Une grande militante des causes justes dans le monde et une amie de l’Algérie (in French)
25 Septembre 2010
A cette réunion organisée à l’initiative de Mme Saïda Benhabylès, ancienne ministre et coordinatrice dans le mouvement associatif ont été associés des juristes, représentants d’associations de victimes du terrorisme du mouvement associatif, des médias.
Mme Benhabylès qui a eu à côtoyer la grande militante avocate américaine a évoqué le souvenir de celle-ci en des termes pathétiques et emplis de reconnaissance. Maître Rhonda Copelon décédée à la suite d’une longue maladie, le 6 mai dernier, a été de tous les combats avec les victimes algériennes du terrorisme qu’elle a défendues auprès des tribunaux américains à titre gracieux, notamment lors de l’affaire qui a opposé des victimes à Anouar Haddam, activiste de l’ex-FIS, réfugié aux Etats-Unis.
Maître Rhonda Copelon s’était chargée de toute la procédure devant les tribunaux, procédure longue et très complexe comme ont témoigné des spécialistes lors de la séance d’hier au Centre de Presse d’El Moudjahid.
Maître Rhonda Copelon a été d’une aide particulièrement précieuse. Elle a fait adhérer à sa cause, d’autres juristes américains.
Mme Benhabylès relevait dans son intervention que l’Algérie voulait s’associer à l’hommage international qui était rendu à la grande militante, en organisant cette rencontre.
La société civile s’était donc donnée rendez-vous pour se rappeler les grands engagements de cette non moins grande militante des causes justes Mme Rhonda Copelon s’étant volontairement et spontanément associée à la lutte anti-terroriste pour défendre les associations de victimes du terrorisme chaque fois que des affaires les concernant, étaient portées devant les tribunaux américains.
Mme Rhonda Copelon a été sur le front, participant à toutes les grandes conférences internationales, et celles consacrées aux droits de la femme à travers le monde, car c’était une grande féministe, dit d’elle, Mme Benhabylès.
Elle s’intéressait énormément à l’évolution de la situation en Afrique. Les représentants algériens qui ont pu travailler avec l’éminente avocate, témoignent de la parfaite connaissance par Mme Rhonda Copelon, de la lutte du peuple algérien contre le terrorisme, et des manipulations que certains milieux hostiles ont entretenu pour tenter de diminuer de l’importance de cette lutte. Elle a rencontré pour cela beaucoup de monde. Sa porte restait invariablement ouverte aux victimes de ce fléau. Son combat contre la pauvreté, contre les discriminations raciales que son propre pays connaissait, entre dans la logique de ses convictions.
Pour l’éminente juriste, les lois d’un pays doivent être l’émanation des peuples. Elles doivent venir en défense des plus vulnérables . Maître Rhonda Copelon, dénonçait régulièrement dans ses interventions le racisme, les pratiques raciales, la torture, jusque dans son propre pays, note ainsi Mme Benhabylès.
Intervenant à son tour, Mme Kheddar Chérifa, présidente de l’Association Djazaïrouna, (victimes du terrorisme), relève pour sa part que lors de la commémoration du 5e anniversaire des attentats du 11 septembre 2001, Maître Rhonda Copelon, en rendant un hommage appuyé aux victimes algériennes du terrorisme, notait que si les Etats-Unis avaient su tirer la leçon de la tragédie algérienne et avaient pris en compte les mises en garde algériennes sur la nature du terrorisme qui est de nature planétaire, peut être que la tragédie du 11 septembre 2001 aurait pu être évitée. Maître Rhonda Copelon aura été d’un grand dévouement pour les victimes algériennes n’hésitant pas à sensibiliser de hautes personnalités de son pays pour écouter les délégations algériennes de victimes du terrorisme qui étaient de passage aux Etats-Unis, afin d’écouter leurs témoignages, relève Mme Kheddar Chérifa.
Elle exploitait systématiquement enregistrements, témoignages, vidéos devant les tribunaux américains pour obtenir gain de cause. Pour Maître Aït Zaï Nadia, avocate, Maître Rhonda Copelon était particulièrement ouverte à toutes les causes nobles, elle était particulièrement présente sur tous les fronts. Maître Aït Zaï Nadia, rappelle qu’il n’était pas simple d’aller devant les tribunaux américains.
C’est grâce au professionnalisme et au dévouement de Me Rhonda Copelon que l’on a pu introduire des plaintes.
Ce souvenir est grand dans nos mémoires relève l’oratrice. Maître Rhonda Copelon restera ainsi notre modèle de combat. Maître Aït Zaï Nadia qui affirme n’avoir pu rencontrer à son grand regret qu’à deux reprises l’éminente avocate américaine, souligne de celle-ci, que c’est un visage qu’on ne peut oublier.
Elle est un exemple pour tous cette commémoration au centre de presse d’El Moudjahid, se veut comme un hommage à sa mémoire de grande militante, qui doit nous inciter à poursuivre son combat.
De son vivant, Maître Rhonda Copelon n’avait pu visiter que brièvement notre pays en 97, pays pour lequel elle vouait un immense respect, relève Mme Benhabyles. On aurait souhaité la voir revenir un jour, pouvoir séjourner plus longtemps dans notre pays, le visiter et rencontrer plus de monde. Le sort en a décidé autrement, l’éminente juriste, quelques jours avant sa disparition, avait créé une fondation, Fondation Copelan, au sein de laquelle toutes celles et tous ceux qui se reconnaîtront dans son combat peuvent poursuivre la lutte.
Nous voulons à cette occasion, réitérer notre engagement pour ce qui nous concerne et notamment dans la lutte anti-terroriste. La société civile algérienne a vécu des moments difficiles, il a été capital pour elle, de trouver chez des personnalités de l’envergure de Maître Rhonda Copelon, disponibilité et compréhension a noté Mme Benhabyles, l’oratrice en profite pour exprimer sa solidarité à l’égard de toutes les victimes du terrorisme à travers le monde.
Les Algériens comprennent mieux à travers ce qu’ils ont pu endurer la douleur des autres. Mme Kheddar Chérifa relève que Maître Rhonda Copelon était une femme engagée dans la défense des droits humains à travers le monde. Elle était favorable à la saisine des tribunaux dans le cas de violation de ces droits où la plainte était déposée contre des ressortissants nationaux ou étrangers. Elle était d’une très grande tolérance, elle dénonçait l’exploitation qui était faite de liIslam dans les situations de violence et avait un profond respect pour notre religion.
Sur la lutte anti terroriste, Mme Benhabylès, répondant aux nombreuses questions dans le débat, relève que le versement de rançons pour délivrer les otages, est inadmissible. Elle se dit en faveur de la criminalisation du paiement de rançons. L’ONU le condamne mais il n’ y a pas encore de texte pour criminaliser l’acte en lui-même.
