American Civil Liberties Union Human Rights Program

Founded in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is America's foremost advocate of individual rights, a national public interest organization devoted to the defense of the Bill of Rights with more than 5 national offices and 53 affiliates across the country. The Human Rights Program seeks a legal intern for Spring of 2009. The ACLU's Human Rights Program (HRP) works to ensure that the U.S. government complies with universal human rights principles in addition to the U.S. Constitution. HRP has been part of a reemerging movement of U.S. based organizations that uses the international human rights framework in domestic rights advocacy. HRP uses human rights strategies to complement existing ACLU legal and legislative advocacy and to advance social justice in the following areas: national security, immigrants’ rights, women’s rights, racial justice, death penalty, and children’s rights. To this end, HRP conducts human rights education and training sessions, and engages in advocacy and litigation before U.S. courts and international bodies, including the United Nations and regional human rights mechanisms (such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights).