About the Institute for Advancement of Justice and Human Rights

By admission of a distinguished legal scholar who, in 2017, resigned as a prominent 7th Circuit federal judge in protest, self-represented litigants are treated by judges as “a kind of trash not worth the time”. In a study beginning in 2018, measurements of 10 representative state and federal courts over a period exceeding seven years, including review of historical legal cases, provides the statistical prediction that every court in the United States deprives pro se litigants of Justice by degrees or altogether, and every judge violates human rights. Statistics predict that such litigants will be subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in every court and will be punished by judges without lawful justification, violating substantive Justice.

Disabled people in particular, are told that justice awaits them in courtrooms—if only they can perform. For many with invisible disabilities, the very act of adversarial participation without meaningful accommodation is not neutral, but neurologically and psychologically traumatic. Many pro se litigants develop injury and disability as a result of their judicial treatment, and are assured of injustice in the courts.

The study demonstrates that judges stealthily conceal their human rights violations through creation of evidence and procedural justifications, with portrayal of their prohibited acts as lawful sanctions for alleged non-compliance and impropriety by the litigants. Under the courts’ monopoly over jurisprudence and lack of independent human rights oversight, the judicial process itself has become pathological by systemic judicial policy. Legal ethics are impotentiated and jurisprudence inflicts harm and allows it to go unnamed.

Our Mission

The Institute for Advancement of Justice and Human Rights (IAJ) is dedicated to advancing justice and human rights through research, investigation, and accountability in judicial systems worldwide. On behalf of the People, it also provides a critical and missing component of the United Nations Istanbul Protocol for the investigation of substantially grounded allegations of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and torture by persons and entities who act under color of authority within the United States and its territories. This missing component of international human rights compliance is necessary because judges, courts and the judicial process, which are the last bastion of Justice and human rights compliance in the United States, fail to recognize, protect and enforce human rights according to human rights treaties and international standards. Over-simplistically stated, the IAJ's function includes the independent investigation of discrimination and ill-treatment of litigants by judges and courts, accoding to the highest international human rights standards that are binding on the United States of America (by operation of the absolute prohibitions under the jus cogens of customary international law and the norms of civilized society, and Artcile 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and Article VI of the US Constitution). The Institute also reaches beyond the highest interntional human rights standards and seeks to evolve those standards to higher levels.

The Essential Need for the IAJ

The IAJ was required to come into existence as an NGO upon discovery by the Private Attorney General that the United States of America does not implement an independent human rights investigative body as required by the absolute prohibition against torture, and expressed in the UN Istanbul Protocol, and confirmed by the highest authority on torture in the world. Upon determination of systemic judicial discrimination and human rights violations in every state and federal court by statistical methods and direct evaluation of 10 state and federal courts and over 40 judges over a span of 7 years, including the US Supreme Court, the function of the IAJ is necessarily required for the elimination of systemic discrimination and human rights violations in courts by virtue of its independence and its expertize. Thus the IAJ provides a National Oversight Committee on Judicial Torture.

The Concluding Observations by the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT/C/USA/CO/3-5) demonstrate the need for the creation of the IAJ. The IAJ contrasts U.S. assertions (CAT/C/USA/3-5 (2014)) with the Committee's concluding observations (CAT/C/USA/CO/3-5), which criticized many U.S. practices, and identifies failures of domestic implementation in areas like judicial torture, medical neglect, and disability discrimination. CAT/C/USA/3-5 defends the U.S. use of RUDs—notably, its reservation limiting the definition of torture to acts of "extreme" pain. However, under Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), such reservations are severable if they undermine the object and purpose of the treaty. The IAJ is aligned with the world highest authority on torture (the CAT), and explicitly rejects the limiting RUDs outlined in the U.S.' report. The IAJ affirms the international definition of torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment as interpreted by the Committee Against Torture, Special Rapporteurs, and international courts. CAT/C/USA/3-5 focuses heavily on law enforcement and detention but fails to acknowledge or regulate torture and CIDT in judicial proceedings, particularly against a) pro se (self-represented) litigants, b) disabled or ill litigants, c) persons coerced into litigation under threat of penalty. The IAJ fills this doctrinal and procedural vacuum by treating CAT/C/USA/3-5 as 1) a partial and self-serving interpretation of UNCAT obligations, 2) a basis for IAJ corrective authority, ensuring enforcement where U.S. domestic mechanisms have failed. Because CAT/C/USA/3-5 admits that the U.S. lacks certain preventive mechanisms—especially independent, non-governmental investigative bodies—it implicitly justifies the creation of the IAJ under international human rights law, including the UN Istanbul Protocol and UN Principles on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture.

The IAJ notes that systemic judicial discrimination and human rights violations fundamentally undermine Justice and the US Constitution and human rights treaties, and that facts being reported to the IAJ indicate large numbers of human beings are the subject of this prevalent judicial misconduct (particulary in the Family courts), who are typically disadvantaged or disabled. The IAJ respectfully recognizes the service of distinguished legal scholar and federal appellate judge Richard Posner and his public exposure of the unfortunate reality that most judges regard pro se litigants as a "kind of trash not worth the time" (Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal 2017) and his brief advocacy for the self-represented litigants through his charity

Core Values

Our Work