T. M. A.
La présidente de la Fédération internationale des associations de victimes du terrorisme, Mme Saïda Benhabyles a insisté, hier, sur la nécessité de criminaliser le paiement de rançon aux groupes terroristes pour la libération des otages. Intervenant lors d'une rencontre organisée au quotidien El-Moudjahid en hommage à la défunte avocate américaine partisane des causes algériennes, Rhonda Copelon, Mme Benhabyles a souligné que cette mesure à laquelle recourent plusieurs pays pour libérer leurs ressortissants enlevés par les groupes terroristes, notamment dans la région du Sahel africain constituait "un crime abject à l'encontre de toutes les personnes libres de par le monde car elle constitue le terrorisme “en partie” avec laquelle il faut traiter". L'intervenante a relevé plusieurs autres moyens pour traiter les opérations d'enlèvement, autres que l'encouragement du terrorisme, en l'incitant à se doter des moyens et d'armes sophistiquées pour la poursuite de l'activité terroriste qui cible les citoyens". Le phénomène de paiement de rançons "est l'une des principales sources de financement des groupes terroristes activant dans la région du Sahel africain", a-t-elle ajouté. A cet effet, elle fait part de la grande préoccupation de la société civile, devant la propagation de ce phénomène au Sahel, au risque de transformer la région en "deuxième Afghanistan", à la lumière des ingérences étrangères suscitées par ce problème, affirmant que les pays africains "sont à même de faire face au terrorisme et l'Algérie en est le meilleur exemple". Soulignant l'existence d'un "amalgame" chez la communauté internationale concernant le concept de terrorisme, Mme Benhabylès à appelé à une définition claire du concept et à le faire connaître comme étant "un crime qui menace la sécurité et la paix internationales". Elle a également plaidé pour la distinction entre le terrorisme et la lutte légitime des peuples sous emprise coloniale ou occupation étrangère". Abondant dans le même sens, l'intervenante a cité l'exemple des deux ressortissants algériens, Hocine Mohamed et Abdelkader Mohamed, anciens membres des groupes de légitime défense (GLD) dans les années 1990, mis sous contrôle judiciaire depuis six ans à Nîmes (France), appelant la justice française à mettre un terme à l'attente "sans fin" du procès de ces deux ressortissants". "Le dossier de la justice française est infondé. La lenteur de la procédure, qui perdure depuis six ans, en est la preuve concrète", a-t-elle asséné. "L'affaire des frères Mohamed a commencé par des plaintes déposées par des familles de disparus embrigadées par la FID. Il est clair qu'il y a derrière tout cela des desseins politiques", a-t-elle affirmé. Mme Benhabyles a précisé qu'une plainte déposée par Patrick Baudouin, président de la fédération internationale des droits de l'homme (FID), est à l'origine des accusations portées contre les frères Mohamed. Concernant l'hommage rendu à l'avocate américaine, décédée en mai dernier, Mme Benhabylès a souligné qu'outre ses positions en faveur des causes justes dans le passé, à l'instar de la guerre du Vietnam, et en Bosnie-Herzégovine et autres, Copelon était une grande sympathisante de l'Algérie pendant la décennie noire et fut la porte-parole et la voix des associations algériennes des victimes de terrorisme dans son pays. L'avocate américaine qui n'avait visité l'Algérie qu'une seule fois en 1997 fut la première à avoir introduit les affaires de terrorisme en Algérie dans les cours américaines où elle a fait connaître ce phénomène. Ainsi, elle fut derrière les plus importantes poursuites judiciaires ayant touché plusieurs membres des groupes terroristes armés qui s'étaient enfuis aux Etats Unis.
APS
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Le quotidien Liberté, Alger
Des associations algériennes se rappellent de Rhonda Copelon, juriste américaine
Hommage à celle qui a fait condamner Anouar Haddam (in French)
Par Karim Kebir 26 Septembre 2010
Son nom ne doit sans doute pas dire grand-chose au commun des Algériens. Pourtant, loin des feux de la rampe, inlassablement, elle a été corps et âme aux côtés des victimes du terrorisme algérien durant la décennie écoulée. Décédée récemment, précisément en mai dernier, Rhonda Copelon, éminente juriste américaine, fait figure d’une grande amie de l’Algérie pour avoir appuyé la lutte du peuple algérien contre le terrorisme.
Parmi ses hauts faits d’armes, une procédure judiciaire contre le parti dissous, ou encore contre l’ancien dirigeant du même parti Anouar Heddam, réfugié alors aux états-Unis d’Amérique. Hier, au centre de presse du quotidien gouvernemental El Moudjahid, elles étaient plusieurs représentantes d’associations pour rendre hommage à cette dame qui a fait de la défense des droits humains et, particulièrement, des droits de la femme algérienne un sacerdoce. “C’est une perte énorme pour les droits de l’Homme dans le monde”, a estimé l’ancien ministre, Mme. Benhabyles, présidente du Mouvement féminin algérien de solidarité avec la famille rurale. “Elle était la première à nous avoir soutenu, elle a cru en nous. Elle a organisé des rencontres pour nous. Elle s’est battue jusqu’à la dernière minute. Tout son carnet d’adresses était mis à notre disposition. Ce qu’elle a fait pour nous, nous ne devons pas l’oublier”, a affirmé, pour sa part, Mme Chérifa Khedar, responsable de Djazaïrouna. “Elle a réussi à faire condamner Anouar Heddam. Et nous n’avons payé aucun sou. On lui fournissait juste les dossiers”, a-t-elle encore rappelé. à la question de savoir le point de vue de l’avocate à propos de la politique de réconciliation nationale adoptée en 2006 et qui a permis de gracier plusieurs centaines de terroristes, Chérifa Khedar soutient que “Rhonda Copelon défendait les principes des droits humains et qu’elle ne s’intéressait pas aux politiques internes”. De son côté, Nadia Aït Zai a mis en exergue la rigueur de la juriste. “Je l’ai rencontrée à deux reprises, c’était une femme rigoureuse”, a-t-elle témoigné. Même si la rencontre se voulait comme un hommage à cette grande amie de l’Algérie, Mme Benhabyles ne s’est pas empêchée d’aller à quelques digressions, notamment sur les derniers développements enregistrés sur la scène sécuritaire et particulièrement dans la région du Sahel. “Je profite de l’occasion pour dénoncer au nom de la société civile et condamner les méthodes de payement de rançons.” “Nous sommes choqués d’apprendre que 95% du financement du terrorisme provient du payement de rançons”, a-t-elle dit, avant d’interpeller l’instance onusienne pour “criminaliser cette démarche”. “Non à l’intervention étrangère dans la région du Sahel”, a-t-elle clamée par ailleurs. Et comme souvent, elle ne rate pas l’occasion pour épingler les tenants du “qui-tue-qui”. “Il faut être vigilant, les tenants du “qui-tue-qui” n’ont pas baissé les bras.”
