The Program on Human Rights welcomed Pamela Merchant and Kristen Myles to Stanford on March 4 as final speakers in the winter course U.S. Human Rights NGOs and International Human Rights. Ms. Merchant has served for the past nine years as executive director of the Center for Justice & Accountability, the leading U.S.-based organization that pursues international human rights abusers through litigation in U.S. courts. Formerly a federal prosecutor, Ms. Merchant has frequently testified on human rights issues before the U.S. Congress; currently serves on the Advisory Council for the ABA Center on Human Rights; and is a director of the Foundation for Sustainable Rule of Law Initiatives. Ms. Myles is a litigation partner in the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles & Olson and is repeatedly named among California's “top women lawyers” by the Daily Journal. In her practice of complex business litigation, Ms. Myles filed a “friend of the court” brief in the 2014 case of Shell Oil vs. Kiobel which in the U.S. Supreme Court decided that U.S. corporations could not be sued in U.S. courts under the Alien Torts Statute for alleged human rights abuses abroad.

Ms. Merchant’s strongly held view is that some human rights violations are so egregious that they should be litigated in any court system, even if they occurred outside the country in which the case is argued. Ms. Merchant argued that courts create a record of truth about human rights violations, and that shedding the light of truth on these terrible events will make the world a less violent place. The Center for Justice and Accountability has provided legal advice for human rights victims to pursue their claims of human rights abuses in U.S. courts when abuses occurred in countries such at El Salvador, Nigeria, South Africa, and Myanmar, using U.S. federal legislation of the Alien Torts Statute and the Torture Victims Prevention Act. The CJA’s position is that the Nuremberg Trials of the World War II genocide atrocities created an obligation for all nation states to pursue justice in their courts under the international law principle of universal jurisdiction that holds that egregious human rights abuses are the concern of all humanity, wherever they have taken place.

Ms. Myles has represented U.S. corporations against whom human rights victims allege were directly or indirectly the instigators of their violations by virtue of pursuing corporate economic interests abroad in collusion with corrupt officials who resort to violence, such as by pushing people off their land or working in industrial settings in sub-standard conditions. Ms. Myles pointed that U.S. corporate executives do not instruct their overseas operators to be violent; instead, they are working through long chains of delegated authority in their off-shore operations, and these off-shore people act beyond their corporate mandate. Most importantly, the international legal principle of universal jurisdiction is the “law of nations” so it is directed to national governments and not to private corporations.

After Ms. Merchant and Ms. Myles summarized their individual positions, they engaged in dialogue with Professor Helen Stacy, director of the Program on Human Rights. Discussion covered the pros and cons of using the U.S. court system for transnational issues, given that such cases are lengthy and expensive; whether the high visibility of such cases had a deterrent effect on violators abroad, or may lead to the deportation of a violator who had subsequently settled in the U.S., or would prevent an alleged perpetrator’s application to emigrate to the U.S.; the success of victims being paid money from their perpetrator under a civil damages award ordered by a U.S. court; whether this U.S. litigation poses a diplomatic problem for the U.S. in its international operations; how standards on corporate social responsibility can be raised beyond litigating past practices in lengthy and expensive civil court proceedings; and the ethics of imposing higher standards of U.S. corporate standards in countries with lower standards and very high needs to improve economic conditions for their population.

Helen Stacy, Executive Director, Program on Human Rights

Elizabeth Blake, Habitat for Humanity International’s General Counsel and team leader of its Government Relations and Advocacy operations, spoke to students at the Freeman Spogli Institute on February 25 as part of the Program on Human Rights Winter Speaker Series that examined U.S Human Rights NGO’s and International Human Rights. 

Habitat for Humanity is a Christian not-for-profit organization that started in 1974 with the credo that every person has a human right to secure shelter and tenure of land. Most of its work is overseas, where Habitat for Humanity has built homes for over 3 million people in over 70 countries. Using security of tenure as its cornerstone, it especially assists women and children who are the most vulnerable to homelessness and insecure tenure. Habitat for Humanity has also recently expanded into housing microfinance, water and sanitation, risk reduction and response, and in creating Habitat Resource Centers.    

Blake’s provocative starting salvo was that “NGOs often do harm and frequently waste money.” Instead, they need to work better among themselves and invite partnerships with other NGOs, governments, and multi-lateral partners. This is not simply a moral imperative but also a practical necessity given the size of the U.S. not-for-profit sector, which as an employer of 13 million people is a significant part of the national economy.   

Habitat for Humanity’s approach maximizes its impact abroad through four principles:

1.     Community development starts with its people – people are the true assets;

2.     International community development must be based upon priorities set by the local community itself;

3.     The test of success of any community development is that local capacity is improved; and

4.     “Accompaniment” – a term first coined by Paul Farmer of Partners in Health: Habitat for Humanity works with and works for the people of that community.

This last principle is the most important: Habitat for Humanity has 1 million volunteers each year who work together with communities, or as Blake says, “scraping walls together with people from a local community is a different relationship to handing out soup” and ensures “going from aid to empowerment.”

Responding to questions from Dana Phelps, program associate for the Program on Human Rights and moderator of the event, Blake emphasized the relevance of her corporate background to working in the non-profit world.  As a graduate of Columbia University’s School of Law, she brings her extensive corporate experience to her work at Habitat, and stressed that “non-profits are businesses – a major corporate undertaking” for which her business background had trained her “not to take no for an answer.” 

Blake also explained that while Habitat for Humanity is a multi-denominational Christian organization, it is not registered as a church.  This means it is subject to anti-discrimination laws in its hiring practices and daily operations. It does not engage in prosthletyzing but instead sees itself as a morals-based organization.   

When Blake was further pressed on how “accompaniment” works in practice, she emphasized that Habitat for Humanity does not impose its values and morals on communities, but instead has intentionally slow processes that ensure communities adapt new practices in their own time. For example, when questioned on the impact of gender-equality housing improvements, Blake said, “Habitat for Humanity doesn’t make the first running – it tends to go in to communities that are already taking the running on gender equality.” 

Helen Stacy, Director of the Program on Human Rights