Reimagining Human Rights Advocacy in a Changing World: Harnessing Technology and International Law

About the Author: Laurel Fletcher is the Chancellor’s Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Global Rights Innovation Lab Clinic, UC Berkeley School of Law and the 2025 Recipient of Riesenfeld Award. This Article is a transcript of her recipient speech from the 2025 Riesenfeld Symposium: Lawyering for Peace.

Introduction

I am so grateful to Berkeley Journal of International Law for honoring me with this year’s Riesenfeld Award.

I remember sitting in the audience when Professor David Caron received the first Riesenfeld Award. This was soon after I started teaching at Berkeley. I remember so clearly my sense of awe listening to David and his accomplishments and feeling the impossibility of bridging the distance between what I could hope to achieve and a contribution that would be worthy of similar recognition.

I am humbled that you have placed me in the company of past awardees and leaders in the field including the two here tonight: Professor Richard Buxbaum and Judge Joan Donoghue. I admire each so deeply.

I. Human Rights in Time of Global Realignment

I must begin by noting that I’m receiving this award at a moment when the foundations of the international world order are under assault.

The United States is reconfiguring a world security regime based on this country’s historic alliance with democracies. The President undermines international law with talk of acquiring Canada, Gaza, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. Signaling a retreat from European allies, it appears US foreign policy will be dictated by a narrow view of self-interest and raw power.

We are facing a very grim new international world order. In this one, which our colleague Professor David Grewal terms “nuclear Westphalia,”[1] the only States with full rights of sovereignty are those with nuclear weapons.

Those without? They will either look to develop nuclear capability or seek security guarantees through States that do.  

In this very sobering moment, I’d like to address the contemporary role of international law and lawyers. I do so by suggesting that we need to accept some hard truths as we make our way forward.

A.     The conventional ways of defending international human rights are outmoded.

The modern human rights movement can proudly trace its rise in international influence to exposing the truth of government repression and terror by condemning those abuses as violations of international law.

In the past, within a world order knit together by the rule of law, Amnesty International (hereinafter as Amnesty) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) pioneered naming and shaming tactics to draw international attention to human rights violations. In an era when a State’s global legitimacy was tied to its compliance with international law, nongovernmental organizations like Amnesty and HRW could leverage monitoring and reporting to great effect. Yet the world has changed, and this model is no longer fit for purpose. International law and institutions face the challenges of regulating actors and phenomena for which the system was not designed.

International law takes the formal sovereignty of States as its organizing principle. Our institutions were not designed to address the diffuse, transboundary, and destructive effects of the climate emergency, the power of Big Tech and digital technology, or abuses committed by multinational corporations. These threats to human freedoms are only accelerated by the rise of authoritarianism and the abandonment by powerful States of a commitment to the idea of truth that can be shown by facts.

This Administration has moved from “alternative facts”[2] to “counter-factual facts.” Yesterday’s democratically elected leader defending their country against invasion becomes today’s dictator.[3] The United States, once the democratic world’s most powerful State, is no longer a reliable ally.

B.     International lawyers need to develop new theories and strategies suited to

the new global moment

As someone whose career trajectory roughly coincides with what HRW founder Aryeh Neier refers to as “a golden age”[4] of human rights, it is painful to come to terms with where we are today. I think back to just over ten years ago when the Secretary General of the United Nations declared we were in the age of accountability.[5]

It seems like ancient history. It certainly feels like a bygone era.

If naming and shaming States into compliance is no longer the potent tool it once was, what comes next? I see hopeful signs for the continued relevance of international rights. We have seen exciting developments where advocates used courts to develop international law to address the climate emergency[6] in domestic contexts. Scholars and activists in the Global South are using intersectional approaches—advancing pluralistic interpretations of rights that encompass Indigenous epistemologies and building what may be called not universal but pluriversal rights.[7] It is exciting to see North-South coalitions using human rights frameworks and institutions to address systemic economic inequality.

None of these strategies rely on exposing violations as their primary vehicle to change the world. All of them are using international law as part of social movement mobilizations, leveraging the differential power[8] of nongovernmental actors within the human rights movement in interesting and productive ways.

This is the future. And we, lawyers trained in the Global North, have unique opportunities to be part of it by applying new theories, new tools, and new collaborations. Thus, I have re-examined my own work to ask: How can I contribute, through Berkeley Law, to this moment?