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The Guardian
Rhonda Copelon: Human rights lawyer committed to securing justice for women
by Lisa Gormley
Rhonda Copelon: Human rights lawyer committed to securing justice for women
by Lisa Gormley
May 24, 2010
Professor Rhonda Copelon, who has died aged 65 of ovarian cancer, was a path-finding human rights lawyer and activist, and one of the world's foremost legal scholars of the rights of women. Her ideas have entered the mainstream of human rights law and practice, including at Amnesty International, where I was privileged to benefit from her advice and encouragement.
Professor Rhonda Copelon, who has died aged 65 of ovarian cancer, was a path-finding human rights lawyer and activist, and one of the world's foremost legal scholars of the rights of women. Her ideas have entered the mainstream of human rights law and practice, including at Amnesty International, where I was privileged to benefit from her advice and encouragement.
Despite the important cases she brought before the courts, the most influential aspect of her work may prove to be her academic writing of the mid-1990s. Rhonda argued that states should be accountable under human rights law as much for the crimes by private citizens that they passively allow to happen – particularly acts of violence against women, such as domestic violence, or attacks by armed groups – as for the crimes they actively commit through police, army or other state officials. Already these concepts of state responsibility are being incorporated into the work of UN human rights institutions and advocacy groups.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Rhonda was the only child of Herman and Katherine Copelon. She graduated from Bryn Mawr women's college, Pennsylvania, in 1966 with a degree in history and political science and received her law degree from Yale University four years later.
Rhonda's early legal career was spent at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York. In the late 1970s, with her colleague Peter Weiss, she brought a groundbreaking civil action for damages, Filártiga v Peña-Irala. Seventeen-year-old Joelito Filártiga had been tortured to death by police in Paraguay. While both Norberto Peña-Irala, the police chief involved in the killing, and Joelito's sister Dolly were living in the US, Rhonda brought proceedings against Peña-Irala, using an old, rarely invoked provision that gave US courts jurisdiction over any suit brought by a foreign national for wrongful actions "committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States".
The US court of appeals awarded damages of more than $10m, stating that "the torturer has become – like the pirate and slave trader before him – hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind" and opening US courts to human rights claims. Even though this was a compensation case, rather than a criminal prosecution, it was an important precedent for cases such as that against General Augusto Pinochet, the former president of Chile, in the 1990s.
Remarkably, the Filártiga decision was handed down on the same day, 30 June 1980, as one of the hardest losses of Rhonda's career, the US supreme court judgment in Harris v McRae. This was a class action on behalf of women living in poverty who needed publicly funded (Medicaid) abortions. Rhonda's argument was that it was impermissible to prefer the potential life of a foetus to the health and life of a pregnant woman. The supreme court prohibited Medicaid reimbursement for almost all abortions, even where a pregnant woman's health is gravely endangered or she is pregnant as a result of rape or incest.
After the blow of the decision in McRae, Rhonda became increasingly committed to exploring the possibilities of international human rights law to secure justice for women. In 1983, she was a founding member of the Central University of New York's law department, and in 1992 she co-founded the department's International Women's Human Rights Clinic (IWHRC). Under her leadership, the clinic enabled students and activists around the world to participate in a range of precedent-setting human rights legal and advocacy campaigns to stop gender and sexualised violence, and to advance reproductive and sexual rights, along with wider economic and social rights.
Outrage at the rape of women in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the early 1990s was a spur to action. In the international courts dealing with those situations, the IWHRC argued that rape can constitute torture and genocide. IWHRC teams brought acute awareness of the realities of women's experience to bear in the three key UN meetings of the 1990s – on human rights (Vienna, 1993), population and development (Cairo, 1994), and women's rights (Beijing, 1995).
Notably, in 1996, Rhonda brought proceedings on behalf of nine individuals and the Rassemblement Algérien des Femmes Démocrates (RAFD) against the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) of Algeria and its leader, charging the FIS with war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and torture. Though the defendants managed to have the case struck out, this outstanding case recognised and sought a remedy for the grave harms to women caused by religious fundamentalists. Until the end of her life, Rhonda worked on behalf of women subjected to violence by fundamentalists and consistently challenged human rights organisations such as Amnesty International to document and campaign on violence against women by fundamentalist groups.
In 1997, she cofounded the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice, an organisation that brought the experiences of women in armed conflict to the negotiations establishing the international criminal court. This work ensured that women's experiences were taken into account in the court's definition of crimes, rules of procedure and evidence, and that steps would be taken to ensure that women were represented in equal numbers to men as judges and court personnel.
Rhonda had a gentle, sweet-toned voice, but a legal and political analysis as fresh and bracing as spring water, relentless in looking at a problem in all its practicalities. She gave loyal and generous attention and friendship to many clients, students and colleague activists around the world, but especially in South America and Algeria. While she leaves no immediate family, she is survived by a close network of friends who cared for her during her final illness.
• Rhonda Copelon, lawyer, teacher and activist, born 15 September 1944; died 6 May 2010
LA Times
PASSINGS: Rhonda Copelon, human rights attorney, dies at 65
May 16, 2010
Rhonda Copelon, 65, a human rights attorney who helped open U.S. courts to victims of international abuses, especially involving violence against women, died of ovarian cancer May 6, City University of New York announced. She was a professor at the university's law school from 1983 until retiring in 2009.
Copelon co-founded the International Women's Rights Clinic at the law school and was a vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit organization founded by attorneys representing the civil rights movement.
Copelon played a key role in Filartiga vs. Pena-Irala, a Supreme Court case that established that human rights abuses committed abroad could be addressed by U.S. courts. She also argued unsuccessfully in Harris vs. McRae, in which the Supreme Court narrowly upheld prohibiting Medicaid reimbursement for most abortions. Both decisions were announced on the same day in 1980.
In the Filartiga case, the high court ruled that a physician from Paraguay and his daughter could sue a police official in U.S. federal court for the torture and murder of the physician's son.
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LA Times
PASSINGS: Rhonda Copelon, human rights attorney, dies at 65
May 16, 2010
Rhonda Copelon, 65, a human rights attorney who helped open U.S. courts to victims of international abuses, especially involving violence against women, died of ovarian cancer May 6, City University of New York announced. She was a professor at the university's law school from 1983 until retiring in 2009.
Copelon co-founded the International Women's Rights Clinic at the law school and was a vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit organization founded by attorneys representing the civil rights movement.
Copelon played a key role in Filartiga vs. Pena-Irala, a Supreme Court case that established that human rights abuses committed abroad could be addressed by U.S. courts. She also argued unsuccessfully in Harris vs. McRae, in which the Supreme Court narrowly upheld prohibiting Medicaid reimbursement for most abortions. Both decisions were announced on the same day in 1980.
In the Filartiga case, the high court ruled that a physician from Paraguay and his daughter could sue a police official in U.S. federal court for the torture and murder of the physician's son.
