Geneva Externship

Extern­ship Courses

The Gene­va Extern­ship Pro­gram is a 14-cred­it, semes­ter-long course that com­bines field place­ments with lead­ing Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tions (IOs) and Non-Gov­­ern­­men­­tal Orga­ni­za­tions (NGOs) in Gene­va (12 cred­its, pass/​fail) with a con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous Sem­i­nar (two cred­its, grad­ed) intend­ed to pro­vide sub­stan­tive con­text for the externships.

The goals of the pro­gram are that students:

• devel­op their knowl­edge and under­stand­ing of pub­lic inter­na­tion­al law, the role and func­tion of Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tions and Non-Gov­­ern­­men­­tal Orga­ni­za­tions, as well as the prac­tice of var­i­ous spe­cial­ty areas prac­ticed in the inter­na­tion­al con­text (e.g., Inter­na­tion­al Trade Law);
• improve their abil­i­ty to per­form lawyer­ing skills in an inter­na­tion­al con­text, e.g., con­duct­ing research, draft­ing doc­u­ments, ana­lyz­ing leg­is­la­tion, mon­i­tor­ing devel­op­ments in inter­na­tion­al law, dis­cus­sion issues and pol­i­cy impli­ca­tions, devel­op­ing strate­gic plans, nego­ti­at­ing on behalf of an orga­ni­za­tion, or speak­ing pub­licly on behalf of an organization;
• are exposed to the range of effec­tive lawyer­ing in an inter­na­tion­al context;
• fur­ther devel­op their pro­fes­sion­al work­ing rela­tion­ships with attor­neys prac­tic­ing in the field, sup­port staff, and peers; and
• become a self-direc­t­ed learn­er and reflec­tive prac­ti­tion­er, inten­tion­al about their on-going pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment, and active­ly engaged in their super­vi­so­ry relationship.

Course Require­ments 

In addi­tion to the field place­ment, you are expect­ed to do the fol­low­ing as part of the Seminar:

• attend approx­i­mate­ly 13 sem­i­nar ses­sions, divid­ed between guest lectures/​visits and round­table discussions;
• sub­mit writ­ten sub­mis­sions in the form of bi-week­­ly Reflec­tive Essays, a Final Report, and a Stu­dent Guide con­tri­bu­tion. These writ­ten sub­mis­sions are designed to solic­it reflec­tive descrip­tion of your dai­ly work, the nature of the projects they are work­ing on, the role they play in their assigned projects, and the super­vi­sion and feed­back they are receiv­ing; and
• pro­vide three Work Prod­ucts samples.

The extern­ship pro­gram is open to sec­ond- or third-year law stu­dents who are in good aca­d­e­m­ic stand­ing at the Law School.

The Gene­va Extern­ship awards 13 cred­its total: 11 cred­its for the field place­ment work (pass/​fail) and two cred­its (grad­ed) for the relat­ed sem­i­nar. In some cas­es, a stu­dent may write an aca­d­e­m­ic research paper for an addi­tion­al one or two cred­its. If you are inter­est­ed in this option, please speak with Pro­fes­sor Anna Nicol.

Stu­dents who pro­pose a final semes­ter extern­ship must also include in their appli­ca­tion pack­et a com­plet­ed Reg­is­trar Check­list show­ing that at the end of the extern­ship all require­ments for their degree will have been met.

Every­one going to Gene­va is required to com­plete their Inter­na­tion­al Law Dis­tri­b­u­tion­al Require­ment before the externship.

We do not put a required class on the list if it is not offered in the fall semes­ter, so once the new fall sched­ule is released, we cre­ate the new list for the com­ing year. This also means that it is not too late if you have not already tak­en a required class. 

Some place­ments have addi­tion­al spe­cif­ic course pre­req­ui­sites. If you choose one of these orga­ni­za­tions and we place you there, you must com­plete all pre­req­ui­sites before going to Gene­va. Many pre­req­ui­sites can be tak­en care of the fall before you go.

View the Lat­est Pre­req­ui­site Requirements

Stu­dents who pur­sue an extern­ship in Gene­va are known as Gene­va Inter­na­tion­al Fel­lows, each of whom receives a $3,000 fel­low­ship to assist with Gene­­va-relat­ed expens­es. Externs pay their reg­u­lar tuition, and their reg­u­lar aid pack­age (loans and schol­ar­ships) applies. 

Pro­fes­sors Nicol and Sankaran will be in touch to sched­ule a dis­cus­sion with you about your choic­es in mid-March.

In late March/​early April, the Gene­va Selec­tion Com­mit­tee (includ­ing Pro­fes­sors How­son, Nicol, Rat­ner, Sankaran, and one more to be decid­ed) will meet to place the extern­ship applicants.

Our goal is always to place as many stu­dents as pos­si­ble in one of their top three choic­es. After our selec­tions, we will noti­fy you of your nom­i­na­tion, and Pro­fes­sor Nicol will start work­ing with your draft cov­er let­ter to pol­ish it for sub­mis­sion to sites.

We hope to send nom­i­na­tions to sites by ear­ly May, just after finals. Then we wait to hear from the placements.

For some, it is a very quick turn­around, while oth­er sites will take longer.

Many sites have inter­nal appli­ca­tion process­es, even inter­views, which can­di­dates must do.

You must be very com­mu­nica­tive dur­ing the sum­mer to ensure you do not miss any of these nuances. And you must be patient.

