The Faculty of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic instils the urge for advocacy in tomorrow’s attorneys
Do you know your human rights? Many of us may have a vague idea of what the term refers to, but may not know how these abstract ideas relate to our day-to-day life, to the society we live in and the responsibility it has to uphold these rights.
When the Faculty of Law (FoL) at The UWI St Augustine first envisioned the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), the idea was to bridge the gap between where the Caribbean was and where it should be in terms of ensuring that human rights are being advocated for amongst all communities. At the time, Dean of FoL Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine (now Campus Principal) spoke of human rights as being “underserved in the Caribbean”, and the lack of legal services widening this gap through which marginalised groups could be left behind.
When the team saw a call for proposals from the European Development Fund (EDF), they were able to get funding for a two-year project titled “Strengthening Trinidad and Tobago's Human Rights Capacity through Innovative Legal Education Delivery”. This would evolve into the IHRC and corresponding LLB course. At the time, Prof Antoine noted, there was no such clinic in existence in the entire region.
Seven years later, the work of the IHRC remains as crucial as ever, as we see a global shift that has led to an increase in human rights abuses throughout the world.
“The Human Rights Clinic was borne out of an idea of the former Dean, current Principal,” says Deputy Dean Dr Timothy Affonso. “She envisioned a class where our students could work on real-world situations and cases which touch on human rights matters.”
Dr Affonso has taken over the course, and is continuing the work that she started, helping students to better explore their role in changing society. With a background in criminal prosecution and extradition and academic interest in public law, international law and international human rights law, Dr Affonso has seen first-hand the need for the legal community to understand the communities they serve.
“Human rights are a lived reality, and teaching it in a classroom can sometimes make vulnerable groups in society faceless and voiceless,” he says. “Having a course which empowers the overlooked in society and allowing students to see how law interacts with those who most need its protection is essential in human rights work.”
Over the years, students involved in the clinic have worked on issues affecting a range of underserved communities. These include reproductive rights, criminal justice, children's rights, disability justice and migrant rights. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, the IHRC initiated a landmark litigation calling for constitutional redress for prisoners in remand. At the time, the case made headlines as a ground-breaking motion to help change the treatment of persons detained on remand, many of whom would be waiting months and even years before their trials are heard, being held in reportedly inhumane conditions.
UWI Law students from the International Human Rights Clinic (front row, starting fourth from left) Mohammed Musajee, Alexia Trim, Ananda Noharie and Leisa Hamilton, with form six students from Holy Cross College in Arima.
“Historically, the clinic has looked at women's reproductive rights, access to justice and delays, juvenile justice, migrant rights, domestic violence protection, and rights of children, to name a few,” says Dr Affonso. “The areas of focus which are identified every year are balanced between topical issues in society and interests of students. In contemporary Trinbagonian society, these human rights issues impact those who most need the protection of the law, and it is important for students to engage in detailed research and advocacy.”
An aspect of instilling in the students a sense of passion for human rights is allowing them to be a part of the decision-making process on which issues are being focused on.
“Students identify areas of human rights that they are passionate about,” explains Dr Affonso. “They are then required to prepare and conduct an educational seminar in a secondary school in Trinidad and Tobago.”
The idea is that in having to prepare for a seminar geared towards a secondary school age group, the students learn valuable tools in how to explain complex legal concepts to people outside of the field, which would help them engage with the range of communities they may come into contact with during their future work.
“The students are also required to identify gaps in existing legal protections nationally, and present their findings in an end-of-semester conference which they organise and host. The course allows for adaptability to different human rights areas of focus every year,” he says.
Most recently, the clinic hosted a Human Rights Conference on Tuesday 8th April 2025, titled “Inclusive Futures: Building a Society that Uplifts Marginalised Voices”. Students were asked to creatively depict and present their research with posters, spoken word, song, and art as part of the event. The conference represented the final in-course assessment for students enrolled in both the IHRC and the Poverty Law Clinic.
For Dr Affonso and the team, the most rewarding part of the work is seeing the blossoming seeds of passion as students begin to make the connections between the theory of their work and the reality of human rights protection. Of course, this was the intention from the onset of the project. At the beginning, Prof Antoine insisted that law should be seen as “a social engineer that should be centred on the community”.
Today, her words ring just as true as ever: “If we don't shape [law students], they go out there and make money, and that's it... Law has so much potential for real positive change.”