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New York Times
By Dennis Hevesi
May 9, 2010
Rhonda Copelon, a human rights lawyer who played a major role in several groundbreaking cases, including one that allowed victims of abuses in other countries to seek justice in American courts, died Thursday at her home in Manhattan. She was 65.
The cause was ovarian cancer, said Nancy Stearns, a friend and colleague of Ms. Copelon’s at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Ms. Copelon was a vice president of the center and a professor at the City University of New York School of Law at Queens College. In her 40-year career, she worked on cases involving gender-based violence, racial discrimination, government wiretapping, job discrimination and abortion rights.
Ms. Copelon’s work “altered the bedrock of how U.S. courts treat international human rights abuses,” Michelle J. Anderson, the dean of the CUNY School of Law, said in a statement.
In the late 1970s, Ms. Copelon and Peter Weiss, another lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, brought a civil suit, Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, which helped establish that victims of human rights abuses committed abroad had recourse in United States courts.
The case involved a family in Paraguay whose son had been tortured to death by the police in the capital, Asunción. The police chief there eventually moved to Brooklyn and was soon followed by the victim’s sister, who filed suit. A federal appeals court in New York ruled on June 30, 1980, that the family had a right to sue for damages, setting a precedent that has been upheld in similar cases.
On the same day as the Filártiga decision, however, Ms. Copelon lost a case she had argued before the United States Supreme Court. In that case, Harris v. McRae, the court voted 5 to 4 to uphold the Hyde Amendment, a legislative provision restricting the use of federal money to pay for abortions.
Those two cases turned Ms. Copelon’s attention toward international human rights as a way to protect women. At the CUNY law school, which she had joined when it opened in 1983, she was a founder of the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic and the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice.
Working with her students, she filed amicus briefs in cases before the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia that contributed to recognition in international law of rape as a crime of genocide and torture.
Until then, Ms. Copelon told The New York Times in 2002, “rape was considered a kind of collateral damage” and “seen as part of the unpreventable, fundamental culture of war.”
Born in New Haven on Sept. 15, 1944, Rhonda Copelon was the only child of Herman and Katherine Copelon. She graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1966 with a degree in history and political science and received her law degree from Yale four years later. Her marriage to David Schoenbrod ended in divorce. She has no immediate survivors.
Reached at her home in Paraguay on Friday, Dolly Filártiga, who came to the United States to bring the case against the police chief who tortured her brother, said Ms. Copelon “was a pillar for me all the years I was going through the whole thing.”
“I never knew how important the case would become,” she added. “The Filártiga principle has won so many other cases.”
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NY1 News (TV newscast)
Pioneering human rights attorney and longtime CUNY Law School professor Rhonda Copelon died this week after a battle with ovarian cancer May 7, 2010
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The Nation
A Human Rights Heroine: Rhonda Copelon
by Peter WeissMay 31, 2010
A HUMAN RIGHTS HEROINE: Rhonda Copelon died on May 6 after a four year battle with ovarian cancer. She probably would have died earlier if she had not researched her condition in the same way that she researched her briefs: Thoroughly, creatively and passionately, leaving no stone unturned and no theory unexamined.
In her forty year career, first as a litigator at the Center for Constitutional Rights, then as a professor and founding head of the Women’s International Human Rights Clinic at CUNY Law School, she established herself as a world class pioneer in the use of law as a tool for exposing grievous wrongs and, sometimes, redressing them. Her work encompassed the whole mottled landscape of human rights, with an emphasis on gender issues. A panorama of her activities would include arguing against the Hyde Amendment in the US Supreme Court, lobbying for the inclusion of rape as a war crime in the Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, testifying at the “comfort women” tribunal in Tokyo and at the Interamerican Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica.
She was the warmest of friends to her large entourage and the steeliest adversary to establishmentarians who did not recognize basic human rights, or, worse in her opinion, recognized them in principle while claiming that the time for their implementation was “not yet”. She accomplished the impossible: She made justice look easy.
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GRITtv with Laura Flanders
May 11, 2010
Cathy Albisa On Elena Kagan and Rhonda Copelon: Catherine Albisa of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative joins us to talk about Elena Kagan--and about pioneering attorney Rhonda Copelon, who passed away recently: What are the odds of getting a Rhonda Copelon on the Supreme Court someday?
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The East Hampton Star
May 13, 2010
Rhonda Copelon, a human rights lawyer who spent her free time in Noyac, died of ovarian cancer last Thursday at her New York City residence. She was 65.
Ms. Copelon, a vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a City University of New York School of Law professor, distinguished herself with key roles in several human rights cases, which encompassed both domestic and international issues.
Two of her most significant cases were decided on the same day, June 30, 1980. The one she won established that those who had experienced extreme human rights abuses in other countries could file suit in United States courts. The one she lost, in front of the United States Supreme Court, upheld a law that prohibited Medicaid reimbursement for almost all abortions.
Catherine Albisa of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative said in an interview this week on GRITtv that when Medicaid banned abortions, Ms. Copelon was outraged that poor women were being treated differently from other women. “She was devastated when she lost that case,” Ms. Albisa said.
She channeled that experience into using international human rights as a way of protecting the rights of women and the poor. She was a founding member of the law school’s faculty and founded its International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, which filed briefs in the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
The briefs helped establish that rape is a crime of genocide and torture in international law. The clinic also helped establish that domestic violence and other forms of gender violence can constitute torture under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
During her 12 years at the Center for Constitutional Rights, Ms. Copelon also challenged government wiretapping, racial discrimination, and discrimination against unwed mothers.
In more recent years in Noyac, she became a photography student of Kathryn Szoka, who remembered Ms. Copelon as “a dynamo. She had the intensity and curiosity that a teenager does,” Ms. Szoka said. Ms. Copelon approached photography, she said, “as a fine artist, with an eagerness that was refreshing and rare.”
She was was born in New Haven on Sept. 15, 1944, to Herman and Katherine Copelon. She earned a degree in history and political science from Bryn Mawr College and a law degree from Yale University. Her marriage to David Schoenbrod ended in divorce, and she had no immediate survivors.
In her final weeks, Ms. Copelon announced the establishment of the Copelon Fund for Gender Justice at the Center for Constitutional Rights, for which she provided the seed money. Donations can be made to the fund at the center’s Web site.
Ms. Copelon was cremated. A service will be held on May 21 at 11:45 a.m. at Riverside Memorial Chapel at Amsterdam and 76th Street in Manhattan.
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New York Law Journal
May 10, 2010
Rhonda Copelon, a pioneering human rights attorney and retired City University of New York School of Law professor, died Thursday from ovarian cancer. She was 64.
A 1970 graduate of Yale Law School, Ms. Copelon was a staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) from 1971 to 1983.