As sum­mer turns to fall, there is a lot of work on per­mits; visas; and for one site (the U.S. Mis­sion to the UN), a secu­ri­ty clear­ance. Each of these things are time-con­­sum­ing, and each can lead to more wait­ing. It is our hope to have every­thing set­tled before class­es begin in Sep­tem­ber, but that process can extend into fall for some sites. In all cas­es, we are in touch with you through­out, and you are always wel­come to reach out to us too, of course.

The GAVI, The Vac­cine Alliance was cre­at­ed in 2000 in recog­ni­tion of the fact that vac­cines and immu­niza­tions are a unique­ly cost-effec­­tive way of pro­tect­ing health and avert­ing death, that exist­ing vac­cines were under­used in and/​or not adapt­ed to the needs of devel­op­ing coun­tries, and that vac­cines could be bet­ter pro­vid­ed through a glob­al financ­ing mech­a­nism and improved coor­di­na­tion between pub­lic and pri­vate actors. Gavi pro­vides legal risks analy­sis and sup­ports the Gavi Sec­re­tari­at and Board, as well as the oth­er affil­i­at­ed enti­ties as appro­pri­ate, on all legal matters.

The Legal Team nego­ti­ates and drafts all agree­ments for Gavi and Gavie affil­i­at­ed enti­ties, as appro­pri­ate, includ­ing agree­ments with donors, Gavi part­ners, ven­dors, and con­sul­tants. The Legal Team also advis­es the Gavi Sec­re­tari­at on mat­ters con­cern­ing oper­a­tions, employ­ment, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights, media and pub­lic rela­tions, con­flicts of inter­est, priv­i­leges and immu­ni­ties, cor­po­rate poli­cies, gov­er­nance, and com­pli­ance with rel­e­vant laws and reg­u­la­tions in the Unit­ed King­dom, the Unit­ed States, and Switzerland.

Nature of Work and Supervision

The extern will assist with the dai­ly busi­ness of the Legal depart­ment, work­ing direct­ly with the dif­fer­ent mem­bers of the Legal team, under the direct super­vi­sion of the Direc­tor of Legal. The pri­ma­ry role of the intern will be to assist with the time­ly review and prepa­ra­tion of con­trac­tu­al doc­u­men­ta­tion of a vary­ing nature (pro­gram­mat­ic, goods and ser­vices, part­ner agree­ments, etc.). How­ev­er, oth­er tasks and research projects will be assigned on an ad hoc basis.

The work of Gavi is wide, rang­ing from pub­lic inter­na­tion­al law (includ­ing the right to health) to char­i­ties law, and from health pub­lic pol­i­cy to cor­po­rate pro­cure­ment and human resources. Tak­ing into account the needs of the Team, the extern’s inter­ests will be con­sid­ered in assign­ing work.

Impor­tant Infor­ma­tion for Students

Externs should demon­strate the following:

• An inter­est in inter­na­tion­al law and pub­lic health.
• Pri­or expe­ri­ence work­ing in an inter­na­tion­al and mul­ti­cul­tur­al envi­ron­ment would be an advantage.
• Excel­lent knowl­edge of English.
• Work­ing knowl­edge of French would be an advantage.
• Inter­est in trans­ac­tion­al work.
• Excel­lent writ­ten skills.
• Abil­i­ty to work well in a team, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a mul­ti­cul­tur­al environment.

To learn more about the Gavi Alliance, please vis­it their web­site.

This place­ment site may pro­vide a stipend for its interns. The amount may vary depend­ing on the year and the indi­vid­ual student’s over­all finan­cial aid pack­age. The stu­dent will need to reg­is­ter with Swiss tax author­i­ties, and may incur tax lia­bil­i­ty (Swiss and US).

Inter­na­tion­al Bridges to Jus­tice (IBJ) Mis­sion

In recog­ni­tion of the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights, Inter­na­tion­al Bridges to Jus­tice (IBJ) is ded­i­cat­ed to pro­tect­ing the basic legal rights of indi­vid­u­als in coun­tries around the world. Specif­i­cal­ly, IBJ works to guar­an­tee all peo­ple the right to com­pe­tent legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, the right to be pro­tect­ed from cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment, and the right to a fair trial.

Key Activ­i­ty Areas

• Work­ing as part of a team writ­ing mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar grant pro­pos­als to gov­ern­ments and foundations
• Cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing key part­ner­ships with in-coun­try stake­hold­ers around the world
• Logis­tics and direct assis­tance to CEO and Inter­na­tion­al Pro­gram Director
• Events man­age­ment as required (World Eco­nom­ic Forum, Unit­ed Nations etc)
• Assist­ing devel­op­ment of IBJ tech­nol­o­gy pro­grams, trans­form­ing IBJ​’s impact into scal­able tech­nol­o­gy solutions
• Out­reach to law firm pro-bono depart­ments, secur­ing coop­er­a­tion for devel­op­ment of resources and par­tic­i­pa­tion in glob­al legal network
• IBJ Youth project coor­di­na­tion and cura­tion with our youth network

Pos­si­bil­i­ties for sub­stan­tive legal work

• Research­ing and draft­ing crim­i­nal defend­er train­ing man­u­als for com­mon and civ­il law juris­dic­tions. These man­u­als oper­ate as a guide for local crim­i­nal defence lawyers to use when prepar­ing for trial.
• Research­ing and draft­ing defence pro­ce­dure wiki and defend­er eLearn­ing con­tent, designed to be used by prac­tic­ing crim­i­nal defence coun­sel in devel­op­ing legal sys­tems. This has so far cov­ered 100+ coun­tries and con­tin­ues to expand. This legal research is often done in coop­er­a­tion with local part­ners and where pos­si­ble the local bar asso­ci­a­tion who may use this to increase insti­tu­tion­al stan­dards of local legal training.
• Research­ing and draft­ing legal prac­tice check­lists based on local pro­ce­dure codes for defence coun­sel to use when first receiv­ing a case
• Research­ing and draft­ing legal rights aware­ness mate­r­i­al designed for wider pub­lic campaigns.
• Research­ing and draft­ing legal pol­i­cy doc­u­ments relat­ed to the impact of the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of race and pover­ty, and how 1) crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion can be mit­i­gat­ed through alter­na­tives to incar­cer­a­tion and 2) due process pro­tec­tions enforced to pre­vent abuse

