Tag Archives: Chayes Fellowship

Chayes Fellow Amy Volz ’18 on working at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Poland

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Old town, Warsaw. Photo courtesy of Amy Volz.

Old town, Warsaw. All photos courtesy of Amy Volz.

I have just two weeks left at the Helsinki Foundation — it’s hard to believe how time has flown!

I’ve been busy with plenty of interesting research for the Strategic Litigation department’s cases which are currently pending before the Polish Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. So far I have researched issues related to procedural rights, conditions of detention, and freedom of expression in the U.S. and other European countries.

I’m especially enjoying it because my first degree was in modern languages and I very rarely get to put my language skills to use in an actual workplace context. The research topics are also just generally interesting and allow me to get a sense of how differently certain issues are adjudicated in the U.S. and Europe. I’m especially enjoying research related to the European Court of Human Rights.

Supreme Court of Poland, Polish Constitutional Grand Chamber, Helskinki Foundation offices

Supreme Court of Poland, Polish Constitutional Grand Chamber, Helskinki Foundation offices

Aside from my research tasks, the Foundation has been great about letting me go on various outings around Warsaw — I observed a sentence at the Constitutional Court and a full hearing at the Supreme Court, and most recently I spent a morning touring a jail in the south of Warsaw with the Polish summer interns. Those trips were really interesting, especially the hearing at the Supreme Court.

Warsaw "off the beaten path" tour

Warsaw “off the beaten path” tour

Outside of work, my time in Warsaw has been wonderful. I take Polish lessons twice a week in the mornings in an attempt to understand Polish legal language — it’s going a bit slowly but my teacher is excellent! And I’ve tried to make the most of the weekends by exploring different neighborhoods of Warsaw and taking advantage of the quick and easy flights to nearby countries. I visited Lara Townzen in Kiev in early June and she came to Warsaw for a weekend as well. I also spent a weekend in Budapest with the other intern from my office, who just finished 1L at the University of Chicago. Overall Warsaw is an amazing place and I will definitely miss living here! However, I’m also excited to get back to campus and hear what everyone has been up to this summer.

In Kiev with Chayes fellow Lara Townzen '18

In Kiev with Chayes Fellow Lara Townzen ’18

Meet the 2016 Chayes Fellows

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Nineteen Harvard Law School students have been awarded 2016 Chayes International Public Service Fellowships. This summer the fellows will be working in Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Guam, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Ukraine, as well as San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Read the 2016 Chayes Fellows biographies.

Chayes Fellow Kelsey Jost-Creegan on working at Dejusticia in Colombia

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Kelsey Jost-Creegan '17 in La Candelaria, Bogota.

Kelsey Jost-Creegan ’17 in La Candelaria, Bogota.

My fellowship at Dejusticia has been an excellent experience thus far. I am working in the area of transitional justice, and I have already learned so much from my work, as well as from my colleagues and the experience of living in Colombia.

I have had a variety of different assignments. First, I co-wrote a memo on the inclusion of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) in transitional justice processes. We were asked to compare different theories of whether ESCR should be included in transitional justice processes, and, if so, how they should be included.

I then helped with preparations for a conference in which experts from around the world come to exchange and debate ideas on transitional justice. I also helped to translate the article, written by two members of Dejusticia, which will serve as a launching point for the discussion. The article explores how much room countries have to design their own peace processes within international law standards, particularly with regards to the permissibility of partial amnesties and alternative forms of punishment. Translating the article—which was 55 pages in Spanish—gave me a chance to learn about international standards in transitional justice, improve my technical vocabulary in the area in both languages, and practice legal translation (as well as my Bluebooking skills). I also helped with some logistical conference preparations such as writing bilingual biographies of the conference participants.

I was also asked to prepare a short report on controversial detentions that recently took place in Bogotá. Earlier this summer, 15 individuals were arrested on allegations that they had connections with the National Liberation Army (the ELN, a left-wing guerilla group in Colombia), and may have been involved in a series of terrorist acts that occurred in the capital over the last year. However, the arrests generated significant uproar from civil society, both because of due process concerns in the way that the detentions were executed, and because many of the detainees were well-known and vocal human rights advocates and civil society leaders (some have suggested that the detentions may be a form of persecution for their advocacy).

I’ve just started my next assignment, which is to complete a memo on the current state of the debate on the incorporation of land reform and/or land restitution in transitional justice processes.

Bogota, photo courtesy of Kelsey Jost-Creegan.

Bogota, photo courtesy of Kelsey Jost-Creegan.

 

Chayes Fellow Lauren Blodgett on working at End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes in Thailand

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Elephants in Chiang Mai; Lauren Blodgett '16 at work; Erawan Falls. Photos courtesy of Lauren Blodgett.

Elephants in Chiang Mai; Lauren Blodgett ’16 at work; Erawan Falls. Photos courtesy of Lauren Blodgett.

I am really enjoying my experience in Thailand. For my internship at ECPAT, I am working on a project called Access to Justice for Child Victims of Sexual Exploitation. We are doing a multi-country comparative study to identify the barriers that child victims face regarding access to justice.

In particular, I am focusing on victims’ access to compensation, and I am researching the criminal, civil, and administrative avenues for compensation. I am writing about the theory behind compensation, and pulling best practices and lessons learned from the comparative study. From this research, we hope to provide our network members and other NGOs with a toolkit to help child victims in the aftermath of sexual exploitation. We also hope to use this study to inform international discussions on children’s rights and shape our advocacy efforts before the United Nations.