Rhonda Copelon was an American human rights lawyer working for women's and human rights. She is known for her contributions to Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, a civil case that extended the jurisdiction of United States courts in some instances.
Early life and education
Rhonda Copelon was born September 15, 1944 in New Haven, the daughter of Herman and Katherine Copelon. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1966 with a degree in history and political science and earned her law degree at Yale, graduating in 1970.
Career
Copelon worked as an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights for a dozen years, particularly regarding cases involving reproductive rights. She successfully defended the right of African American unwed mothers to work as teacher's aides in Mississippi in front of the Supreme Court in Drew v. Andrews. She lost Harris v. McRae, a challenge to the Hyde Amendment which cut Medicaid funding for abortions. After leaving the CCR in 1983, she would remain a board member the rest of her life. She was also a founding board member of the National Economic and Social Initiative, an Advisory Board member of Human Rights Watch, Women's Rights Watch, and Legal Advisor to and founder of Women's Caucus for Gender Justice. By the early 1980s, Copelon had come to realize the importance of establishing international rights as a way of protecting women's rights. Copelon joined the faculty of the CUNY Law School at Queens College when it opened in 1983 and there, with Celina Romany, co-founded the International Women's Human Rights Clinic in 1992. She would lead the fight, assisted by her students, in establishing rape during war as a crime of genocide and torture. She filed countless amicus briefs in cases heard by the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and published widely on the need to treat rape during armed conflicts as a war crime. With the IWHRC, Copelon attended and presented her work at the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, the population and development conference in Cairo, and the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995.
Filártiga v. Peña-Irala
In the 1970s, Copelon worked with Peter Weiss, another lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights on this case, which involved a Paraguyan family whose son was tortured to death by police in Asunción. After the police chief moved to New York, the slain victim's sister filed suit against the police chief. The case utilized the 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act to categorize freedom from torture as a human rights norm as well as a part of the laws of the United States. On July 30, 1980, a federal appeals court in New York ruled that the family had the right to sue for damages. This was, incidentally, the same day that Harris v. McRae was decided.
Personal life
After losing Harris v. McRae, Copelon and friends hand-built a home on Long Island which served as a recuperation destination for other feminist activists. Copelon was married to David Shoenbrod.
Death
After a four year fight against ovarian cancer, Copelon died at her home in Manhattan at the age of 65.
