Using International Human Rights Law in Legal Services Cases

This article provides an overview of international human rights law for legal services lawyers, and seeks to encourage advocates to use this body of law to help expand and protect the rights of legal services clients. It describes the basic documents comprising international human rights law (e.g., the Charter of the United Nations, the International Bill of Human Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights) and discusses how international human rights law might help expand human rights under state and federal law, offering examples from the areas of anti discrimination law, women rights, economic rights, social and cultural rights and the rights of prisoners and other institutionalized persons