Desired skills

• Ambi­tious, self-dri­ven work ethic
• Con­cise, reli­able, and accu­rate research
• Excep­tion­al stan­dards of writ­ten English
• Clear-spo­ken and writ­ten communicator
• Flex­i­bil­i­ty and capac­i­ty to multi-task
• Pro­pos­al writ­ing expe­ri­ence is favored
• Demon­stra­ble pro­fi­cien­cy with tech­nol­o­gy is favored

The Inter­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion of Jurists (ICJ) is a major human rights NGO involved in edu­cat­ing gov­ern­men­tal offi­cials, judges, busi­ness lead­ers, and oth­ers around the world about human rights. It describes itself as a glob­al net­work of judges, lawyers, and human rights defend­ers unit­ed by inter­na­tion­al law and rule of law prin­ci­ples that advance human rights. Using our exper­tise in law, jus­tice sys­tems, and advo­ca­cy, we work for vic­tims to obtain reme­dies, for those respon­si­ble for abus­es to be held account­able, and for jus­tice sys­tems to be inde­pen­dent and active pro­tec­tors of human rights. We work to change law and pol­i­cy at the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­els when they do not ade­quate­ly pro­tect peo­ple from human rights violations.

Nature of the Extern’s Work and Supervision

The ICJ will assign the Michi­gan extern to a team, super­vised by a lawyer when the ICJ deter­mines its needs and can match them to a student’s inter­est. Intern­ships are avail­able in the fol­low­ing areas:

Inter­na­tion­al Law and Pro­tec­tion Programme

Focus­ing on aspects of the devel­op­ment and appli­ca­tion of inter­na­tion­al human rights law, includ­ing eco­nom­ic social and cul­tur­al rights, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty, women’s human rights, inter­na­tion­al eco­nom­ic rela­tions, glob­al secu­ri­ty and rule of law, and the Unit­ed Nations.

Region­al Programme

Focus­ing on spe­cif­ic legal issues in Africa, Asia-Pacif­ic, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Europe, the Mid­dle East, and North Africa.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion in either pro­gramme offers the interns an oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence in human rights legal and advo­ca­cy work at the inter­na­tion­al lev­el, as well as expe­ri­ence in work­ing in a pro­fes­sion­al office envi­ron­ment. Stu­dents build pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al rela­tions with col­leagues and coun­ter­parts who will be able to pro­vide long-term pro­fes­sion­al advice, sup­port, and encour­age­ment to fol­low a career in this field. In addi­tion, interns gain expo­sure to the prac­ti­cal func­tion­ing of the Unit­ed Nations human rights bod­ies and mech­a­nisms based on Geneva.

Externs are inte­grat­ed into the ICJ​’s staff and become part of a team of junior sup­port staff. They par­tic­i­pate and con­tribute to staff meet­ings, dis­cus­sions and brief­ing ses­sions, research human rights issues, draft papers and reports, main­tain infor­ma­tion data­bas­es, attend and take notes at out­side meet­ings, and pro­vide sup­port to oth­er ICJ activ­i­ties. The extern’s respon­si­bil­i­ties are based on the needs of the ICJ and the candidate’s interests.

Impor­tant Infor­ma­tion for Students

Transna­tion­al Law and a human rights law course are required. Knowl­edge of for­eign lan­guages is help­ful. It is expect­ed that the stu­dent select­ed for this place­ment will be expect­ed to stay for four months.

To learn more about the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion of Jurists, please vis­it their web­site.

The Inter­na­tion­al Code of Con­duct for Pri­vate Secu­ri­ty Providers’ Asso­ci­a­tion (ICoCA), found­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2013, is a mul­ti-stake­hold­er ini­tia­tive cre­at­ed to pro­mote, gov­ern and over­see the imple­men­ta­tion of the Inter­na­tion­al Code of Con­duct for Pri­vate Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice Providers (​“the Code” or ​“ICoC”). The Code applies to pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­nies that oper­ate in chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ments and its objec­tive is to pro­mote increased respect for human rights and human­i­tar­i­an law as well as to raise the stan­dards of oper­a­tional con­duct through­out the indus­try. The ICoCA’s mem­bers include states, pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, and civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions. Togeth­er, these three ​‘pil­lars’ form the Association’s Gen­er­al Assem­bly. The ICoCA Sec­re­tari­at, based in Gene­va, Switzer­land, car­ries out the Association’s prin­ci­pal imple­men­ta­tion and over­sight func­tions, includ­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and mon­i­tor­ing of mem­ber com­pa­ny oper­a­tions, under the super­vi­sion of its Board of Directors. 

The Asso­ci­a­tion seeks interns to sup­port its core func­tions which include cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, mon­i­tor­ing, com­plaints, guid­ance, and out­reach. Through these core func­tions, ICoCA grows the Asso­ci­a­tion and ensures its Mem­ber com­pa­nies and Affil­i­ates meet the prin­ci­ples and stan­dards of the Code of Con­duct as well as rem­e­dy any Code vio­la­tions that may occur. Interns will sup­port the Secretariat’s core func­tions con­duct­ing research, analy­sis, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, admin­is­tra­tive, and edit­ing work. 