She was noted for her role in the landmark Second Circuit decision Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, 630 F. 2d 876, which opened U.S. courts to civil actions for abuses of human rights committed abroad. She also argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, in which the Court narrowly upheld a federal ban on Medicaid funding for abortions.
Ironically, both Filártiga and Harris were decided on the same day, June 30, 1980.
In 1983, she became a founding faculty member at CUNY Law. Nine years later, she cofounded the International Women's Human Rights Law Clinic at the school, which allows students to participate in human rights litigation and advocacy at a national and international level. In 1997, she cofounded Women's Caucus for Gender Justice (now Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice), an advocacy organization focused on the International Criminal Court.
Ms. Copelon took emeritus status at CUNY Law last year. Last month, she established the Copelon Fund for Gender Justice at CCR and served as vice president.
A memorial service will be held Friday, May 21, at the Riverside Memorial Chapel, 180 W. 76th St. A time has not yet been set.
* * *
AWID Friday FileRemembering Rhonda Copelon
By Masum Momaya
Friday, June 11, 2010
Charlotte Bunch spoke with AWID to pay tribute to her longstanding and cherished colleague and friend, Rhonda Copelon.
AWID: Charlotte, can you tell us how you came to work with Rhonda?
Charlotte Bunch: I began working closely with Rhonda in the 1990s after she became part of the founding faculty of CUNY Law School and later director of the School’s International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic, which she founded with Celina Romany. We had been on parallel tracks in our U.S. feminist work in the 1970s, although we had not worked together then. She came to our apartment in Brooklyn in 1990 to discuss with me and Roxanna Carrillo how she could bring her legal expertise to the developing global women’s human rights movement, and a close partnership began. It was clear from the outset that we shared a passion for linking global women’s struggles to feminist and human rights issues in the U.S. – to seeing ourselves and U.S. movements as part of global solidarity and a common struggle, and not as separated.
After that, Rhonda traveled with me and Roxanna to Argentina for the next regional feminist encuentro, where Rhonda rapidly picked up speaking Spanish with a French accent! We learned much from women there who had been working to bring feminism to that continent’s human rights struggles. Rhonda then became a core part of the global campaign for women’s human rights that strategized with activists from around the world on how to bring a feminist interpretation of human rights to the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, to women’s reproductive rights as human rights at the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, and finally to full public awareness of this perspective at the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995.
AWID: What will Rhonda be remembered for?
Charlotte Bunch: Many things as her fingerprints are all over the documents that make up the work of women’s human rights from the last two decades. All of us who have known and worked with Rhonda have experienced, witnessed and benefited from her deep human rights vision, creative legal mind, political persistence and generosity of spirit. She had keen intellectual acumen, legal strategic brilliance and was always an unswerving and courageous advocate. Throughout her life, she never ceased to persevere in the pursuit of justice for all.
Her perseverance, though, sometimes drove us crazy! For example, in the women’s caucuses for UN World Conferences, when we thought a document was finished, she often raised another critical point not seen before – after it had already gone to the printer. We wanted to say “it’s too late,” but we knew she was usually conceptually right, and something more needed to be said or done.
AWID: Can you tell us about the role Rhonda played in ensuring reproductive rights?
Charlotte Bunch: For 12 years, Rhonda served as a litigator at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. There, she played a critical role in the legal evolution of reproductive rights, and particularly the intersection of gender with race and class in determining women’s access to these rights in the U.S.
From her successful argument in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of African-American teacher aides in Mississippi who were fired for being unwed mothers to her lead as counsel in Harris v. McRae, which challenged the federal amendment that cut-off of public funds for most abortions, Rhonda made connections between policy, law, and the every day realities of people for whom exercising rights was not a given, especially women of color and poor women.
Although the loss of McRae by one vote was heartbreaking, Rhonda’s contribution to that case reverberated throughout the field and influenced so many people working on reproductive rights. Her work challenged the law, and equally importantly, influenced advocates to link social and economic rights to personal ones. For her entire career, Rhonda fought for abortion to be safe, legal and fully accessible to all women.
But Rhonda’s work on reproductive rights is just one example of how she contributed her “brain waves,” both behind the scenes and on the front lines, to many of the most important breakthroughs in progressive feminist advances both in the US and globally.
Rhonda was also co-counsel in other critical cases challenging racist practices and governmental misconduct, the Vietnam War, and, ultimately, in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, which recognized that the 1789 “Alien Tort Claims Act” encompasses torture as an international human rights norm constitutionally as part of the “laws of the United States.” Filartiga laid the foundation for work that Rhonda continued in developing gender perspectives in numerous cases involving war crimes, corporate abuses, and immigrant domestic workers.
AWID: Are there other cases in Rhonda’s career that stand out?
Charlotte Bunch: Rhonda represented Algerian journalists, feminists, and their families, persecuted and murdered by armed Islamist groups in a U.S. Court in the groundbreaking case of Jane Doe v. Islamic Salvation Front and Anouar Haddam. The case was so dangerous that the clients - including people who had witnessed the killing of their own children - had to remain anonymous.
As Karima Bennoune notes: “Rhonda is a now a legendary figure among Algerians working to oppose religious extremism in their country. They see her as a visionary who comprehends that the state is not the only source of threat to human rights and who understands that the most progressive stance toward the Muslim world even in the era of the "War on Terror" is concrete solidarity with its progressives rather than apology for fundamentalism.”
This is just one example of Rhonda taking on something that many people would not go near. Many profoundly admire her willingness to take on an uphill battle even when virtually alone, a hallmark of Rhonda’s legal career. In fact, whenever someone told Rhonda that something could not be done, she tried to do it and brought the doubters along in her effort to push the boundaries!
AWID: What about Rhonda’s contributions to ending against violence against women?
Charlotte Bunch: Rhonda was one of those who laid the conceptual groundwork for much of the legislation and resolutions in place today. She participated in the process for drafting the Inter-American Convention Against Violence Against Women in Brazil in 1992 and wrote groundbreaking articles on domestic violence as torture, which were taken up by the UN Committee Against Torture and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture over a decade later. Even today, these articles open eyes for those new to the movement.
Rhonda’s article on war crimes in Bosnia contributed to the recognition of rape and sexualized violence as torture generally and in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the International Criminal Tribunals, and as genocide in the Rwanda Tribunal.
Lepa Mladjenovic of Women in Black Belgrade has written that: “Rhonda is admired, read, discussed and cared for all over the world. At one point her piece on rape in war as primarily a form of male violence against woman, and not just nationalism, was a keystone. It was crucial in the particular moment of the war for us feminists from the Balkans, to have our Rhonda near, knowing that all her professional and activist self, written & spoken is behind her political belief.”
AWID: Rhonda also influenced the International Criminal Court, right?
