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13 Clinical L. Rev. 379 (2006-2007)
Client-Centered Human Rights Advocacy

handle is hein.journals/clinic13 and id is 383 raw text is: CLIENT-CENTERED HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY Dina Francesca Haynes* Human rights advocates are at risk of essentializing and re-victimiz- ing the beneficiaries of their own human rights advocacy, or so critics argue. This article looks at human rights advocacy and the merits of client-centered lawyering as opposed to cause lawyering in the human rights context. In this article, the author both acknowledges the valid- ity of and responds to arguments put forward by human rights critics, in which they admonish human rights activists that they are at risk of Western Imperialism in both the selection of their causes and the strategies they use to move their advocacy forward. The author de- scribes client-centered human rights advocacy, particularly as it is be- ing taught and practiced in law school clinics. The author responds to the critics by asking them to consider whether human rights advo- cacy as practiced when centered in the real needs of a real client, or client-centered human rights advocacy would escape some or all of their criticism. Finally, in acknowledging those parts of the human rights critiques with which the author agrees, she concludes that human rights practitioners, and particularly human rights clinicians, must be rigorously reflective, in particular when taking on particular human rights cases, and must consider the benefits of centering their advocacy in the goals and needs of a real client, as opposed to an issue. OVERVIEW At a conference I attended in Europe, a human rights critic and critical race feminist delivered a talk in which she cautioned human rights advocates to avoid re-victimizing their clients in presenting what she called The Victim Story. She posited that unreflective human rights advocates were selling short the subjects of their own advocacy, women subjects in particular, by reducing them to the state of victim subject. Her point, which has been expanded upon by several other * Dina Francesca Haynes is an Associate Professor of Law at the New England School of Law. This article is based upon experiences teaching at the International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University's Washington College of Law, and at Georgetown's Center for Applied Legal Studies. I would like to thank a number of colleagues who thoughtfully read through and commented on earlier versions of this article, in particular: Elliott Milstein, Ann Shalleck, Robert Dinerstein, Janie Chuang, Margaret Johnson, and Carolyn Grose.

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