Nature of a Michi­gan Law Extern’s Work

Respon­si­bil­i­ties of fel­lows and interns include pro­vid­ing gen­er­al sup­port on an as-need­ed basis for the core func­tions of the Sec­re­tari­at; con­duct­ing research and edit­ing work to sup­port the devel­op­ment of human rights and Code-relat­ed tools; sup­port the Sec­re­tari­at staff in ana­lyz­ing and assess­ing Mem­ber Com­pa­nies’ appli­ca­tions for ICoCA Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion; Assist the Secretariat’s mon­i­tor­ing func­tion in the orga­ni­za­tion of Field-Based Reviews through research and admin­is­tra­tive sup­port; per­form reg­u­lar media mon­i­tor­ing to ensure Mem­ber com­pa­ny com­pli­ance with the Code; assist in updat­ing the ICoCA’s data­base of com­pa­nies and oth­er stake­hold­ers; assist with the orga­ni­za­tion of in-per­­son and vir­tu­al events; sup­port the devel­op­ment of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and out­reach mate­ri­als, which could include the web­site, hard-copy and social media out­puts; and par­tic­i­pate in the day to day func­tion­ing of the ICO­CA Sec­re­tari­at, includ­ing in strate­gic inter­nal meetings.

INHR is non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to improv­ing access to the Unit­ed Nations and enhanc­ing the effec­tive­ness of small and mid-sized states and NGOs work­ing in the UN sys­tem. INHR offers train­ing, research, and capac­i­­ty-build­ing to max­i­mize the impact of these states’ inter­ac­tion with UN agen­cies in Gene­va, New York and beyond.

Stu­dents will work with INHR in Gene­va under the direc­tion of its founder, Eric Richard­son, a Michi­gan Law alum and for­mer U.S. diplo­mat. INHR will pair stu­dents with a small island devel­op­ing state that lacks resources to have a full-time del­e­ga­tion at the UN Human Rights Coun­cil (HRC). Stu­dents will pro­vide legal and pol­i­cy advice to that gov­ern­ment to facil­i­tate that mem­ber state’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the HRC.

Stu­dents will be expect­ed to: pre­pare for the HRC, attend HRC ses­sions, meet with diplo­mats engaged in the HRC, review draft res­o­lu­tions and pro­duce inter­ven­tions for the mem­ber state to use and deliv­er dur­ing the March 2020 HRC session.

Stu­dents will be required to take a Human Rights course offered by the Law School. In addi­tion, stu­dents are asked to par­tic­i­pate in online train­ing ses­sions designed to pre­pare stu­dents specif­i­cal­ly for these extern­ships. They will be taught by Eric Richard­son in the fall pre­ced­ing the externship.

More infor­ma­tion on INHR

The Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (IISD) is a not-for-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that con­tributes to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment by advanc­ing pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions in areas of inter­na­tion­al trade and invest­ment, cli­mate change and ener­gy, eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy and oth­ers. IISD was for­mal­ly estab­lished in 1990, with its head­quar­ters in Win­nipeg, Cana­da. The Insti­tute sub­se­quent­ly expand­ed to include offices in New York (1993), Ottawa (1995), Gene­va (2000) and Bei­jing (2012). IISD has more than 100 staff and asso­ciates locat­ed in over 30 countries.

Since its found­ing in 1990, IISD​’s work has grown to cov­er six Pro­gram areas:

• Cli­mate Change and Ener­gy: An inte­grat­ed Pro­gram that looks not just at imme­di­ate solu­tions to the nego­ti­a­tion of the next gen­er­a­tion cli­mate treaty, but more spe­cif­ic solu­tions to cli­mate change through long-term invest­ment and trade solu­tions to unsus­tain­able ener­gy and oth­er prac­tices and processes.
• Trade and Invest­ment: A Pro­gram in which the link­ages between inter­na­tion­al trade and invest­ment, and the rules gov­ern­ing these crit­i­cal eco­nom­ic ele­ments of glob­al­iza­tion, are assessed from a sus­tain­able devel­op­ment per­spec­tive. Our focus is on how inter­na­tion­al trade and invest­ment can be part of the solu­tion for sus­tain­able development.
• Sus­tain­able Nat­ur­al Resource Man­age­ment: A Pro­gram with a focus on envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship and man­age­ment for a long-term sus­tain­able use of our nat­ur­al resources.
• Report­ing Ser­vices: A Pro­gram that includes the now icon­ic Earth Nego­ti­a­tions Bul­letin that pro­vides real time reports on mul­ti­lat­er­al nego­ti­a­tions relat­ing to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, and oth­er relat­ed report­ing and pub­lic infor­ma­tion services.
• Glob­al Con­nec­tiv­i­ty: A Pro­gram that analy­ses and devel­ops the tools to improve the role of indi­vid­u­als and civ­il soci­ety in con­tribut­ing to good gov­er­nance and sus­tain­abil­i­ty through the inter­net and relat­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies and processes.
• Mea­sure­ment and Assess­ment: A Pro­gram in which we assist in devel­op­ing the con­crete tools to assess where we are and where we need to be in envi­ron­men­tal terms.

In addi­tion, IISD runs a devot­ed Pro­gram with the Gov­ern­ment of Chi­na relat­ed to its evolv­ing and com­plex sus­tain­able devel­op­ment issues, includ­ing its out­ward invest­ment policies.

