Created in 1966, the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities provides leadership within the ABA and the legal profession in protecting and advancing human rights, civil liberties, and social justice. The Section fulfills this role by 1) raising and addressing often complex and difficult civil rights and civil liberties issues in a changing and diverse society, and 2) ensuring that protection of individual rights remains a focus of legal and policy decisions. Read on or click the links below to learn about some of our more recent work:

Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project

Thurgood Marshall Award

AIDS Coordinating Committee and AIDS Coordination Project

Health, Education, and Human Rights Advocacy

Bill of Rights Project

International Rule of Law Activities

Publications and Outreach

As described in "Advancing the Law, Protecting the Individual, Defending Human Dignity," a Section history published in 1999, a large part of the Section's work centers on ABA policy development and implementation. Over the last 30 years, the Section has sponsored or co-sponsored hundreds of resolutions adopted by the ABA House of Delegates that address a broad range of civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights concerns. In the last five years, the Section has sponsored resolutions opposing "child exclusions" in welfare legislation; opposing efforts to restrict the religious liberty and free speech provisions of the First Amendment; and endorsing legal remedies and voluntary actions ("affirmative action") that take into account race, national origin, or gender to eliminate or prevent discrimination. It also has supported policies concerning educational rights of the disabled, gay and lesbian adoption and custody rights, racial disparities in drug offense sentences, gender equity in social security benefits programs, and long-term care for persons with AIDS and other serious illnesses.

The Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project was launched in September 2001 as the American Bar Association's (ABA) "next step" in working to obtain a nationwide moratorium on executions. The Project was created to encourage other bar associations to press for moratoriums in their jurisdictions and to encourage state government leaders to establish moratoriums and undertake detailed examinations of capital punishment laws and processes in their jurisdictions.

Administered by the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities (IRR), the Project collects and monitors data on domestic and international moratorium developments; works with interested ABA entities and state and local bars to address moratorium principles at those levels; encourages use of ABA "protocols" as means of assessing and publicizing the depth and breadth of states' reviews of their death penalty systems; conducts analyses of governmental and judicial responses to death penalty administration issues raised in the ABA resolution; and issues reports on moratorium developments.

Special initiatives and projects are another area of Section activity. One of the most prominent is the Thurgood Marshall Award, established in 1992 in honor of the late U. S. Supreme Court Justice to recognize individuals who have made long-term contributions to the advancement of civil rights and civil liberties in the United States. At the ABA's 1992 Annual Meeting, Justice Marshall personally accepted the inaugural award. Other recipients have been the late Honorable Frank M. Johnson, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit; Oliver W. Hill, a civil rights attorney in Richmond, Va.; the late Ralph Santiago Abascal, executive director of California Rural Legal Assistance; Prof. Jack Greenberg, successor to Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.; the Honorable Damon Keith of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; Stephen B. Bright, executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights; the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court; the Honorable Revius O. Ortique, the first African American elected to the Louisiana Supreme Court; Hon. William Wayne Justice, senior judge of the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas; and former Congressman Don Edwards.

Recently, San Francisco lawyer Dale Minami received the 2003 Award for his dedication to challenging discrimination in all forms and vacating the convictions of Fred Korematsu and other defendants in the World War II internment cases. Veteran civil rights lawyer Fred D. Gray of Tuskegee, Ala., best known for representing Rosa Parks after she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., and for serving as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s first civil rights attorney, was honored with the 2004 Thurgood Marsghall Award .

Another significant Section achievement is the AIDS Coordination Project, which began in the 1980's. With guidance from the ABA-wide AIDS Coordinating Committee, the Project helps develop and carries out the Association's response to the AIDS pandemic, providing assistance to local bar associations in establishing legal referral programs for individuals with HIV or AIDS; analyzing state and federal policies involving AIDS and the law; and educating members of the bench and the bar on HIV/AIDS-related legal issues. The Project also has produced numerous programs and publications for both lawyers and non-lawyers, including a national, invitational symposium on "HIV/AIDS and the Law: An Agenda for beyond the Millennium" (January 1999); “A World AIDS Day 2002 Roundtable: Stigma, Discrimination, and the Future of HIV/AIDS Law, Policy and Advocacy”; and two national conferences for practitioners and policy advocates on “HIV/AIDS Law and Practice: From Nuts & Bolts to Cutting Edge” (May 2002 and January 2004). Recent Committee/Project publications include Perspectives on Returning to Work: Changing Legal Issues and the HIV/AIDS Epidemic (2000); Deregulation of Hypodermic Needles and Syringes as a Public Health Measure: A Report on Emerging Policy and Law in the United States (2001); and a Directory of Legal Resources for People with HIV/AIDS (third ed., 2003).

