Learning About What it Means to Have a Career in International Human Rights Law

The Raoul Wallenberg Institute’s two summer interns from Suffolk University Law School have been getting an opportunity to learn more about what it means to have a career in international human rights law. They are about to wrap up their time in Lund, Sweden at the Institute’s headquarters in a few weeks.

“I’ve learned so much more about what it means to have a career in international human rights law, and it has given me a lot of clarification of what I might want to pursue going forward,” says Emily Pijanowski, RWI’s summer intern from Suffolk University Law School.

Getting a better sense of international human rights law

The Internship Programme for Suffolk University Law School students at the Academic Department of RWI was created in 2014, in partnership with Suffolk University Law School (Boston, US). The main purpose of the programme is to foster collaboration between the two institutions by means of providing students with the opportunity to have access to and collaborate with RWI’s academic and research work in human rights and humanitarian law related areas.

The objective of this internship Programme is twofold, says RWI’s Senior Research Alejandro Fuentes. “On one hand it provides interns with an insight into RWI’s human rights activities, helping them to develop scientific/academic skills in concrete human rights related programmes and studies. And, on the other hand, it offers the Academic Department with the possibility to have access to qualified human resources that could substantially contribute to the activities currently undertaken by its staff.”

The beneficiaries of this internship programme are selected students from Suffolk University Law School (2 students), which are hosted – as interns – by the Academic Department at RWI for a period of three months. Although interns are engaged in a full time programme, that is five days a week during office hours, the programme does not involve or offer paid internships or any other work related position.

Suffolk’s students are provided with an opportunity to acquire practical experience and develop professional skills through involvement in the Department’s current activities. This could cover all of the areas of work, from research to library and publications. The substance of the work may include, for example, assistance on legal research and critical analysis on human rights and international humanitarian law related issues, such as business and human rights, right to education, and indigenous people’s rights.

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