
(L-R) María Luisa Romero 3L, Tim Mayhle 3L, Professor James Cavallaro
María Luisa Romero: (19:09)
As her tenure at HLS begins to wind down, 3L María Luisa Romero stopped in to chat with staffer Julia Foresman about her human rights advocacy in Panamanian prisons. In the fall of her 2L year, as a student in Clinical Professor James Cavallaro’s Human Rights Advocacy seminar, María Luisa already had a project on Panama’s prisons in mind. She’d found there had been few international reports on the topic since Noriega’s ouster. During an independent clinical, met with prison system officials and members of the government, including the attorney general.
Last March, Cavallaro, Romero and two other students visited six prisons. María Luisa estimates these facilities hold more than 70 percent of Panama’s prisoners. During her research, she found, among many other abuses, flagrant corruption, overcrowding, and sanitation problems.

In Fall of 2007, María Luisa returned to Panama with Cavallaro returned to meet with other officials from the correctional system. The culmination of her efforts, which included the submission of a report to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, came a few weeks ago during a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
To watch the recording of the hearing on March 7, 2008 before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, visit their website. The title of the hearing is “Human Rights Violations in Prisons in Panama.” Please note that the hearing is in Spanish.