Jan. 16, 2008 -- Professor Connie de la Vega's lengthy record in promoting international human rights includes helping to incorporate the nonprofit organization Human Rights Advocates in 1978 and establishing a law clinic at USF in 1998 that has impacted reform in such issues as the juvenile death penalty and trafficking in women.

Now, she is building on that record with the publication of International Human Rights Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). Co-authored with Professor David Weissbrodt of the University of Minnesota, the book is a comprehensive review of fundamental national, regional, and international precepts and procedures for such human rights abuses as torture, discrimination, starvation, and forced eviction.

"If anyone wants to find out what's been done on human rights at the international level, it is in this book," she said.

De la Vega's work in human rights began as a law student at UC Berkeley, under the tutelage of the late Professor Frank C. Newman.

"He was so inspiring, and would encourage his students to go to Geneva to work at the United Nations," she said. "As his student, I did an internship with the International Committee of Jurists. That was my first introduction to how the United Nations worked."

De la Vega established the international human rights clinic at USF in 1998 to provide students with similar experiences. It was re-named the Frank C. Newman International Human Rights Clinic in 2006 with a gift from the Newman estate.

"His widow really wanted to name something after him, and she saw that this is where it all was happening," de la Vega said.

Each spring, USF students enrolled in the clinic research a host of issues, such as trafficking of women, the juvenile death penalty, and human rights and the environment. They attend meetings of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, in Geneva, or the Commission on the Status of Women, in New York, where they lobby delegates, make oral statements, and write reports that become part of the official record. While a few other law schools in the country place interns with international bodies and organizations, USF students are the only students accredited to address the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women in New York. They are accredited through the nonprofit Human Rights Advocates.

Her work in international law gained national prominence in 2005 when the U.S. Supreme Court cited a friend-of-the-court brief she authored in its decision in Roeper v. Simmons, which banned the juvenile death penalty. Her brief noted that most countries prohibit the execution of criminals who were under 18 at the time of their crime, and argued that the United States "cannot demand compliance with human rights principles and norms abroad while it refuses to apply them in its own country."

That argument gets to the heart of the greatest challenge in international human rights law today--getting countries to comply with established international precepts. "Because there is no prison to put countries in, we are figuring out how to mobilize shame," she said.