rights lawyer, joined as a fellow within the GHRC and as a lecturer-in-law. His practice and research focus is on socio-economic rights, areas of armed conflict and justice, and the right to a healthy environment.

Over the past year, GHRC students and faculty worked in teams to promote human rights around the world. In particular, the GHRC supported efforts to investigate and prevent unlawful killings globally; stop the unlawful use of the death penalty; advance the rights of migrants and non-citizens; ensure justice in conflict; promote climate justice; and challenge discriminatory laws. Select work related to these strands is described below.

Extrajudicial Executions: Preventing and Investigating Unlawful Deaths Globally

The GHRC provided strategic support to Morris Tidball-Binz, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, and a leading independent human rights expert appointed by the United Nations to advise on the issue of unlawful killings from a thematic perspective. The Special Rapporteur procedures are a key pillar through which human rights are advanced at the UN. As part of their mandate, Special Rapporteurs undertake country visits, conduct annual thematic studies, and act on individual cases of reported violations by sending communications to States and international authorities. As of June 2024, Tidball-Binz joined the University of Chicago Pozen Family Center for Human Rights as a visiting senior research associate, where he engages with and conducts joint research alongside Pozen Center and GHRC students.

In particular, the GHRC supported the Special Rapporteur with:

• Support in the research and drafting of two thematic reports. GHRC students conducted factfinding, expert interviews, and legal analysis to inform the Special Rapporteur and his team on the death penalty from the perspective of the prohibition against torture and other forms of ill-treatment, and his forthcoming thematic report on documenting, investigating, and preventing arbitrary deprivation of life of older persons. The first report on the death penalty from the perspective of torture was presented to the UN Human Rights Council on June 18, 2026 (A/HRC/62/37). The UN Special Rapporteur acknowledged the contributions of the GHRC (video, remarks referencing the GHRC at 1:05:30). In preparation for that report, students and faculty traveled to Oklahoma with the Special Rapporteur and his team to conduct interviews with exonerees, families of persons on death row, spiritual leaders, lawyers, and others. The forthcoming report regarding the arbitrary deprivation of life of older persons is expected to be released later this year at the UN General Assembly.
• Co-hosting, alongside the UN Special Rapporteur’s mandate and the University of Chicago Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, an experts’ technical meeting to draft new global principles on respect for and protection of the dead, held at the University of Chicago John W. Boyer Center in Paris in April 2025. The expert meeting brought together leading practitioners from around the world to discuss and draft guidelines related to human rights-based principles for the protection of the dead, facilitate investigations, safeguard the rights of families, and ensure accountability where needed.
• Co-hosting, alongside various UN Member States and the UN Special Rapporteur’s mandate, two side events at the UN General Assembly in New York and at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva relating to forthcoming guidelines on the investigation of femicide under international law.

Challenging Death Penalty Methods in Alabama

In the U.S., Alabama has begun using nitrogen asphyxiation as a method through which to carry out the death penalty, despite the serious risk of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment to individuals subjected to the method. The GHRC is represented British Professor Jon Yorke, an international expert on the use of the death penalty, in a motion to intervene as a third party in a 42 U.S.C. §1983 civil rights action in the case of David P. Wilson, who has been under a sentence of death since 2008.

Human Rights Impacts of Immigration Policies

In partnership with the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (IRC), students have documented the ways in which the U.S. administration is violating its international human rights obligations by creating policies that target immigration judges and attorneys. In particular:

• The GHRC and IRC filed a complaint to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Lawyers and Judges and Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants on behalf of 17 immigration lawyers and judges, alleging that the U.S. government has arbitrarily fired immigration judges, obstructed access to counsel, and retaliated against lawyers for protected expression. Further, the complaint argued that these practices prevented non-citizens from receiving fair hearings, resulted in the arbitrary detention of non-citizens, and, at times, short-term enforced disappearances of non-citizens.
• Students authored an op-ed for Lawfare about the impact of these policies.

Additionally, in partnership with the IRC and the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), the GHRC supported efforts to identify migrants who went missing or died while trying to cross borders from Africa to South-West Europe. Over the course of this academic year, GHRC/IRC students:

• Analyzed migratory routes and trends, relevant laws and policies, and ongoing issues related to two West and North African countries, to inform policy responses.
• Prepared a presentation for a regional convening of countries from across Africa, ahead of the International Migration Review Forum, which reviews global progress on the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration.

Justice in Conflict: Supporting Atrocity Investigations in The Gambia

In The Gambia, a military regime run by autocrat Yahya Jammeh committed scores of human rights abuses between 1994 and 2016, including arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances. Following the overthrow of the Jammeh regime, a truth commission was created to understand what happened during the dictatorship, and a special prosecution office is being set up. Families of those killed and disappeared are searching for answers as to the fate of their loved ones.

In partnership with the African Network Against Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced Disappearances (ANEKED) Gambia chapter, the Gambian Ministry of Justice, and the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, GHRC student teams have supported efforts to advance justice and the search for missing persons in The Gambia in past years by developing a perpetrator database and exploring lines for possible future accountability mechanisms.

This year, our students supported ANEKED to workshop an innovative transitional justice teaching tool informed by the findings of the Gambian Truth Commission. Additionally, the GHRC co-hosted, with ANEKED and Ulster University, a convening of Transitional Justice experts in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to pilot the tool.

Advancing Equality: Resisting Discriminatory Laws in Uganda and Globally

Discriminatory laws impact the ability of minorities to access basic rights. GHRC students work alongside civil society organizations in Uganda and around the world to challenge and advocate against unfair laws and policies.

In the Fall, with partners from Chapter Four Uganda, a leading civil liberties and human rights organization, students conducted an advocacy trip to Washington, D.C. in advance of Uganda’s elections. Following the elections in January 2026, students monitored and responded to escalating rights violations, including attacks on civil society. The GHRC coordinated international advocacy and worked with international coalitions to lodge communications to UN Special Rapporteurs and regional human rights mechanisms in Africa.

Furthermore, to support activities of local partners in Eastern Africa, the GHRC authored a legal memorandum analyzing the rights and obligations of international organizations, including UNHCR and IOM, and donor countries to address violence and discrimination facing refugees based on their identity in camps they operate or fund. Further, GHRC students carried out and factfinding and analysis on how advocates challenge stigmatized rights around the world.

GHRC Events

The GHRC hosted multiple events for the student body and the human rights community at large, in Chicago and around the world. These included:

• The Death Penalty and Torture (featuring Herman Lindsay and Paris Powell, who were both wrongfully convicted and exonerated from death row; Morris Tidball-Binz, the UN Special Rapporteur; and Yasmine Ashraf, a Human Rights Office from the UN. Mr. Lindsay is also the Executive Director of the Witness to Innocence Project.)
• Human Rights After Death: Reflections from Theory and Practice (held at the University of Chicago Center in Paris)
• The Fall of Maduro and the Fight for Human Rights and Democracy (moderated by GHRC Fellow Adi Radhakrishnan)