Chelsea L. Halstead

The Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide provides transparent data on death penalty laws and practices around the world, publishes reports and manuals on issues of practical relevance to lawyers, judges, and policymakers, trains lawyers in best practices, and engages in targeted advocacy and litigation. Its staff and faculty advisors have collectively spent more than eight decades representing hundreds of prisoners facing the death penalty, and their research has informed legal reform and public policy in countries around the world. Clinical Professor Sandra Babcock and Executive Director Delphine Lourtau created the foundation for the Center’s work by establishing the Death Penalty Worldwide database in 2011. Five years later, with donor support, they launched the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. The Center has gained a reputation for providing comparative legal analysis of the application of the death penalty, as well as for its one-of-a-kind Makwanyane Institute for capital defenders. Center staff and associated faculty continue to defend persons facing the death penalty around the world, with a combined caseload of dozens of death row prisoners. Students play a major role in our advocacy efforts through Professor Babcock’s International Human Rights Clinic. Generations of Cornell undergraduates and law students have contributed to our research, training, and individual case representation.