American University Washington College of Law Announces New Spanish LL.M. Program in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, March 13, 2015 - American University Washington College of Law is pleased to announce a new LL.M. program in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, taught entirely in Spanish.

The new program, LL.M. en Derechos Humanos y Derecho Humanitario, will contain the same structure and content as the law school’s recently launched Human Rights LL.M. Program taught in English.

The LL.M. in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law is implemented under the academic direction of Professor Robert K. Goldman, Louis C. James Scholar and co-director of the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law as well faculty director for the War Crimes Research Office and Professor of law. The Program is designed and coordinated by Professors Claudia Martin and Diego Rodríguez-Pinzón, directors of the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and professorial lecturers in residence. The Academy, from which the new LL.M. originates, has provided bilingual education for the past 15 years through its internationally recognized Program of Advanced Studies in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. The LL.M.’s faculty is composed of human rights and humanitarian law experts from academia, international tribunals, civil society organizations and international organizations.

“This Program recognizes the nature of international human rights law, a field where multicultural and multilingual advocates, lawyers, and government representatives debate and shape the new standards of dignity expected from every state in the international community,” said Diego Rodriguez-Pinzon and Claudia Martin, co-directors of the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

This Spanish LL.M. Program is the only one in international human rights and humanitarian law to offer an online and residential hybrid curriculum at a U.S. law school. The course components are specifically designed for practitioners and other human rights professionals who wish to pursue advanced studies in human rights alongside their existing work responsibilities.

“Training lawyers and human rights activists with a multilingual approach is a much-needed undertaking to ensure that human rights victims and governments are represented, at the domestic and international level, by members of their communities who have received specialized training,” said Professor Robert Goldman, academic director of the new LL.M.   

The LL.M. en Derechos Humanos y Derecho Humanitario is accepting applications for Spring 2016. The deadline to apply is Dec. 1, 2015.

The Spanish LL.M joins other Spanish language programs at AUWCL, including in-person and online Legal Spanish Programs and summer courses offered in Spanish through the Center for International Commercial Arbitration. In addition, the law school’s annual Hispanic Law Conference, co-sponsored by the Hispanic National Bar Association, and the Hispanic Bar Associations of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, is devoted to the progress of Latinos/as in the U.S. and in the hemisphere.

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In 1896, American University Washington College of Law became the first law school in the country founded by women. More than 100 years since its founding, this law school community is grounded in the values of equality, diversity, and intellectual rigor. The law school's nationally and internationally recognized programs (in clinical legal education, trial advocacy, international law, and intellectual property to name a few) and dedicated faculty provide its 1500 JD, LL.M., and SJD students with the critical skills and values to have an immediate impact as students and as graduates, in Washington, D.C. and around the world. For more information, visit wcl.american.edu.