II. The Case for Leveraging Technology for Rights Advocacy

In thinking about this question, I’ve come to realize that, to meet the moment, human rights advocacy must take into account the pervasiveness of technology and harness it to advance justice. To do so, I am starting a new clinic at the law school called the Global Rights Innovation Lab Clinic, or GRIL.

In building this new clinic, I am guided by the questions Professor Carolyn Patty Blum and I asked over twenty-five years ago when we started the International Human Rights Law Clinic: How can international law and we as international lawyers help address urgent human rights problems? Today, one powerful but underutilized tool at our disposal is the ability to leverage data and digital technologies.

When we think about technology and law, most of us think about how law can regulate technologies to prevent abuses of individual and collective rights. Over the past decade, questions of global governance of technology have taken more and more of my attention. These questions grew more pressing not because I sought them out, but because I could no longer ignore the weaponization of technology.

Perpetrators increasingly use digital tools to target human rights activists, and I worked with clients to craft legal strategies and fight back. Whether it was working to free imprisoned activists in countries throughout the Arab Gulf region or fighting against cybersecurity laws that criminalized human rights groups around the globe, I helped to document violations, write policy briefs, and file petitions by relying on client testimony and other conventional forms of proof gathered through traditional lawyering methods.

But technology can also be used to advance the protection of rights. This is what some call public interest technology,[9] or data for good.[10] Human rights advocates are just beginning to harness the full potential of what this area has to offer. It is here, at the intersection of technology and global rights, that I see great opportunity for a new clinic to fill a service gap, leverage new technology tools, and train students for legal advocacy in the digital age.

III. Global Rights Innovation Lab Clinic

To do so I’m working with Valentina Rozo Angel, a human rights data scientist, to create GRIL with a mission to harness digital tech to advance global rights advocacy.

And harness we must if we are going to keep up with global challenges. We need to bring new tools to address the large-scale violations of armed conflict, the climate emergency, surveillance capitalism, and other transnational threats to societies. We see an opportunity to help advocates access and analyze a sea of relevant data to identify the prevalence of violations, patterns of harm, and paths of responsibility to build cases for justice.

We hear from groups that they need help expanding digital storytelling and data visualization to engage and enlarge public support for human rights cases and values. Equipped with new methods of data analysis, we plan to work with advocates to expose hidden patterns in open-source information or public databases. We are eager to explore generating new kinds of evidence with digital 3D modeling of crime scenes or using satellite images to produce damage calculations in support of human rights litigation.

These techniques elevate human rights lawyering tools to align with the digital age.

In GRIL, law students will work alongside technologists and data scientists. They will acquire tech literacy in an advocacy context. They will enter the profession with a first-hand understanding of how machine learning, data modeling techniques, generative AI, and other methods can support legal practice.

We must be strategic about how and where we intervene. We need to invest in spaces where facts and truth still matter. Remember, human rights cases win on the facts. This means we will identify opportunities before independent courts at the national, regional, and international levels.

It also means equipping international bodies with accurate facts because there are contexts, like in judgments from the International Court of Justice, where independent fact-finding will be amplified. When international institutions are effective, they can still impact State behavior and persuade a broader audience in the court of public opinion.

GRIL is eager to support communities closest to the ground to tell their stories, consolidate support, and reach new audiences. This may push human rights advocates outside of our comfort zones and into spaces of cultural production and public education, whether that is through collaborations on museum exhibitions, interactive online curricula, or even video games.  

GRIL may not necessarily work in all these areas. We are guided by the needs of directly impacted communities and the opportunities available to us through the university’s resources. We are cognizant of the embarrassment of riches in the technology and human rights spaces in which we sit.  

We aim to complement the work of Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center. Its Digital Investigations Lab led by Alexa Koenig has pioneered techniques[11] to collect and analyze publicly available digital information in support of accountability for atrocity crimes. GRIL aims to apply additional data analysis tools to open-source evidence to help build cases for clients seeking accountability for violations of human rights and international criminal law.

The law school’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic has long been a leader in clinical teaching on tech governance. I look forward to a productive working relationship with the clinic. Applying technology in a rights-compliant manner must be at the center of GRIL. Ethical human rights lawyering means that we “do no harm,” and I am delighted to have such expert and generous colleagues to advise and help guide this work.

Conclusion

I want to end with some important acknowledgments

The Riesenfeld Award recognizes my contribution to the field of international law and human rights. A contribution that in turn is the product of a web of collaborations and support that spans years and decades.

