For eight University of Washington undergraduates, the first week of June this year meant more than the end of the academic year or finishing final exams. It meant a chance to defend the human rights of Sergio, a child in Peru who became severely disabled at birth due to insufficient obstetric care for his mother, Eulogia.
The students, Fellows in the UW Disability Inclusive Development Initiative, or DIDI, had spent much of winter and spring quarters researching the facts of the case brought by Eulogia to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Eulogia’s case focused on the violence she had suffered at Sergio’s birth but did not raise the rights of Sergio as a child with a disability.
Students spent weeks searching for data on children with disabilities in Peru, and drafted memos on human rights and non-discrimination laws in Peru and within the Inter-American and international human rights systems. Their final amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” brief will be filed when the case reaches the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, located in Costa Rica as part of the D.C.-based Organization of American States, later this year.
Stephen Meyers — Director of the Center for Global Studies and associate professor at the Jackson School of International Studies and Law, Societies & Justice — is one of the co-founders of DIDI, along with Megan McClosky, doctoral candidate at the School of Law, graduate student lecturer in Law, Societies & Justice.
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