Clinical Legal Education: International Human Rights Clinic

Schedule: (Wednesdays: 9:30 – 12:20 pm) plus possible additional training sessions in September 2026 to be held on Friday mornings or at other times to be determined according to scheduling availabilities. 

Note: Interested students must apply to the Clinic by their program specific application deadline (see Important Information Section).

Note: Enrollment in this Clinic is conditional. The Records Office/Graduate Program will add the Clinic to the student's course selection once participation is confirmed by the Clinic professor. In the meantime, students must select sufficient credits for the term/year. Students approved for the Clinic will have the opportunity to adjust their credits before the add/drop deadline.

Registration:

To register for this course, you must email a CV and transcript to ihrp.law@utoronto.ca by the application deadline specific to your program (see Important Information section). Applications received after this date may still be considered, but only if there is space. Optionally, you may also include a statement of interest of no more than one page that may address the following.

(a)  previously (or concurrently) taken upper-year courses in public international law or international human rights law or experience that you consider equivalent; 

(b)  indicators of academic, analytical, and research and writing ability, which may include grades in related classes; 

(c)  any experience in human rights or international issues; 

(d)  any experience with lawyering or advocacy; 

(e)  any languages that you can speak/write/read, including at what level (basic, conversational, intermediate, advanced); 

(f)   why you wish to enroll in the Clinic and whether you can prioritize commitments arising from the Clinic; and 

(g)  a list of any other Clinics you plan on enrolling in for 2026-27.

Students participating in all programs are encouraged to integrate their clinical work into an upper year paper course. To do so, students must obtain approval from the Clinic professor, the paper course instructor, and Assistant Dean Sara Faherty.

Course Description:

This course exposes students to the practice of international human rights law. It combines practice, in the form of International Human Rights Clinic projects, with classes in international human rights lawyering. The course is designed to encourage reflection and evaluation of the international human rights movement and profession, while providing students with the substantive legal foundation, and core skills necessary to be an effective international human rights lawyer.   

Through supervised Clinic projects, students will have the opportunity to work on pressing international human rights matters through hands-on work under the supervision of qualified lawyers. Cases and projects may involve contributing to domestic or international litigation, formulating theories and advocacy strategies, drafting legal memos/briefs or advocacy documents, and fact-finding field work. IHRP litigation and advocacy pursuits may address matters involving corporate accountability, climate justice, Indigenous rights, and refugee rights, amongst others.  

Note that due to the nature of the field, Clinic projects may sometimes involve subject matter that is emotionally intense and/or controversial. Appropriate supports will be provided where necessary to help manage such pressures. To get a sense of the kind of subject matter the Clinic takes on, please review the list of projects undertaken in the last year on the IHRP website. 

The international human rights Clinic is for second- and third-year students, as well as LLM and SJD students at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. The Clinic will meet once a week for 3 hours and may be structured around legal foundations, thematic analysis, skill-building sessions, case-studies, and project-rounds (i.e., where students discuss the progress made and obstacles encountered in their Clinic projects). The course will provide students with the opportunity to interact with leading human rights practitioners. 

Commitment: 

Attendance at all classes and meetings is mandatory. Students are expected to routinely provide oral briefings and analyses and to participate in discussions. While we strive to make the overall workload of the Clinic comparable to a course of similar weight, the Clinic will, at times, involve obligations to partners and external deadlines that must be met. In this sense, the Clinic requires a commitment beyond what is normally expected in an academic seminar. The credit weighting of this course is designed to reflect this additional commitment. 

Second Term Practicum: 

Clinic projects are typically designed to last the entire academic year. Students are expected to complete their projects before the end of the academic year, which will usually require enrolling in a two-credit practicum in the second term. Where students are unable to complete their project before the end of the academic year, they may be required to continue work until the end of May. In limited circumstances, students will have the opportunity to work on new projects.  Students who completed the course previously may also explore conducting a practicum during the second term.