Charlotte Bunch:One of her lasting areas of leadership was through co-founding the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, leading to the landmark codification of gender in the International Criminal Court (ICC) statute in 1998 – which was the first international Human Rights instrument to fully incorporate gender – rather than women having to catch up to add this later. She was unrelenting in the negotiations for this – just ask some of the men in the Coalition for the ICC.
Rhonda also trained judges on every continent and for the ICC and was sought out for advice by UN Special Rapporteurs. In fact, whenever anyone in the movement had a legal/political question – someone always said: “let’s ask Rhonda,” and she always did her best to respond.
AWID: And how do you think Rhonda will be remembered personally?
Charlotte Bunch: This question should be asked to the many who knew her. A friend from Latin America described Rhonda aptly as a “tesoro” – a treasure of the women’s human rights movement.
Ros Petchesky, a close friend of Rhonda’s wrote that: “Even more than her brilliant mind, Rhonda’s example shines in her practice of a truly feminist humanity in the everyday - her devotion to younger generations, her fierce and loving presence for her many friends; and her passionate embrace of both politics and fun. Rhonda is my model of a life fully realized.”
Rhonda was always there for you – open – probing – committed and joyful. She could be called upon at any hour, and she would call you at any hour also!
She welcomed the world into her home – in her Brooklyn apartment and especially in her home in Long Island, which she built with her friends and partner at the time to heal wounds from losing the McRae case. It has become a sanctuary for many feminist activists to renew themselves. My partner Roxanna and I considered it our second home as did many women from all over the globe. She is loved and respected by many who know that our world was better because Rhonda had been part of it – politically and personally – and we will all remember her with great love and admiration.
By Masum Momaya
Friday, June 11, 2010
Charlotte Bunch spoke with AWID to pay tribute to her longstanding and cherished colleague and friend, Rhonda Copelon.
AWID: Charlotte, can you tell us how you came to work with Rhonda?
Charlotte Bunch: I began working closely with Rhonda in the 1990s after she became part of the founding faculty of CUNY Law School and later director of the School’s International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic, which she founded with Celina Romany. We had been on parallel tracks in our U.S. feminist work in the 1970s, although we had not worked together then. She came to our apartment in Brooklyn in 1990 to discuss with me and Roxanna Carrillo how she could bring her legal expertise to the developing global women’s human rights movement, and a close partnership began. It was clear from the outset that we shared a passion for linking global women’s struggles to feminist and human rights issues in the U.S. – to seeing ourselves and U.S. movements as part of global solidarity and a common struggle, and not as separated.
After that, Rhonda traveled with me and Roxanna to Argentina for the next regional feminist encuentro, where Rhonda rapidly picked up speaking Spanish with a French accent! We learned much from women there who had been working to bring feminism to that continent’s human rights struggles. Rhonda then became a core part of the global campaign for women’s human rights that strategized with activists from around the world on how to bring a feminist interpretation of human rights to the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, to women’s reproductive rights as human rights at the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, and finally to full public awareness of this perspective at the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995.
AWID: What will Rhonda be remembered for?
Charlotte Bunch: Many things as her fingerprints are all over the documents that make up the work of women’s human rights from the last two decades. All of us who have known and worked with Rhonda have experienced, witnessed and benefited from her deep human rights vision, creative legal mind, political persistence and generosity of spirit. She had keen intellectual acumen, legal strategic brilliance and was always an unswerving and courageous advocate. Throughout her life, she never ceased to persevere in the pursuit of justice for all.
Her perseverance, though, sometimes drove us crazy! For example, in the women’s caucuses for UN World Conferences, when we thought a document was finished, she often raised another critical point not seen before – after it had already gone to the printer. We wanted to say “it’s too late,” but we knew she was usually conceptually right, and something more needed to be said or done.
AWID: Can you tell us about the role Rhonda played in ensuring reproductive rights?
Charlotte Bunch: For 12 years, Rhonda served as a litigator at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. There, she played a critical role in the legal evolution of reproductive rights, and particularly the intersection of gender with race and class in determining women’s access to these rights in the U.S.
From her successful argument in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of African-American teacher aides in Mississippi who were fired for being unwed mothers to her lead as counsel in Harris v. McRae, which challenged the federal amendment that cut-off of public funds for most abortions, Rhonda made connections between policy, law, and the every day realities of people for whom exercising rights was not a given, especially women of color and poor women.
Although the loss of McRae by one vote was heartbreaking, Rhonda’s contribution to that case reverberated throughout the field and influenced so many people working on reproductive rights. Her work challenged the law, and equally importantly, influenced advocates to link social and economic rights to personal ones. For her entire career, Rhonda fought for abortion to be safe, legal and fully accessible to all women.
But Rhonda’s work on reproductive rights is just one example of how she contributed her “brain waves,” both behind the scenes and on the front lines, to many of the most important breakthroughs in progressive feminist advances both in the US and globally.
Rhonda was also co-counsel in other critical cases challenging racist practices and governmental misconduct, the Vietnam War, and, ultimately, in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, which recognized that the 1789 “Alien Tort Claims Act” encompasses torture as an international human rights norm constitutionally as part of the “laws of the United States.” Filartiga laid the foundation for work that Rhonda continued in developing gender perspectives in numerous cases involving war crimes, corporate abuses, and immigrant domestic workers.
AWID: Are there other cases in Rhonda’s career that stand out?
Charlotte Bunch: Rhonda represented Algerian journalists, feminists, and their families, persecuted and murdered by armed Islamist groups in a U.S. Court in the groundbreaking case of Jane Doe v. Islamic Salvation Front and Anouar Haddam. The case was so dangerous that the clients - including people who had witnessed the killing of their own children - had to remain anonymous.
As Karima Bennoune notes: “Rhonda is a now a legendary figure among Algerians working to oppose religious extremism in their country. They see her as a visionary who comprehends that the state is not the only source of threat to human rights and who understands that the most progressive stance toward the Muslim world even in the era of the "War on Terror" is concrete solidarity with its progressives rather than apology for fundamentalism.”
This is just one example of Rhonda taking on something that many people would not go near. Many profoundly admire her willingness to take on an uphill battle even when virtually alone, a hallmark of Rhonda’s legal career. In fact, whenever someone told Rhonda that something could not be done, she tried to do it and brought the doubters along in her effort to push the boundaries!
AWID: What about Rhonda’s contributions to ending against violence against women?
Charlotte Bunch: Rhonda was one of those who laid the conceptual groundwork for much of the legislation and resolutions in place today. She participated in the process for drafting the Inter-American Convention Against Violence Against Women in Brazil in 1992 and wrote groundbreaking articles on domestic violence as torture, which were taken up by the UN Committee Against Torture and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture over a decade later. Even today, these articles open eyes for those new to the movement.
Rhonda’s article on war crimes in Bosnia contributed to the recognition of rape and sexualized violence as torture generally and in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the International Criminal Tribunals, and as genocide in the Rwanda Tribunal.
