Professor of Law. Professor Stephens earned her B.A. magna
cum laude at Harvard University in 1976 and her J.D. at Berkeley Law School in
1980. She clerked for two years for Chief Justice Rose Bird of the California
Supreme Court, then spent six years in Nicaragua investigating issues of law
reform and human rights. As a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional
Rights (CCR) in New York from 1990 to 1996, Professor Stephens litigated
international human rights cases in U.S. federal court, representing victims of
genocide, rape, torture, and war crimes. In 1995, she earned the Trial Lawyer
of the Year Award from Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in recognition of her
work on these human rights cases; she was a finalist for the same award in 2001
and 2010. She also taught an international human rights clinic at Yale Law
School from 1994 to 1996, and has taught in the Oxford University International
Human Rights Program. As a CCR cooperating attorney and a member of the Board
of Directors of the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), Professor
Stephens continues to litigate pro bono international human rights cases,
including cases filed against U.S.-based corporations alleging responsibility
for human rights violations committed in the course of their activities abroad.
She was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in Samantar v. Yousuf, a human rights
case decided by the Supreme Court in May 2010. Her publications include "The
Modern Common Law of Foreign Official Immunity" (Fordham Law Review),
International Human Rights Litigation in U.S. Courts (Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, second edition, 2008), "Judicial Deference and the Unreasonable Views
of the Bush Administration" (Brooklyn Journal of International Law), "Translating Filártiga: A
Comparative and International Law Analysis of Domestic Remedies for
International Human Rights Violations" (Yale Journal of International
Law), "Federalism and Foreign Affairs: Congress' Power to 'Define and
Punish...Offenses against the Law of Nations'"(William and Mary Law
Review).
