A series of grants awarded to DePaul University’s International Human Rights Law Institute (IHRLI) will enhance the institute’s work toward achieving international peace and justice. The grants total over $800,000 and will support the institute’s work in 1999.

DePaul’s College of Law established the IHRLI in 1990 as a response to sweeping global changes that created opportunities to advance human rights and strengthen legal institutions worldwide. It combines academic and practical approaches to encompass the range of human rights and legal systems recognized in international law.

The institute, which is directed by law professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, serves as an umbrella for several College of Law initiatives including DePaul’s Weapons Control Center, the Rule of Law program and the Human Rights in the Americas project. The Weapons Control Center addresses worldwide criminal justice issues and explores the legal aspects of controlling weapons of mass destruction. The Rule of Law endeavor conducts extensive training programs for judges, prosecutors and lawyers in such countries as El Salvador and Guatamala, while the Human Rights in the Americas project assists human rights initiatives in more than 35 countries around the globe.

The IHRLI recently received two new John D. and Chaterine T. MacArthur Foundation grants totaling $320,000, and will spend an additional $100,000 in carry over funds from last year. The institute also received $170,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy; $100,000 from the Jeanne and Joseph Sullivan Foundation; $100,000 from the W. Alton Jones Foundation; $25,000 from Ploughshares, which funds efforts to eliminate the threat of nuclear war, and $25,000 from the Patrick and Anna M. Cudahy Foundation.

The grants will be used to further IHRLI’s initiatives on arms control and the elimination of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. They also will support the institute’s work to help establish an international criminal court. Additionally, the grants will provide technical assistance for countries that, according to United Nations standards, have the least developed national economies. The projects are directed by Bassiouni and law professor Barry Kellman.

Bassiouni is one of the world’s leading authorities on international criminal law and human rights. He served as chairman of the Commission of Experts that investigated war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, and then headed the Drafting Committee of the United Nations Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court.

Kellman is a leading legal academic in the area of arms control. He is actively involved with the legal implementation of arms control treaties, issues relating to counter-terrorism and international security issues in the Middle East.

Associate law professor Leonard Cavise, a seasoned trial lawyer and the deputy secretary-general of the International Association of Penal Law, heads the institute’s work in the Americas. He is assisted by William Cartwright, acting executive director of the IHRLI and the first American to serve as a clerk at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.