11/21/03—Boston College Law School Dean John H. Garvey has announced that Professor Daniel Kanstroom has been named the Director of Human Rights Programs, a new position at the School.

“This initiative represents both a reorganization of existing law school programs and an aspiration for the future,” said Dean Garvey. “Our growing Human Rights Programs are consistent with the long Jesuit tradition that combines the highest regard for learning with an emphasis on service to others and the pursuit of justice for all segments of our society. They emphasize both theory and practice in the context of our increasing institutional commitment to international and comparative law.”

The new Director of Human Rights Programs will oversee a comprehensive series of initiatives that support:

• Legal and cross-disciplinary study of human rights theories
• Training law students in human rights law in the classroom and clinical settings
• International meetings and conferences
• A connection with human rights activists around the globe

Professor Kanstroom, an internationally known scholar and practitioner of human rights law, is ideally suited for the position. His courses in Immigration Law and International Human Rights Law anchor a developing curriculum at the law school and complement initiatives taking place elsewhere in the University. He will also direct and develop an array of clinical and extracurricular programs including:

• The Boston College Immigration and Asylum Project, in which students, assisted by an immigration attorney fellow, represent detained non-citizens, asylum-seekers, and indigent immigrants
• Student volunteer spring break projects in Florida, Texas, and California
• The Owen M. Kupferschmid Holocaust/Human Rights Project, which organizes conferences, invites speakers, and funds externships around the world
• Student externships at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague and the Rwanda Tribunal
• Other externships with international human rights organizations
• An annual Human Rights Film Series

“I am confident that Dan, together with our students, alumni, and many other faculty with strong commitments to human rights, will build a program we will all be proud of,” Dean Garvey said.

Professor Kanstroom is the founder and director of the BC Immigration & Asylum Program. He and his students have won several high profile immigration and asylum cases and provided counsel for hundreds of clients. His students have also written amicus briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court, organized innumerable public presentations in schools, churches, community centers, courts and prisons, and have informally advised many community groups. He has long served on the Board of the Directors of the PAIR Project, was rapporteur for the American Branch of the Refugee Law Section of the International Law Association and co-chairs a national immigration committee of the ABA.

In addition to his extensive practice experience in immigration, criminal and human rights litigation, he has published widely in the fields of U.S. immigration law, criminal law, and European citizenship & asylum law. His work has appeared in such prestigious venues as the Harvard Law Review, Yale Journal of International Law, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, and the French Gazette du Palais. He is currently working on a book entitled, “Good-Bye Rosalita: A Social and Legal History of Deportation”; “Deportation as Social Sanction,” in Civil Collateral Penalties (Routledge Press, forthcoming 2004); and “Immigration History from 1798 to September 11,” MCLE (forthcoming 2004). Professor Kanstroom has lectured on immigration and human rights law and participated in major conferences around the world--in French, German, and Spanish--and has been a featured guest on ABC news and Court TV, among many other media appearances.