Lepa Mladjenovic of Women in Black Belgrade has written that: “Rhonda is admired, read, discussed and cared for all over the world. At one point her piece on rape in war as primarily a form of male violence against woman, and not just nationalism, was a keystone. It was crucial in the particular moment of the war for us feminists from the Balkans, to have our Rhonda near, knowing that all her professional and activist self, written & spoken is behind her political belief.”
AWID: Rhonda also influenced the International Criminal Court, right?
Charlotte Bunch:One of her lasting areas of leadership was through co-founding the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, leading to the landmark codification of gender in the International Criminal Court (ICC) statute in 1998 – which was the first international Human Rights instrument to fully incorporate gender – rather than women having to catch up to add this later. She was unrelenting in the negotiations for this – just ask some of the men in the Coalition for the ICC.
Rhonda also trained judges on every continent and for the ICC and was sought out for advice by UN Special Rapporteurs. In fact, whenever anyone in the movement had a legal/political question – someone always said: “let’s ask Rhonda,” and she always did her best to respond.
AWID: And how do you think Rhonda will be remembered personally?
Charlotte Bunch: This question should be asked to the many who knew her. A friend from Latin America described Rhonda aptly as a “tesoro” – a treasure of the women’s human rights movement.
Ros Petchesky, a close friend of Rhonda’s wrote that: “Even more than her brilliant mind, Rhonda’s example shines in her practice of a truly feminist humanity in the everyday - her devotion to younger generations, her fierce and loving presence for her many friends; and her passionate embrace of both politics and fun. Rhonda is my model of a life fully realized.”
Rhonda was always there for you – open – probing – committed and joyful. She could be called upon at any hour, and she would call you at any hour also!
She welcomed the world into her home – in her Brooklyn apartment and especially in her home in Long Island, which she built with her friends and partner at the time to heal wounds from losing the McRae case. It has become a sanctuary for many feminist activists to renew themselves. My partner Roxanna and I considered it our second home as did many women from all over the globe. She is loved and respected by many who know that our world was better because Rhonda had been part of it – politically and personally – and we will all remember her with great love and admiration.
* * *
Reproductive Health Matters Journal by Marge Berer, Editor
May 2010 Issue
Rhonda Copelon was a pioneering US human rights attorney who helped open US courts to victims of international abuses – especially cases involving violence against women. She studied law at Yale Law School and after graduating, clerked for a US District Court Judge.
For 12 years, she was an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, a non-profit organisation founded by attorneys representing the civil rights movement, where she began her ground-breaking, feminist-oriented legal work as a staff attorney. In those 12 years, she challenged racial discrimination, government wiretapping, and worked on several landmark cases. She argued with Charles Victor McTeer before the US Supreme Court in Drew v. Andrews in support of African-American women who were denied teaching jobs under the Drew Municipal School District policy (in the state of Mississippi) that barred parents of out-of-wedlock children from all but janitorial positions. The young unmarried mothers who were the palaintiffs in the case won their case and got their jobs back on the grounds of race and sex discrimination and the right to privacy and procreative liberty.
On 30 June 1980, on the very same day decisions were handed down in what Rhonda described as the two most important cases of her life, which she said defined her subsequent path. One was the landmark human rights case, Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, which established that victims of gross human rights abuses committed abroad had recourse to US courts, in which she played a key role. The other was Harris v. McRae, argued in the US Supreme Court, which narrowly upheld the Hyde Amendment by one vote ( five to four) that prohibited Medicaid reimbursement for almost all abortions (and still does to this day).
Rhonda was a founding faculty member in 1983 of the City University of New York Law School, where she was a professor of law for almost three decades. She was also the co-founder/director of the International Women's Human Rights Law (IWHR) Clinic at CUNY Law School, with Celina Romany in 1992. Under their direction and guidance, the IWHR Clinic has had a profound impact on the recognition of women's human rights in the international, regional, and US contexts, particularly in establishing rape and other gender crimes as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Clinic has also enabled students and activists from around the world to participate in a range of precedent-setting legal and advocacy campaigns.
In l994, Rhonda published a highly influential article, “Recognizing the egregious in the everyday: domestic violence as torture” and co-authored the second edition of a leading legal text, Sex Discrimination and the Law: History, Practice and Theory, published in 1996. She has published many influential articles in the field of reproductive and sexual rights and international women's human rights as well.
IWHR’s amicus briefs in the International Criminal Tribunals (for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia) resulted in the recognition in international law of rape as a crime of genocide and as torture. IWHR played a key role in work with the United Nations Committee against Torture in establishing the relationship between torture and domestic and other forms of gender violence, including a 1994 communication regarding sexual violence against Haitian women and more recently in a shadow report to the Committee Against Torture highlighting the sexualised violence at Abu Ghraib, an aspect of torture that has not yet been fully recognised in the United States.
Rhonda co-founded the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice in 1997 and served, along with IWHR, as its legal secretariat, preparing documents with international partners for the negotiations of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2003. In that role, Copelon contributed to the successful codification of sexual and gender crimes as being part of their jurisdiction.
In November of 2000, dozens of alumnae of the IWHR Clinic reconnected at a reunion in New York City. Hailing from four continents, they came to celebrate IWHR’s 17 years of cutting-edge human rights advocacy and the worldwide impact it has made. Most poignant was the opportunity for clinic participants and allies to share their experiences and to take the measure of how IWHR has generated a corps of dynamic lawyers who have brought new vision to their work in many fields, including human rights.
On 9 January 2009 the Society of American Law Teachers honoured Rhonda Copelon with the M Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award in San Diego, CA, USA.
In the autumn of 2009, due to her illness, Rhonda retired from her position at CUNY and became an emeritus member of the faculty. But she never stopped working or supporting the work of others. In the weeks before her death, she announced the establishment of the Copelon Fund for Gender Justice at the Center for Constitutional Rights, for which she has provided the seed funding.
On 6 May 2010, Rhonda died age 64 after a long and courageous battle with ovarian cancer. She was at home in New York surrounded by friends, music and flowers, and enormous love. She was an inspiration to many and will be sorely missed.
Sources: CUNY School of Law News Archive; and Madre website network of experts; Katie Gallagher. On the cutting edge: CUNY Law’s International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, CUNY Law, 2000; Rhonda Copelon’s acceptance speech, SALT Annual Dinner, 9 January 2009; Associated Press; David Lerner, Riptide Communications, draft obituary, 7 May 2010; and Rosalind Petchesky.
* * *
CUNY School of Law Alumni Newsletter
May 7, 2010
It is with a heavy heart that I write to tell you that our beloved colleague, friend, and CUNY Law founding family member, Professor Rhonda Copelon, died yesterday evening, May 6th. We mourn this great loss.
Rhonda touched the lives, hearts, and minds of so many -- through the sheer power of her personal convictions, her gentle touch, and the visionary and precedent-setting work she did on behalf of women's rights and human rights worldwide. In a very real way, she helped us become who we are at CUNY Law, and we are forever indebted to her.
