Event Poster


As the City of Chicago struggles to welcome a record-breaking number of asylum seekers, what should their advocates know about recent updates to the Istanbul Protocol and the best-practice standards it sets for working with vulnerable populations?

The Istanbul Protocol, first published in 1999, established international standards for investigating acts of torture. It provided guidelines for health and legal professionals who evaluated allegations of torture and documented cases of survivors. In 2022 the Protocol was updated to address limitations in the existing version and promote civil society participation in anti-torture investigations. The updated Protocol defines the legal and ethical responsibilities of clinicians and lawyers working with vulnerable populations.

REGISTER

The principal organizer of the Protocol, Dr. Vincent Iacopino, will discuss the updated Protocol and its application to medico-legal assessments. Afterward, he will join a panel with human rights practitioners who will discuss the Protocol's relevance to people seeking asylum in the United States, especially in the Chicago area, where the high number of new arrivals has overloaded an already overwhelmed community support system. A Q&A session and reception will follow.

Vincent Iacopino Headshot

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: vincent iacopino

Dr. Vincent Iacopino, MD, PhD, is the former medical director of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Adjunct Professor in Medicine with the University of Minnesota Medical School, and Senior Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center of the University of California, Berkeley. For 20 years he has participated in medical fact-finding investigations documenting the health consequences of a wide range of human rights violations in dozens of countries. He is a pioneer in conceptualizing the relationship between health and human rights, and was the principal organizer of the international effort to develop the Istanbul Protocol.  (read full bio)

panel DISCUSSANTS

  • Dr. Minal Giri – Chair, Midwest Human Rights Consortium (read bio)
  • Dr. Rohini Haar – Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Joint Medical Program, University of California, Berkeley (UCB); Lecturer, The Law School, UCB; Medical Advisor, Physicians for Human Rights (read bio)
  • Aimee Hilado – Assistant Director, The University of Chicago Crown School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice; Chair, Coalition for Immigrant mental Health (read bio)
  • Lee VanderLinden – Attorney, National Immigrant Justice Center (read bio)
  • Moderator:  Pedro Gerson, Director of Practice, The University of Chicago Pozen Family Center for Human Rights (read bio)

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Dr. Vincent Iacopino, PhD, is the former medical director of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Adjunct Professor in Medicine with the University of Minnesota Medical School, and Senior Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center of the University of California, Berkeley. For 20 years he has participated in medical fact-finding investigations documenting the health consequences of a wide range of human rights violations in dozens of countries worldwide. He is a pioneer in conceptualizing the relationship between health and human rights, and was the principal organizer of the international effort to develop the Istanbul Protocol.

Iacopino is the former medical director of Survivors International of Northern California, a non-profit organization providing medical and psychological assistance to survivors of torture. He has also served as a consultant to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Since 1995 Iacopino has taught courses on health and human rights at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. He is the author of more than 120 health and human rights publications. In 2004 he received The Center for Victims of Torture’s Eclipse Award for extraordinary service on behalf of torture survivors. In 2005 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Minnesota Department of Medicine. (return to list of speakers)

Dr. Minal Giri, MD, is a pediatrician and former medical director of Melrose Park Pediatrics, a practice that served a largely immigrant population on the outskirts of Chicago for nearly 20 years.  Giri also performs medical forensic evaluations on behalf of unaccompanied immigrant children and asylum seekers. She has served as a consultant for the Organization for Refugee Resettlement and contributed to the development of trauma-centered regulations for unaccompanied children. 
 
Giri is founder and chair of the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics Refugee Immigrant Child Health Initiative and co-chair of the Midwest Human Rights Consortium, a multi-disciplinary, multi-institution organization that facilitates forensic evaluations to support asylum seekers in immigration proceedings. She also serves on the executive committee of the National American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Immigrant Child and Family Health. (return to list of speakers)

Dr. Rohini Haar, MD, MPH, is Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health and Joint Medical Program, and Lecturer at the Law School, University of California, Berkeley. She serves as Medical Advisor to Physicians for Human Rights and practices emergency medicine in Oakland, California. 

In her research, she uses population methods to study the impact of human rights violations – such as torture, violations of free speech and assembly, and war crimes – on health; currently, she is investigating these impacts in Colombia, Syria, and Myanmar. She is particularly interested in the protection of health workers and health services in conflict and in developing strong research methodology in fragile contexts. 

Her recent projects include: investigating the health impacts of crowd control weapons like tear gas and rubber bullets; serving as a chapter editor on the 2022 revision of the Istanbul Protocol; liasing with the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition; and serving on the board of the Bay Area Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. 

She received her AB (2001, Political Science) and her MD (2005) from the University of Chicago and her MPH (2013) from Columbia University. In 2009, she completed an Emergency Medicine Residency at NYU/Bellevue Hospitals. (return to list of speakers)

Aimee Hilado, PhD, LCSW, is a practitioner-scholar and community-based intervention researcher specializing in immigration trauma and refugee mental health. She is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, where she teaches and conducts research on understudied pathways to promoting mental wellness and adjustment for new arrivals in the United States. Her research lab, The Refugee Wellness Laboratory, studies diverse communities across different immigration statuses (refugees, asylum-seekers, migrants, unaccompanied children) and across the lifespan from early childhood to older adults, focusing on how their mental health  is affected by the organizations and health systems they interface with. Hilado is also Chair of the Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health, a non-profit volunteer organization of practitioners, researchers, and advocates invested in increasing access to culturally-responsive and linguistically-sensitive mental healthcare. (return to list of speakers)

Lee VanderLinden, JD, (they/them) is the managing attorney for National Immigrant Justice Center's LGBT Immigrant Rights Initiative. Lee graduated with a degree in politics from Princeton University and obtained their JD from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. Their work focuses on representing LGBTQ asylum seekers, primarily in immigration court. They live in Chicago with their partner, daughter, and dog. (return to list of speakers)

Moderator: Pedro Gerson, JD, MPP, is Director of Practice at the Pozen Center. His research focuses on the intersection of criminal and immigration law. Prior to joining the Pozen Center, he was an Associate Professor of Law at California Western School of Law, directed, and served as an immigration staff attorney at The Bronx Defenders in New York City, a public defender nonprofit.

Gerson previously held several positions in Mexico City, including as a researcher and project manager at the Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad (IMCO), a think tank. He also worked in the National Digital Strategy Unit of the Office of the President of Mexico, and he was an adjunct professor in the economics and law departments at Instituto Tecnológico Autónoma de México and Universidad Iberoamericana. (Read more about Gerson's arrival at the Pozen Center) (return to list of speakers)

CO-SPONSORS

The second day of this event – Friday, April 12 – will consist of workshops on applying the Istanbul Protocol in the field. Learn more and register.

A note on directions:  Bond Chapel is located in the UChicago Classics Quadrangle. For directions via your phone, use 1010 E 59th Street; this is the address of the Classics archway, the Quadrangle's pedestrian entrance. Street parking is usually available. After 4 p.m. parking is free in the Lexington lot at 5835 S University Avenue.