International Educational Development

The lead author of the International Educational Development report on alleged Kurdish attacks was Karen Parker, a San Francisco based attorney who practices human rights and humanitarian law.  In 1982, she founded the International Disability Law, which was renamed in 1990 as the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers (AHL).1

Ms. Parker is the chief delegate for International Educational Development – Humanitarian Law Project, a NGO accredited by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

AHL “officers and researchers attend the United Nations human rights forums and work directly with the UN-credited groups, with the UN staff, with investigators appointed by the Commission on Human Rights, and with members of the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human rights.” 

AHL’s officers are practicing attorneys from multiple countries.  They work with researchers, some of whom are attorneys, others law students, paralegals, or graduates in political science and other related fields.

The UN’s Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Prevention of Human Rights was formed in 1947 as a think tank for the UN Commission on Human Rights.  Prior to 1999, it was named the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.  The organization operated until August 2006.

Ms. Parker received her J. D. degree with honors from the University of San Francisco Law School in 1983.  She interned at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, and externed for California Supreme Court Justice Frank Newman, a close friend until his death in 1996.

Ms. Parker received a special diplфme (cum laude) in Droit International et de Droit Compare des Droits de l'Homme (International and Comparative Law of Human Rights) from the Institut International des Droits de l'Homme in Strasbourg, France in 1982.