The International Human Rights Law Clinic (IHRLC) was my professional home for more than twenty-five years, where I worked alongside and learned immensely from Professor Roxanna Altholz. The Clinic sits within Berkeley Law’s larger clinical program, where I have been graced with wonderful clinical colleagues whose support and advice have made me a better teacher. I want to thank my current and former students, the heartbeat of clinical education, who inspire me every semester. My colleagues here at Berkeley and beyond are a constant source of support and intellectual renewal when I need it most. It is through your engagement that I can see more clearly the flaws in my work and get ideas for how to improve it. I want to recognize Professors Eric Stover and Harvey M. Weinstein. When they invited me to participate in the early work of the Human Rights Center, they set the trajectory of my career and I am forever grateful.

I owe a bottomless debt of gratitude to my family for their support of my work over the years, despite its tax on our household. Our daughter asked me when she was young why I choose my work over my family, traveling so frequently.

I told her that I was trying to make the world a better place.

She paused and said: “It’s not working.”

What she couldn’t understand then is that fighting for human rights is its own reward and change may visible only over a long period.

Whether I was sitting with former Guantanamo detainees who were trying to make new lives after their release; male survivors of sexual violence in Uganda fighting for reparations; or advocates of illegally imprisoned human rights activists, I have always felt that it is an honor to serve clients, community partners, and frontline advocates advance human rights. They have trusted me and the institutions I represent to strengthen their struggle for justice and I have tried to be worthy of that trust.

As international lawyers, we are equipped with a special set of tools. We cannot use them like a magic wand, but we can be strategic legal counselors to victims and communities. We can work in solidarity to support their rights struggles, identify opportunities to advance justice and serve them as they travel that journey.

That is the lesson that Stephan Riesenfeld taught me.

I met Steve just after I graduated law school, and I sought his advice on how to use international law to prosecute war crimes in the Balkans. At the time, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had no accused in custody, and its prospects for gaining jurisdiction over any were dim. Human rights advocates were in despair; we saw the tribunal as our only hope for justice.

Steve waived off these concerns.

He told me that States could prosecute accused war criminals in their territory under the theory of universal jurisdiction. “But what about all the domestic legal challenges,” I asked.

“No, no, no!” he shouted at me. “The law is there. You’ve just got to make it work!”

So, my last thank you is to Steve for his admonition. I’ve been trying to follow your advice ever since.

Thank you again for this recognition.

[1] David Grewal, From American Empire to Nuclear Westphalia, Compact (Mar. 03, 2025) https://www.compactmag.com/email/5962afe7-6d44-497e-b5a3-2597d179b467/?ref=compact-newsletter.

[2] Brian Stelter, Kellyanne Conway: Trump White House Offered ‘Alternative Facts’ on Crowd Size, CNN (Jan. 22, 2017, 3:44 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/index.html.

[3] Gabriela Pomeroy & George Wright, Trump Calls Zelensky a ‘Dictator’ as Rift Between Two Leaders Deepens, BBC News (Feb. 19, 2025), https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjev2j70v19o.

[4] Aryeh Neier, The International Human Rights Movement: A History 184 (Course book ed., Princeton Univ. Press 2020).

[5] Press Release, Security Council, Sec'y-Gen. Hails Int'l Crim. Ct. as Centrepiece of ‘New Age of Accountability,’ Urges Enhanced Coop. with Sec. Council, U.N. Press Release SC/10793 (Oct. 17, 2012).

[6] See generally César Rodríguez-Garavito, Litigating the Climate Emergency How Human Rights, Courts, and Legal Mobilization Can Bolster Climate Action(Cambridge Univ. Press 2022).

[7] See generally The Pluriverse of Human Rights: The Diversity of Struggles for Dignity (Boaventura de Sousa Santos & Bruno Sena Martins eds., 2021)

[8] Join Our New Cohort: ESCR-Net Launches Feminist Participatory Action Research Initiative, ESCR-Net (Mar. 3, 2025), https://www.escr-net.org/news/2025/escr-net-launches-feminist-participatory-action-research-initiative-join-our-new-cohort/.

[9] The Public Interest Technology University Network, PIT-UN (last visited Mar 25, 2025), https://pit-un.org/about-us/.

[10] Datasets for Good, PIT-UN (last visited Mar 25, 2025), https://pit-un.org/datasets-for-good/.

[11] Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations: A Practical Guide on the Effective Use of Digital Open Source Information in Investigating Violations of International Criminal, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, U.N. Doc. HR/PUB/20/2.