Human Rights Attorney Tara J. Melish

April 6, 2006

12pm - 1pm, Room 602

American University Washington College of Law

4801 Massachusetts Ave, NW

Washington, DC 20016

Concluding the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law ’s year-long human rights defenders speaker series focusing on economic, social and cultural rights, human rights attorney Tara J. Melish spoke about the challenges of advocating for such rights in the United States.  Tara J. Melish specializes in the judicial protection and advancement of economic, social and cultural rights, particularly in the inter-American human rights system. She works as Legal Advisor to the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), consults with a number of national and international organizations dedicated to advancing economic, social and cultural rights and the rights of persons with disabilities, and conducts workshops, courses, lectures and trainings on these rights in academic and community fora around the world. She has worked as a law professor and has authored two books on economic, social and cultural rights. Under a writing grant from the MacArthur Foundation, she is currently working on a number of additional publications on justiciability standards for economic, social and cultural rights and related rights-enforcement strategies in national, regional and international settings as a Visiting Scholar at George Washington University School of Law.

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At the initiative of Prof. Herman Schwartz, the Center hosted a year-long series of events focused on varying perspectives on economic, social and cultural rights. Our first event featured retired Justice Richard Goldstone of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, who discussed the place of economic, social and cultural rights as human rights. WCL professors Herman Schwartz and Rick Wilson served as discussants and focused on the extent to which the US could emulate the South African recognition of social, economic and cultural rights.

In January, Aryeh Neier, president of the Open Society Institute and Professors Herman Schwartz and Rick Wilson offered their differing perspectives on economic, social and cultural rights in a lively discussion at WCL.Mr. Neier argued that the allocation of resources should be a matter of public debate and a political process rather than a right which has limited enforceability.

In February, the Center hosted a panel discussion focused on implementation of economic and social rights with human rights activists and WCL Humphrey Fellows Irwin Robson (South Africa), Alceu Mauricio, Jr. (Brazil) and Sylvia Chirawu (Zimbabwe).Panelists responded to the earlier comments of both Justice Goldstone and Aryeh Neier and shared ways in which economic and social rights are implemented and enforced in their respective countries.

Sponsored by the Washington College of Law Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law