Advocating for human rights

Human rights lawyer Leilani Farha joins Carleton University this semester as its first recipient of the Law Foundation of Ontario’s (LFO) Community Leadership in Justice Fellowship.

Farha, a staff lawyer at the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA) and director of CERA’s women’s program, will take aim at poverty and housing discrimination by focusing on law reform initiatives that advance the economic and social rights or marginalized groups.

“This Fellowship provides a unique opportunity to engage the academic community – students and professors alike – in an area of human rights practice that does not always receive enough attention,” said Farha. “Understanding and enforcing the economic and social rights of poor people is integral to ensuring their dignity.”

Housed within the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies’ human rights program, Farha will spearhead a number of new initiatives as part of the Social and Economic Rights program. Students under her direction will research a Philippine case study, in which a community was evicted in favour of a railway project. In addition, she will oversee guest lectures and a colloquium that will focus on how lawyers, advocates, and academics can use international human rights law to claim economic and social rights. These include rights to housing, food and healthcare.

Undergraduate students enrolled in the human rights program will also have an opportunity to apply theory to real-world situations, through practicum placements with NGOs and government departments focused on human rights and social justice.

“It is vital to my work to engage students directly, to support them to explore areas of law that are particularly relevant to poor people, and to encourage them to work in this area when they graduate,” said Farha. “I am also eager to work collaboratively with the institute to advance our substantive understanding of what it means to claim economic and social rights.”

The Community Leadership in Justice Fellowship is funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario (LFO). The Fellowship establishes community-based partnerships between post-secondary institutions and associations that interact with the legal system.

The LFO was founded in 1974 to develop a fund for legal education, research and aid, and establish law libraries.