Global Justice Pro Bono students mentioned at parliamentary Human Rights committee

The work of students from the School of Law and Politics was recently mentioned before the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights.

At a hearing on Human Rights and Business on 19 October which was chaired by former minister and leading human rights lawyer Harriet Harman, the School’s Global Justice Pro-Bono programme was mentioned by Sue Willman, a partner at Deighton Pierce Glynn, a leading law firm based in London and Bristol.

The Global Justice Pro Bono programme was founded in 2015 by Professor John Harrington and Professor Ambreena Manji as a strand of Cardiff’s award winning Law Clinic. Students provide research and assistance to Deighton Pierce Glynn in its work for individuals and civil society organisations in the UK and overseas. Its first case related to evictions and slum clearances in Kenya.

This year, the programme is focusing on human rights claims arising from the operation of the North Mara gold mine in Tanzania. Students are assisting Deighton Pierce Glynn in their work on these cases in collaboration with the Rights and Accountability in Development (Oxford) and the Legal and Human Rights Centre (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania). They are supervised by Professors Harrington and Manji of the School’s Law and Global Justice research group.

Commenting on the programme’s mention before the Select Committee, Global Justice student Bianca Cridland, said “We all feel a huge sense of achievement at having the efforts of the Global Justice Pro Bono Programme recognised in such a forum. It really brings home the impact that we can have by working together as a team and confirms the contribution our work can make in a global context.”

A recording of the committee can be viewed at Parliamentlive.tv