In February 1999, the Section sponsored a health records privacy resolution, a supplement to already existing Section-sponsored policy, that in April 1999 became the basis for ABA/Section testimony before the U. S. Senate committee developing new legislation to protect individuals' privacy in this uncharted area of the law. In Spring 2000, the Section provided additional comments on U. S. Department of Health and Human Services' proposed guidelines in this area.

Similarly, in August 2000, the Section drafted ABA comments, based upon Section-sponsored ABA policies on affirmative action and diversity, that critiqued the U. S. Department of Education's proposed guidelines for use of "high stakes" testing in public schools.

The Section also draws upon policies adopted by the ABA as the bases for amicus curiae briefs it develops for filing with the U. S. Supreme Court or federal appellate courts on behalf of the ABA in cases of critical import to Section concerns. In recent years, the Section has sponsored several briefs dealing with habeas issues in capital cases, as well as briefs in high-profile cases involving the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and state laws affecting gay rights.

In addition to policy, the Section sponsors a large number of Continuing Legal Education programs at the ABA's Annual and Midyear Meetings that focus on "cutting edge" civil and human rights and civil liberties issues of concern to both members and others attending the meetings. In Summer 2000, when the ABA met in both New York City and London, the Section sponsored a New York series entitled, "To Secure the Blessings of Liberty: The Bill of Rights and Core Constitutional Guarantees in a New Millennium" and a London plenary program on "Human Rights: Perspectives on Priorities in the New Millennium." In recent years, numerous programs have been audio- or videotaped so that they can be made available to members unable to attend the meetings.

In 2000, the Section and numerous other ABA entities co-sponsored a multi-panel ABA Annual Meeting program entitled, “To Secure the Blessings of Liberty: The Bill of Rights and Core Constitutional Guarantees in the New Millennium,” to survey the status of enduring Bill of Rights questions and new ones likely to evolve or emerge in the new millennium. The Section’s Bill of Rights Project grew directly out of this program, which was the result of creative and dedicated efforts by Jim Coleman, former Section Chair, Barry Sullivan, former Section Council member, and Penny Wakefield, former Section Director, among others, to ensure that the Bill of Rights was featured prominently at the millennium Annual Meeting.

To maintain the momentum generated by the program, Jim and Barry co-chaired a follow-up project consisting of a series of essays by prominent constitutional scholars exploring further some of the issues discussed at the Annual Meeting and others that were not addressed. Entitled, Enduring and Empowering: The Bill of Rights in the Third Millennium, the series was published in Duke Law School’s Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems in spring 2002 and was the Project’s first stand-alone effort as a new Section project. In July 2003, the Project sponsored a student-centered program on “The Bill of Rights in a Time of Crisis: A National Town Hall Meeting on Constitutional Values in a Changing Society,” to celebrate the grand opening of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. And in December 2003 the Project, in partnership with the American Enterprise Institute, reconvened many of the Constitution Center participants to resume their lively and important discussion in celebration of the 212th anniversary of the Bill of Rights (December 15, 1791).

The Section has conducted numerous other projects over the last 30 years that have had a substantial impact on the law and the profession internationally. For example, in the 1980's the Section developed an internship program for lawyers and judges in the former Soviet Union that for the first time brought legal practitioners from that country to the United States to observe U. S. courts and legal practices and to discuss constitutional and rule of law principles in classroom settings.

Another Section initiative that has national and international implications is the campaign for U. S. ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The United States, in the company of such countries as Iran and North Korea, is the lone industrialized democracy yet ratify this gender anti-discrimination treaty. Advancing the rule of law is a top legislative priority for the ABA; the Section furthers this goal by organization and publicizing support for CEDAW at the state and local levels and by participation with other nonprofit organizations in a Steering Committee on CEDAW Ratification.

The Section's award-winning quarterly magazine, Human Rights was one of the first legal periodicals devoted exclusively to individual rights and civil liberties issues. The magazine has won numerous awards for substance and format. Most recently, the Winter 2004 issue of Human Rights on criminal justice and injustice won an APEX award (Award for Publication Excellence) in the writing category for feature series writing. Both Human Rights and IRR News Report, the Section's quarterly newsletter, report on important issues of concern to Section members. The newsletter also carries Section news and updates on legislative and U.S. Supreme Court developments. An E-newsletter frequently updates all Section members with the latest Section information and events. In addition, the Section provides an opportunity for interactive discussion among members through interest-based listservs and the webpage is updated on a regular basis..

Through its activities and communications, the Section continues to nurture a sense of responsibility on the part of lawyers, both personally and professionally, to help ensure equality of justice for all persons. The Section actively seeks new members and welcomes those interested in working on Section and ABA projects through involvement in its 16 committees. The Section Council meets quarterly, both at ABA Midyear and Annual Meetings and on its own in the spring and the fall, often in Washington, D. C. Section members and others interested in Section issues always are welcome at its meetings.