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wickeri@law.fordham.edu
NEW YORK, NY (April 22, 2010) – The Leitner Center for International Law and Justice is delighted to announce the recipients of the 2010–2011 James E. Tolan Fellowship in International Human Rights. Three Tolan Fellows were selected for 2010–2011: Corey Calabrese `10, Zaid Hydari `09, and David Mandel-Anthony `10.
The Tolan Fellowship is a post-graduate Fellowship that funds Fordham Law School graduates to work for an international human rights organization for one year. The Fellowship is awarded on an annual or bi-annual basis.
The Fellowship is named in honor of James Tolan, a long-time supporter of the Leitner Center’s Crowley Program. Mr. Tolan is a graduate of Fordham Law School (LL.B., 1962), where he was the Case-Notes Editor of the Fordham Law Review. He is a member of Board of Fordham Law Alumni Association, a past President and recipient of its Medal of Achievement, as well as recipient of the Dean’s Medal of Recognition. Mr. Tolan is currently Senior Counsel at Dechert LLP and a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Corey Calabrese will be working with Equality Now, an organization that works for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women around the world. Corey will work for Equality Now’s Adolescent Girls’ Legal Defense Fund on rule of law and capacity building initiatives aimed at addressing violence against women in Zambia and Kenya. In Zambia, Corey will work local partner organizations to address sexual violence against school girls through law reform; trainings for lawyers, police, law faculty and paralegals; and capacity building with local organizations and the Zambian government to better address sexual violence against girls in the future. In Kenya, Corey will work on impact litigation cases brought to enforce women’s rights through local and international laws that prohibit rape and female genital mutilation. At Fordham, Corey was a Crowley Scholar in International Human Rights, a Stein Scholar for Public Interest Law and Ethics, a staff member of the International Law Journal and involved in other international human rights student organizations. She received her B.A. in American Studies from University of Notre Dame in May 2006.
Zaid Hydari will work with the Refugee Advocacy and Support Program (RASP) at the Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly-Turkey in Istanbul. RASP provides direct legal aid and psychosocial services to asylum seekers and refugees while simultaneously engaging in training and advocacy efforts aimed to improve their legal protection and build civil society capacity in the asylum field. Zaid will assist refugees largely from Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Somalia navigate the UNHCR refugee status determination process and ensure vulnerable refugees are not removed from the country through emergency petitions to the European Court of Human Rights. While in law school, Zaid interned with the Center for Constitutional Rights as an Ella Baker Fellow, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the plaintiffs-side employment law firm of Outten & Golden. At Fordham, Zaid was a Stein Scholar for Public Interest Law and Ethics, a student in the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic in the Spring of 2008, and also helped develop and co-supervised a project in the Clinic as a Dean’s Fellow in the Spring of 2010. He received his undergraduate degree in history and government from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005.
David Mandel-Anthony will work for the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) in Kampala, Uganda. PILPG works in partnership with the Ugandan government and local stakeholders to support the Juba Peace Accords. As a Tolan Fellow, David will help PILPG provide legal assistance to Ugandan stakeholders working to promote transitional justice. With the support of the Leitner Center, David has worked at the International Justice Program of Human Rights Watch in New York, the International Center for Transitional Justice, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. He was a Crowley Scholar from 2008–2009, participating in human rights fieldwork in Nepal, and a student in the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic in the fall of 2008, travelling to Liberia to partner with a community paralegal mediation group. David has previously worked as Assistant Director of Humanity in Action, a transatlantic human rights fellowship organization, and remains involved with HIA as a Board Member and President of the Senior Fellows Association; as a prosecutions assistant at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; and as the Thomas J. Concannon Fellow at the Federal Defenders, Eastern District of New York. At Fordham, David was a Stein Scholar for Public Interest Law and Ethics, and a staff member of the International Law Journal. David received his undergraduate degree from the Plan II Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin in 2005, and was selected as a Dean’s Distinguished Graduate for his senior thesis on Guatemalan workers in Mississippi’s poultry industry.