About the Invest­ment and Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Program

IISD​’s Invest­ment Pro­gram con­sid­ers invest­ment as the sin­gle most vital require­ment for gen­er­at­ing eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in devel­op­ing coun­tries. Recent devel­op­ments in this field have shown that invest­ment flows are becom­ing increas­ing­ly glob­al in nature and that the qual­i­ties of these invest­ments are crit­i­cal for advanc­ing the social and envi­ron­men­tal dimen­sions of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. For this to hap­pen, the inter­na­tion­al legal and pol­i­cy frame­work gov­ern­ing trade and for­eign invest­ment must be aligned or inte­grat­ed with the goal of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. IISD​’s efforts have focused on this mission.

IISD began its Invest­ment and Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Pro­gram approx­i­mate­ly fif­teen years ago. The Pro­gram com­pris­es, among oth­ers, a team of high­ly qual­i­fied inter­na­tion­al lawyers who pro­vide tech­ni­cal and legal advice on inter­na­tion­al invest­ment treaties and con­tracts, with respect to nego­ti­a­tions, imple­men­ta­tion and dis­putes. IISD also con­ducts work­shops and train­ing cours­es for nego­tia­tors, pol­i­­cy-mak­ers and gov­ern­ment offi­cials. The team works on invest­ment issues in dif­fer­ent sec­tors includ­ing min­ing, agri­cul­ture and nat­ur­al resources, and also pro­vides advice and con­ducts research on the devel­op­ment of next-gen­er­a­­tion domes­tic laws con­cern­ing for­eign invest­ment in these sectors.

IISD​’s invest­ment work over the past years has incor­po­rat­ed six main clusters:

• Pro­vi­sion of legal advice to devel­op­ing coun­try gov­ern­ments and civ­il society;
• Build­ing capac­i­ty through train­ing cours­es for civ­il soci­ety, devel­op­ing coun­try gov­ern­ments, par­lia­ments, jour­nal­ists and oth­er groups;
• Coor­di­na­tion and orga­ni­za­tion of the Annu­al Forum for Devel­op­ing Coun­try Invest­ment Negotiators;
• Pub­lish­ing tar­get­ed invest­­ment-relat­ed research;
• Pro­duc­ing and dis­sem­i­na­tion of the flag­ship news bul­letin, Invest­ment Treaty News (ITN), the first such ser­vice entire­ly freely available;
• Man­ag­ing a list­serv exclu­sive­ly for devel­op­ing coun­try pol­i­­cy-mak­ers work­ing on invest­ment issues – Invest­ment Pol­i­cy Net­work (IPN).

A full review of IISD​’s work in this area can be found at www​.iisd​.org/​i​n​v​e​s​tment.

This place­ment site may pro­vide a stipend for its interns. The amount may vary depend­ing on the year and the indi­vid­ual student’s over­all finan­cial aid pack­age. The stu­dent will need to reg­is­ter with Swiss tax author­i­ties, and may incur tax lia­bil­i­ty (Swiss and US).

The Inter­na­tion­al Ser­vice for Human Rights (ISHR) is an inde­pen­dent, non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion (NGO) ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing and pro­tect­ing human rights. ISHR achieves this by sup­port­ing human rights defend­ers, strength­en­ing human rights sys­tems, and lead­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in coali­tions for human rights change at the inter­na­tion­al and region­al level.

A place­ment with this agency pro­vides stu­dents with an excel­lent overview of the UN human rights sys­tem as a whole, and facil­i­tates the devel­op­ment of skills in crit­i­cal analysis. 

Nature of the Extern’s Work and Supervision

Externs are required to mon­i­tor UN human rights meet­ings, includ­ing the Human Rights Coun­cil, treaty body ses­sions, and work­ing groups. Interns sub­stan­tive­ly con­tribute to ISHR​’s pub­li­ca­tions and ana­lyt­i­cal mate­r­i­al, in par­tic­u­lar the reg­u­lar online pub­li­ca­tions. Externs are also giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be involved in ISHR​’s work with region­al human rights defend­ers’ net­works, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Africa, and to assist with the prepa­ra­tion of ISHR engage­ment with human rights bod­ies at the region­al lev­el. Externs will also learn about how an inter­na­tion­al human rights NGO func­tions, and gain exten­sive expo­sure to UN human rights mechanisms.

The extern will also work on legal research projects, depend­ing on cur­rent devel­op­ments in the UN sys­tem at the time. Exam­ples of pre­vi­ous research include research on the con­sis­ten­cy of rec­om­men­da­tions under the Human Rights Council’s uni­ver­sal peri­od­ic review (UPR) with inter­na­tion­al law stan­dards, and con­tri­bu­tions to ISHR sub­mis­sions o Gen­er­al Com­ments devel­oped by treaty bodies.

Impor­tant Infor­ma­tion for Students

A strong back­ground in either inter­na­tion­al human rights law or pol­i­tics and knowl­edge of oth­er lan­guages, in par­tic­u­lar French or Span­ish, is preferred.

To be con­sid­ered, appli­cants should:

• be moti­vat­ed to pur­sue a career in human rights and have a par­tic­u­lar inter­est in the UN human rights system;

• have an excel­lent stan­dard of writ­ten and spo­ken English;

• be able to report thor­ough­ly and accu­rate­ly on the meetings;

• be flex­i­ble, includ­ing will­ing­ness to cov­er the evening ses­sions of some UN meetings;

• be able to work as a mem­ber of a team and will­ing to par­tic­i­pate in a vari­ety of tasks, as required.

The stu­dent will be asked to com­plete an appli­ca­tion form and a short writ­ing exer­cise as part of his or her application.

To learn more about the Inter­na­tion­al Ser­vice for Human Rights, please vis­it their web­site.

