Each fall, Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center hosts an afternoon event where student fellows give presentations about their recent fieldwork. Using compelling visuals to help amplify what are often little-known threats to human rights across the world, they share insights about their work while illuminating vital issues, conflicts, and advocacy efforts.
Three Berkeley Law students — Sonali Dhawan, Kate Reeves, and Sam Klein-Markman — are among this year’s dozen fellows. Each emphasized how their summer work powerfully fueled motivation to use their growing legal skills for advancing social justice.
Working with Thai Lawyers for Human Rights to end the imprisonment and harassment of dissidents, Dhawan monitored legal proceedings against political prisoners, produced trial reports for diplomats, and prepared comprehensive recommendations on Thailand’s draft legislation regarding strategic lawsuits against public participation.
The organization’s co-founder, Arnon Nampa, is one of 48 known political prisoners in Thailand. Imprisoned for over three years as a result of his peaceful pro-democracy activism, his cumulative sentences extend past 31 years following additional court rulings. When Nampa co-founded Thai Lawyers for Human Rights after Thailand’s 2014 coup, the organization offered free legal assistance to hundreds of dissidents harassed by the military.
“Thailand’s royal defamation law criminalizes criticism of the monarchy,” Dhawan explained. “It carries sentences of three to 15 years, which is equivalent to manslaughter. Thai citizens and foreigners are unjustly prosecuted for freedom of expression and association.”…
Reeves worked for La Federación Nativa del Río Madre de Dios y Afluentes (FENAMAD), a regional Indigenous organization in the Peruvian Amazon that defends the rights of Indigenous peoples and Native communities. The organization represents 38 such communities across the Madre de Dios River basin, a major tributary for the Amazon River in southeastern Peru. Supporting the implementation of a project to protect territorial rights, fight illegal deforestation, and safeguard environmental defenders, Reeves visited numerous communities impacted by threats posing significant risks in the area — including illegal gold mining, narco-trafficking, and illegal logging.
….
Klein-Markman supported Proyecto de Derechos Económicos (ProDESC) in helping Indigenous communities organize and bring legal claims against internationally financed development projects.
This work included helping draft a complaint against Norway’s state-owned energy company Statkraft, on behalf of Mapuche-Williche communities in Chile, for a hydropower dam project in their sacred territory. “The problem with green development is that its benefits are concentrated in the Global North — with severe costs in the Global South,” he said. “These costs are further concentrated in poor rural areas, with local environmental harms, threats of violence, loss of cultural practices, and financial incentive to silence local dissent.”
ProDESC’s work in Chile resulted in filing a claim in a Norwegian court that Statkraft’s actions violated the Mapuche community’s human rights, including flooding both a site of current cultural practices and a past burial site. The organization helped apply public pressure aimed at making the project untenable in Norway, forming alliances with Norwegian Indigenous groups and building a record of harms and violations.