At every turn, Rhonda made CUNY Law proud. Her accomplishments are vast, including her work on the groundbreaking case Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, which opened up the U.S. courts to claims of international human rights abuses in the U.S. and abroad, and her establishment of CUNY Law's International Women's Human Rights Clinic (IWHR).
We have prepared a tribute
Rhonda asked us to establish a fund to support the important, continuing work of the IWHR Clinic. If you wish to make a tax-deductible donation to the Copelon Fund for IWHR, please visit our contributions page.
A memorial service will be held on May 21st at the Riverside Memorial Chapel at 11:45AM.
With sadness and respect,
Michelle J. Anderson
Dean and Professor of Law
* * *
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Press Release
May 7, 2010
Pioneering Attorney Won Landmark Rights Case in U.S. Court of Appeals on Same Day Supreme Court Narrowly Rejected Her Challenge to the Hyde Amendment on Abortion Restrictions for the Poor
New York, NY – On May 6, 2010, Rhonda Copelon, a CUNY School of Law professor and human rights attorney with and Vice-President of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) who broke new ground opening U.S. federal courts and international tribunals to gender-based violence and international human rights violations, died at age 65. The cause was ovarian cancer.
Copelon was noted for her key role in the landmark human rights case, Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, which established that victims of gross human rights abuses committed abroad had recourse to U.S. Courts. Additionally, she was a champion of women’s reproductive health and argued before the Supreme Court in Harris v. McRae, in which the Court narrowly upheld the Hyde Amendment which prohibited Medicaid reimbursement for almost all abortions. Remarkably both the Filartiga and McRae decisions came down on June 30, 1980.
“This is a huge loss for human rights worldwide,” said CUNY School of Law Dean Michelle J. Anderson. “Professor Copelon’s tireless passion and precedent-setting work leaves a legacy in human rights law, and particularly women’s rights law, that altered the bedrock of how U.S. courts treat international human rights abuses,” Anderson added.
Peter Weiss, a vice president of the CCR, where she began her ground breaking feminist-oriented legal work as a staff attorney, and her co-counsel in Filartiga said, “Rhonda had a fiery passion to bring justice to all the oppressed and abused women of the world."
Dolly Filartiga, the plaintiff in the case that bore her family name and who became her dear friend added, “Rhonda was a true fighter who through the years has shown me her unconditional love for human kind and her effusive desire for the equal rights of all beings. Without her, there would not be a Filartiga principle. She was the pillar that held me throughout the toughest times of my life.”
Over the course of her 12 years at CCR Copelon challenged racial discrimination, government wiretapping, and worked on several landmark cases including Filartiga. She also argued before the Supreme Court in Drew v. Andrews, in support of African-American women plaintiffs who were denied teaching jobs because of the Mississippi Drew municipal school district policy that barred parents of out-of-wedlock children from all but janitorial positions. In this challenge to this moralistic and punitive policy, young unwed mothers won their case and their jobs back at the Supreme Court based on a claim of marital discrimination.
Deeply distressed by the majority’s cruel interpretation of the Constitution in McRae, but heartened by the door opened on the same day by the Filartiga case, Copelon turned to international human rights as a basis for protection of rights of women and the poor. “Rhonda was creative, determined, and impassioned. She never understood the word ‘impossible,’” said Nancy Stearns, Copelon’s former CCR colleague
Professor David Cole, of Georgetown University Law Center, a leading constitutional scholar and CCR alumni and current board member said: “It was hearing Rhonda speaking about Harris v. McRae at Yale Law School that inspired me to come to CCR in the first place.”
In 1983, Copelon was a founding faculty member of CUNY Law, and in 1992 she co-founded the Law School’s International Women’s Human Rights Clinic (IWHR). Under her leadership, CUNY Law’s IWHR clinic enabled students and activists around the world to participate in a range of precedent-setting legal and advocacy campaigns. For example, IWHR’s amicus briefs in the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia resulted in the recognition in international law of rape as a crime of genocide and torture. IWHR’s work with the United Nation’s Committee against Torture, and other international bodies, contributed to the recognition that gender crimes, such as domestic and other forms of gender violence, can constitute torture under the United Nation’s Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Also while at CUNY Law, Copelon cofounded the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice and through her role as secretariat and as the Director of IWHR, she coordinated an effort with partners across the globe ensuring that the Rome Statute was written to take gender into account concerning the crimes, procedure and evidence and composition of the Court and personnel. In particular, as a result of her tireless passion and work with partnering organizations, the ICC codified sexual and gender crimes as being part of their jurisdiction. “At every turn, Professor Copelon made CUNY Law proud,” said Anderson. “She inspired a new legal framework for adjudicating and understanding gender-based crimes.”
In 1996, Rhonda brought the groundbreaking lawsuit Jane Doe v. Islamic Salvation Front and Anwar Haddam on behalf of nine individuals and the Rassemblement Algerien des Femmes Democrates (RAFD) against the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) of Algeria and its leader. The case charged the FIS with war crimes and crimes against humanity, including assassination, rape and torture. Though the defendants prevailed on summary judgment, a decision CCR believes was wrongly decided, the case represented pioneering progressive legal advocacy in that it recognized and sought a remedy for the grave harms to progressive activists posed by religious fundamentalists, a cause which Rhonda championed throughout her life. The victims never forgot that Rhonda stood with them. In 2008, a group of them wrote, “We thank you, dear friend and comrade who supported us personally, publicly and legally, at a time when you were nearly alone in doing so. We thank you for defying the conventional wisdom - including among the major human rights organizations – by defending the victims of fundamentalist armed groups.”
In the fall of 2009, Dean Anderson announced “with great sadness” Professor Copelon’s retirement and her continuation with the Law School as an emeritus faculty member. In retiring, Copelon commented that her “26 year romance with CUNY Law will never end.” “Professor Copelon’s spirit and intention will always infuse our community,” said Anderson. “Her passion and intellect helped shape this School's core mission and values.” Leading feminist scholar Charlotte Bunch said: “Rhonda’s impact is lasting, and that includes her impact on training a new generation of committed feminist progressive lawyers.”
In a special Fall 2009 CUNY Law Magazine issue, Copelon described her 26 years at CUNY Law as “a fabulous and privileged journey in education and advocacy working with amazing students, as well as partners and clients here and abroad.” Copelon, who was always humble about her leadership, credited the “cadre of activists, visionaries, and countless courageous women here and abroad who began long, deep, intersectional, and gender inclusive feminist revolutions that exposed the andro-centrism of human rights law.”
In the weeks before her death Copelon announced the establishment of the Copelon Fund for Gender Justice at CCR for which she has provided the seed funding. To donate to the fund, visit the CCR donate page, select the "gifts in honor of" option, and note that your donation is for the Copelon Fund.
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