The Office of the High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights (OHCHR) sup­ports the work of the Unit­ed Nations High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights, the prin­ci­pal human rights offi­cial of the Unit­ed Nations. The Office spear­heads the Unit­ed Nations’ human rights efforts by offer­ing lead­er­ship, work­ing objec­tive­ly, edu­cat­ing, and tak­ing action to empow­er indi­vid­u­als and assist States in uphold­ing human rights.

OHCHR works to ensure the enforce­ment of uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­nized human rights norms, includ­ing through pro­mot­ing both the uni­ver­sal rat­i­fi­ca­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the major human rights treaties and respect for the rule of law. Stu­dents may be placed in one of the three fol­low­ing units:

• Human Rights Treaties Divi­sion (Sec­tion I) (unlike­ly to be avail­able for 2024)
• Peti­tions and Inquiries Sec­tion (poten­tial­ly avail­able for 2024) 
• Rule of Law and Democ­ra­cy Unit (not avail­able for 2024)

Human Rights Treaties Divi­sion (Sec­tion I)

While the OHCHR Human Rights Treaties Divi­sion sup­ports the work of all the nine core human rights treaty bod­ies, Sec­tion I in par­tic­u­lar sup­ports the work of the Human Rights Com­mit­tee; the Com­mit­tee on Eco­nom­ic, Social and Cul­tur­al Rights (CESCR); the Com­mit­tee on the Elim­i­na­tion of Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion (CERD); the Com­mit­tee on the Elim­i­na­tion of Dis­crim­i­na­tion against Women (CEDAW); and the Com­mit­tee against Tor­ture (CAT). In addi­tion to orga­niz­ing ses­sions, this involves the prepa­ra­tion of coun­try briefs, draft­ing of lists of issues, of draft rec­om­men­da­tions and deci­sions on indi­vid­ual com­plaints, sup­port­ing fol­low-up pro­ce­dures, and orga­niz­ing meet­ings of States Par­ties as well as with oth­er stakeholders.

Nature of the Extern’s Work and Supervision

Dur­ing the pro­posed dura­tion of the intern­ship, the intern will pri­mar­i­ly be assigned to assist the Sec­tion with its work on pro­vid­ing sup­port to the UN Treaty Bod­ies. How­ev­er, giv­en the size of the Sec­tion and the over­whelm­ing demands placed upon it, tasks may be large­ly based on cur­rent demands and needs. Tasks may include:

• Con­duct legal research, analy­sis and writ­ing on var­i­ous human rights issues, includ­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions to the UN treaty bod­ies, deci­sions on indi­vid­ual com­mu­ni­ca­tions, peri­od­ic State reports, con­clud­ing obser­va­tions and rec­om­men­da­tions of the treaty bod­ies, as well as reports and sub­mis­sions by nation­al and inter­na­tion­al NGOs.
• Assist in prepar­ing and fol­low­ing treaty body ses­sions and oth­er meet­ings as necessary.
• Liaise with treaty body members.
• Under­take any rel­e­vant duties and tasks as they per­tain to the assignment.

(The Sec­tion will do its utmost to ensure the incum­bent will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain some work expe­ri­ence on any of his/​her par­tic­u­lar inter­ests with­in the work of the Sec­tion — to be dis­cussed with their Supervisor).

Peti­tions Unit

The Peti­tions Unit of the Peti­tions and Inquiries Sec­tion in the Human Rights Treaties Branch is the Sec­re­tari­at for treaty bod­ies with regard to indi­vid­ual com­plaints. The main intern’s role would be to sup­port the Peti­tions Unit in screen­ing incom­ing cor­re­spon­dence and eval­u­ate if a pri­ma facie case has been pre­sent­ed or if addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion needs to be sought from the peti­tion­er. Dur­ing the intern­ship the interns will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fol­low indi­vid­ual com­plaint pro­ceed­ings from dif­fer­ent UN human rights treaty bod­ies and to assist human rights offi­cers with legal issues relat­ed to pend­ing cas­es, such as request for inter­im mea­sures, objec­tions to the admis­si­bil­i­ty, etc. Abil­i­ty to speak mul­ti­ple lan­guages is use­ful but not required.

For more infor­ma­tion on the indi­vid­ual com­plaints pro­ce­dure, please refer to the web­site http://​ohchr​.org/EN/HRBodies/​TBPetitions/​Pages/​HRTBPetitions.aspx. 

Rule of Law and Democ­ra­cy Unit

The aim of the Rule of Law and Democ­ra­cy Sec­tion (ROLDS) is to address key chal­lenges in human rights pro­tec­tion, such as armed con­flict and vio­lence, impuni­ty, demo­c­ra­t­ic deficit, and weak insti­tu­tions, through the elab­o­ra­tion of approach­es lead­ing to greater coun­try engage­ment to be pur­sued through work on the rule of law. The Section’s out­puts include:

Legal analy­sis and com­ments on draft laws and tech­ni­cal advice on how such leg­is­la­tion can be strength­ened to ful­ly respect human rights.

Oper­a­tional tools, best prac­tices, con­cept papers, guid­ance notes, and legal advice to sup­port jus­tice and account­abil­i­ty initiatives.

Sup­port and coor­di­na­tion of OHCHR​’s lead respon­si­bil­i­ties in the rule of law and democ­ra­cy area pur­suant to the Pol­i­cy Com­mit­tee deci­sions, includ­ing on tran­si­tion­al jus­tice and inves­ti­ga­tions, and with­in the frame­work of the Sec­re­tary General’s Glob­al Counter-Ter­ror­ism Strategy.

