Projects for Student Volunteers
The Talsky Center conducts multiple research and drafting projects in which MSU Law students are given opportunities to gain lawyering experience in and contribute to the furtherance of human rights.
These projects, which are extracurricular, are directly supervised by human rights attorney Michelle Oliel, pursuant to the general oversight of Professor Bitensky.
Students who are interested in taking advantage of any of these unique opportunities should contact Professor David B. Thronson, director of the Talsky Center, at david.thronson@law.msu.edu or 517-432-6916.
Current Projects:
Project to Prevent Child Soldiering and Protect Present & Past Child Soldiers
The Child Soldiers Initiative, founded by Lieutenant-General (Ret’d) Romeo Dallaire and based in Canada, is dedicated to preventing child soldiering and providing legal protection to those who were or are child soldiers around the world. The Talsky Center has developed a relationship with the Initiative whereby, on an as needed basis, MSU Law students have the opportunity to research various legal issues involved in reaching these goals; students may also be asked to draft legal memoranda, embodying research results, for use by the Initiative.
Project on Children’s Rights
This collaborative project between the Talsky Center and the Stahili Foundation involves students in researching and writing about various children’s legal rights as contained in the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Previous Projects:
Project to Promote Enactment of State Legislation Requiring Schools to Teach Students About Genocide
This project involved students, under the direct supervision of the Talsky Center’s director, in research for and drafting of actual and model statutes requiring K-12 schools to teach students about genocide. The project produced a bill which requires such education and about which students have given testimony before the House and Senate Education Committees. The bill was enacted into law in June 2016.
Project to Make It Feasible to Sue Corporations in State Court for Their Human Rights Abuses (temporarily suspended)
The Talsky Center undertook this project in collaboration with the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) and EarthRights International. In so doing, MSU Law College has joined 14 other American law schools which are also participating, such as Harvard Law School, UCLA School of Law, and University of Virginia School of Law.
The project was, in part, an attempt to undo some of the damage done by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, 133 S. Ct. 1659 (2013), which drastically limited the availability of actions under the Alien Tort Statute in federal court. Specifically, the decision made it close to impossible for victims of human rights violations perpetrated by corporations and occurring outside the United States, to seek redress against the corporations in federal court.
The project was designed to identify and, if needed, create alternative causes of action in state court against corporations which engage in such extraterritorial human rights violations. The idea was to enable victims to obtain relief in state court for, say, assault and battery or wrongful death (as opposed to litigating torture, genocide, or war crimes in federal court).
In light of our law school’s geographic location, the project at MSU Law focused exclusively on accomplishing this legislative reform in Michigan. The project enlisted students in two successive phases of work:
Phase 1: Students researched pertinent Michigan-law litigation issues, and drafted research memoranda and proposed legislation.
Phase 2: Students tried to assess Michigan state legislators’ attitudes of receptivity or antipathy toward the proposed legislation, and approached potential allies to introduce and support the bill.