MoForever Alumni News Winter 2021

21 | MoForever Winter 2021 ALUMNI UPDATE PRO BONO Beth Van Schaack has served in many roles in her 20-year legal career, but her focus has never wavered. She has dedicated her career to trying to prevent crimes against humanity and to obtaining justice for survivors of these crimes. Beth is currently the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School, where she teaches young lawyers and helps them gain real-life experience as they pursue their passion for human rights. In the past, Beth has advised government leaders on formulating U.S. policies to prevent mass atrocities such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, while also holding perpetrators accountable. Beth has helped coordinate the use of legal, economic, military, and intelligence tools to expose the truth, capture and judge those responsible, protect and assist victims, enable reconciliation, deter atrocities, and build the rule of law. She continues to advise human rights and international justice organizations across the globe today. Giving clients a measure of justice At Stanford, you can usually find Beth lecturing in the classroom or helping law students work on real-world justice projects. As the acting director of the International Human Rights Clinic, she helps students exercise a range of human rights lawyering skills, including fact-finding in the field, working with victims and victims’ communities, litigation support, and public and private advocacy. Whether Beth is teaching law students or advising heads of government, she encourages the development of more creative strategies to advocate for human rights around the world. The goal is to get world leaders to officially adopt policies that protect communities at risk of mass violence, as well as to shepherd those in full-blown humanitarian crises toward peace—a state that Beth believes must be accompanied by an appropriate sense of justice. “My work is about giving clients a measure of justice, a sense that BETH VAN SCHAACK: PURSUING HUMAN RIGHTS AT A GLOBAL LEVEL