Nature of Extern’s work and supervision

The extern will assist, under the gen­er­al super­vi­sion of the Chief of Sec­tion, in the work of Human Rights Offi­cers respon­si­ble for one or more of the the­mat­ic areas of access to jus­tice and the role of courts in human rights pro­tec­tion, tran­si­tion­al jus­tice, counter-ter­ror­ism and human rights, account­abil­i­ty, democ­ra­cy, and admin­is­tra­tive legal issues. Tasks may include:

• Con­duct­ing legal research, analy­sis, and writ­ing on var­i­ous rule of law and democ­ra­cy issues from human rights per­spec­tive, includ­ing analy­ses of the out­puts of UN mech­a­nisms such as Human Right Coun­cil reports, treaty bod­ies, spe­cial pro­ce­dures as well as reports by nation­al and inter­na­tion­al NGOs.
• Assist­ing in prepar­ing expert work­shops and con­sul­ta­tions on rel­e­vant rule of law and democ­ra­cy issues.
• Assist­ing in the devel­op­ment of guid­ance mate­ri­als and oth­er tools.
• Liais­ing with OHCHR field offi­cers work­ing on rule of law and democ­ra­cy issues.
• Fol­low­ing ses­sions of the Human Rights Coun­cil, treaty bod­ies and meet­ings of spe­cial pro­ce­dures and oth­er part­ners, as necessary.
• Any rel­e­vant duties and tasks as they per­tain to the assignment.

(This Sec­tion will do its utmost to ensure the incum­bent will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain some work expe­ri­ence on his/​her par­tic­u­lar inter­ests — to be dis­cussed with their Supervisor).

Impor­tant Infor­ma­tion for Students

Par­tic­i­pants in the intern­ship pro­gram are select­ed from grad­u­ate stu­dents and hold­ers of grad­u­ate-lev­­el degrees in dis­ci­plines relat­ed to the work of the Unit­ed Nations, e.g. Inter­na­tion­al Law, Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, His­to­ry, Social Sci­ences. Pref­er­ence will be giv­en to those, with­in these dis­ci­plines, who have spe­cial­ized in human rights issues. A course in inter­na­tion­al human rights law is required. Excel­lent writ­ing skills in Eng­lish are a pre­req­ui­site, and advanced knowl­edge of French and/​or Span­ish is a strong asset. The appli­cant should be able to work autonomous­ly but also with­in a team, often under pres­sure of fre­quent and tight dead­lines. Demon­strat­ed polit­i­cal judg­ment and dis­cre­tion are essen­tial. The selec­tion of the extern shall be sub­ject to reg­u­lar OHCHR procedures.

Nature of extern’s work and supervision

The extern will pri­mar­i­ly be assigned to assist the Sec­tion with its work on women’s human rights and gen­der equal­i­ty. Tasks may include:

• Prepara­to­ry work for the devel­op­ment of poli­cies and reports on the human rights of women and gen­der equality.
• Con­duct­ing research and analy­sis on the out­puts of the UN mech­a­nisms, includ­ing Human Rights Coun­cil reports, treaty bod­ies, spe­cial pro­ce­dures and nation­al and inter­na­tion­al NGOs.
• Assist in orga­niz­ing meet­ings as nec­es­sary, includ­ing with the Human Rights Coun­cil, UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teurs, treaty bod­ies and oth­er partners.
• Any rel­e­vant duties and tasks as they per­tain to the assignment.

(The Sec­tion will do its utmost to ensure the incum­bent will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain some work expe­ri­ence on any of his/​her par­tic­u­lar inter­ests — to be dis­cussed with their Supervisor).

Impor­tant Infor­ma­tion for Students

Par­tic­i­pants in the intern­ship pro­gram are select­ed from grad­u­ate stu­dents and hold­ers of grad­u­ate-lev­­el degrees in dis­ci­plines relat­ed to the work of the Unit­ed Nations, e.g. Inter­na­tion­al Law, Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, His­to­ry, Social Sci­ences. Pref­er­ence will be giv­en to those, with­in these dis­ci­plines, who have spe­cial­ized in human rights issues. A course in inter­na­tion­al human rights law is required. Excel­lent writ­ing skills in Eng­lish are a pre­req­ui­site, and advanced knowl­edge of French and/​or Span­ish is a strong asset. The appli­cant should be able to work autonomous­ly but also with­in a team, often under pres­sure of fre­quent and tight dead­lines. Demon­strat­ed polit­i­cal judg­ment and dis­cre­tion are essen­tial. The selec­tion of the extern shall be sub­ject to reg­u­lar OHCHR procedures.

The Unit­ed Nations Con­fer­ence on Trade and Devel­op­ment (UNC­TAD) pro­motes the devel­op­­ment-friend­­ly inte­gra­tion of devel­op­ing coun­tries into the world econ­o­my. UNC­TAD has pro­gres­sive­ly evolved into an author­i­ta­tive knowl­­edge-based insti­tu­tion whose work aims to help shape cur­rent pol­i­cy debates and think­ing on devel­op­ment, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on ensur­ing that domes­tic poli­cies and inter­na­tion­al action are mutu­al­ly sup­port­ive in bring­ing about sus­tain­able development.

