Roya Boroumand Awarded Prestigious Goler T. Butcher Medal for Human Rights Advocacy in Iran
April 4, 2024
The American Society of International Law honored Roya Boroumand, Executive Director of Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, with the Goler T. Butcher Medal
Roya Boroumand Awarded Prestigious Goler T. Butcher Medal for Human Rights Advocacy in Iran
Washington DC - April 4, 2024
The American Society of International Law (ASIL) honored Roya Boroumand, Executive Director of Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC), with the 2024 Goler T. Butcher Medal for her “dedication to the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran.” This prestigious award recognizes ABC’s Director’s “commitment to the rigorous, objective documentation of human rights violations in the service of justice and accountability under international law.”
The medal is named after Goler T. Butcher, the distinguished African-American scholar and Howard Law School international law professor, who served as assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development and was a leading advocate for ending global hunger. Since its inception in 1997, the Goler T. Butcher Medal has been awarded by ASIL to distinguished individuals for their “outstanding contributions to the development or effective realization of international human rights.” [1]
As part of its 2024 Annual Meeting, ASIL hosted a conversation between Roya Boroumand and Professor Karima Bennoune [2] – the Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and former United Nations special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights – titled “International Law, Theocracy, and the Struggle for Human Rights in Iran.”
In her opening statement, Professor Bennoune said: “Ms. Boroumand has followed in the footsteps of Goler Butcher, for whom the prize she receives today is named, echoing Ms. Butcher’s own work in being unrelenting in her commitment to the realization of international human rights law for those who are seen to be beyond its reach. Roya’s work is a testament to the vision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, demanding recognition of the fact that Iranians too are “born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
ABC’s Executive Director expressed her gratitude for this prestigious award, a recognition of 23 years of painstaking work in documenting human rights violations, and the violations of the right to life in particular, and reflected on the organization’s history, goals, challenges and successes. She stressed the importance of international human rights law to the organization’s documentation and advocacy work in a country where a theocracy has done away with the rule of law. She also noted that international law has proven to be a vital tool in the understanding of due process and in the efforts to promote a culture of human rights and democracy among Iranians.
“I am honored and humbled to receive the Goler T. Butcher medal, which I see as a recognition of the contributions, hard work, empathy, courage, and commitment of scores of individuals of diverse nationalities, ethnicities, faiths, political beliefs and backgrounds who made two volunteers’ ambitious project, a first in its kind, a reality. It is also a tribute to thousands of victims, survivors, and witnesses inside and outside Iran who came forward to testify and without whom a memorialization and documentation of this magnitude would not have been possible.”
The recognition of Abdorrahman Boroumand Center’s Executive Director as the Goler T. Butcher honoree is an acknowledgement of her unwavering commitment to promoting justice and international human rights, and 23 years of ABC’s unrelenting memorialization and truth telling efforts. It is also an opportunity to honor the victims of the Islamic Republic’s deadly violence and put them at the forefront of international efforts to pursue accountability.
Notes:
[1] Thomas Buergenthal, a former Czechoslovakian jurist and esteemed judge of the International Court of Justice; Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, former President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; Iris Yassmin Barrios Aquilar, a judge and the president of one of Guatemala’s two High Risk Court Tribunals; and several human rights law professors and former United Nations’ special rapporteurs such as Asma Jahangir, Juan Mendez, and James Anaya are among the prestigious past honorees.
[2] Professor Bennoune’s book, Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism, was inspired by the efforts of her father and other Algerians who worked to counter extremism in the 1990s. Bennoune has worked tirelessly in international law, on issues related to culture, extremism, and women’s human rights.
