New Media Advocacy

Check out this preview of one of N-Map’s latest projects – an advocacy campaign with the Innocence Project and John Thompson and the issue of prosecutorial misconduct in the U.S.  John is a death row exoneree – he spent 14 years on death row for a murder that he had nothing to do with because his prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence.  He sued his prosecutors under sec. 1983 – a jury awarded him $14 million in damages ($1 million for every year he spent on death row).  The Court of Appeals affirmed the award twice, but the Supreme Court then reversed it in a 5-4 judgment last term.  We are helping John and the Innocence project in their efforts to improve accountability for prosecutors who violate the Constitutional rights of defendants.

Here is the rough cut of our first video produced as part of the collaboration.  It is still a rough cut (i.e. in progress) and we’d be curious to hear your feedback on the video as we continue to develop the final piece.

We look forward to your thoughts and ideas, and stay tuned for more…

Update: Final version of the video posted.

N-Map’s team just returned from Haiti, where we were assisting the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), and the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in their efforts to hold the United Nations accountable for creating a cholera epidemic in Haiti.  We also worked alongside our old clients and friends, Partners in Health (PIH).

Yes, that’s right, MINUSTAH, the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, failed to screen its Nepali peacekeeping troops for Cholera, then also failed to ensure that their waste treatment was functioning well.  They literally dumped contaminated sewage into a tributary of the Artibonite River, the longest and most important river in Haiti.  This has resulted in a massive outbreak of Cholera, leaving over a million people infected and thousands dead.

We are helping the IJDH and BAI pressure the United Nations to fix the problem that they caused.  This presents us with an interesting challenge: our opponent in this case is supposed to be the good guy!  We like and support the UN, and want to help it live up to its ideals.  So our goal is craft a message of accountability without painting the United Nations as a villain.   That would be counterproductive by alienating the UN, as well as the people whose support we, and more importantly the Haitian people, need.  It’s an interesting puzzle – we’ll show you what we come up with in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, here are some resources on the case, as well as some photos from our trip.

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For additional press and resources on the legal case, please visit: http://ijdh.org/cholera-litigation#News Articles