The Goler T. Butcher Medal Lecture Award was first awarded in 1997. It is awarded to a distinguished person of American or other nationality for outstanding contributions to the development or effective realization of international human rights. It is named for Goler Teal Butcher, a prominent African-American scholar and professor at Howard University School of Law, who also worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Carter administration, where she committed a lot of her time and efforts to the elimination of global hunger.