Nature of the Extern’s Work and Supervision

The intern will be involved in the fol­low­ing tasks:

• Under­take research and pre­pare ini­tial drafts of, and inputs to, reports, stud­ies, newslet­ters, train­ing mod­ules, and hand­books being pre­pared by the Branch on select­ed salient legal issues in the inter­na­tion­al trad­ing sys­tem of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to devel­op­ing countries.
• Con­tribute to the orga­ni­za­tion of inter­gov­ern­men­tal meet­ings, expert meet­ings, and tech­ni­cal coop­er­a­tion activ­i­ties, such as train­ing sem­i­nars and workshops.
• Assist in rep­re­sent­ing UNC­TAD in, and report­ing on, delib­er­a­tions of var­i­ous coun­cils and com­mit­tees of WTO in which UNC­TAD has observ­er sta­tus, such as the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, Coun­cils for Trade in Goods, Ser­vices, TRIPS, Trade Pol­i­cy Review Body, and their sub­sidiary bodies.
• Per­form oth­er tasks as required, such as prepar­ing brief­ing notes and pre­sen­ta­tion materials.

Impor­tant Infor­ma­tion for Students

UNC­TAD-DITC will take one stu­dent. The extern should have good under­stand­ing and research expe­ri­ence in WTO dis­ci­plines and practices.

Divi­sion on Invest­ment and Enter­prise (DIAE)

UNC­TAD​’s Divi­sion on Invest­ment and Enter­prise is imple­ment­ing a pro­gramme on inter­na­tion­al invest­ment agree­ments, seek­ing to assist devel­op­ing coun­tries to par­tic­i­pate effec­tive­ly in inter­na­tion­al invest­ment rule-mak­ing and to man­age, and learn from, investor-State dis­pute set­tle­ment. The pro­gramme embraces legal and pol­i­cy analy­sis, human resources devel­op­ment and insti­tu­tion build­ing, E‑tools and data col­lec­tion, and consensus-building.

Nature of the Extern’s Work and Supervision

The extern will:

• Con­duct research key issues in inter­na­tion­al invest­ment agree­ments and their devel­op­ment dimen­sion for the Sec­ond Gen­er­a­tion Series on Issues in Inter­na­tion­al Invest­ment Agreements.
• Con­duct research for reg­u­lar inter­na­tion­al invest­ment agree­ments publications.
• Assist in col­lect­ing data on bilat­er­al invest­ment treaties and FTAs with invest­ment provisions.
• Assist in updat­ing the online data­base on investor-State disputes.
• Pro­vide assis­tance on any oth­er legal issue relat­ed to inter­na­tion­al invest­ment agree­ments as request­ed by the section.

Impor­tant Infor­ma­tion for Students

UNC­TAD-DIAE will take one stu­dent. The stu­dent must have:

• Strong legal back­ground, prefer­ably spe­cif­ic knowl­edge of inter­na­tion­al economic/​investment law.
• Excel­lent Eng­lish draft­ing skills.
• Atten­tion to detail.
• An under­stand­ing of or an inter­est in the devel­op­ment impli­ca­tions of inter­na­tion­al invest­ment rule making.

To learn more about Unit­ed Nations Con­fer­ence on Trade and Devel­op­ment, please vis­it their web­site.

The Unit­ed Nations Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Europe (UNECE) was set up in 1947 by ECOSOC. It is one of five region­al com­mis­sions of the Unit­ed Nations. UNECE​’s major aim is to pro­mote pan-Euro­­pean eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion. UNECE includes 56 mem­ber States in Europe, North Amer­i­ca and Asia. Over 70 inter­na­tion­al pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions and oth­er non-gov­­ern­­men­­tal orga­ni­za­tions take part in UNECE activities.

As a mul­ti­lat­er­al plat­form, UNECE facil­i­tates greater eco­nom­ic inte­gra­tion and coop­er­a­tion among its mem­ber coun­tries and pro­motes sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty through:

• pol­i­cy dialogue,
• nego­ti­a­tion of inter­na­tion­al legal instruments,
• devel­op­ment of reg­u­la­tions and norms,
• exchange and appli­ca­tion of best prac­tices as well as eco­nom­ic and tech­ni­cal expertise,
• tech­ni­cal coop­er­a­tion for coun­tries with economies in transition.

UNECE con­tributes to enhanc­ing the effec­tive­ness of the Unit­ed Nations through the region­al imple­men­ta­tion of out­comes of glob­al Unit­ed Nations Con­fer­ences and Sum­mits. It gives focus to the Unit­ed Nations glob­al man­dates in the eco­nom­ic field, in coop­er­a­tion with oth­er glob­al play­ers and key stake­hold­ers, notably the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. UNECE also sets out norms, stan­dards and con­ven­tions to facil­i­tate inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion with­in and out­side the region.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion on UNECE​’s intern­ship pro­gram, see https://​unece​.org/​u​nece-intern­­ship-pro­­gramme

Human Rights Liai­son Unit

The Unit­ed Nations High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UNHCR) is man­dat­ed by the Unit­ed Nations to lead and coor­di­nate inter­na­tion­al action for the world­wide pro­tec­tion of refugees and the res­o­lu­tion of refugee problems.

UNHCR is an impar­tial orga­ni­za­tion, offer­ing pro­tec­tion and assis­tance to refugees and oth­ers on the basis of their needs and irre­spec­tive of their race, reli­gion, polit­i­cal opin­ion, or gen­der. In its efforts to pro­tect refugees and to pro­mote solu­tions to their prob­lems, UNHCR works in part­ner­ship with gov­ern­ments, region­al orga­ni­za­tions, inter­na­tion­al, and non­govern­men­tal organizations.

The Human Rights Liai­son Unit is part of the Pol­i­cy and Law Pil­lar (“Pil­lar I”) of the Divi­sion of Inter­na­tion­al Pro­tec­tion (DIP). The Unit aims at pro­mot­ing the effec­tive use of inter­na­tion­al human rights law and UN human rights mech­a­nisms to strength­en the pro­tec­tion of per­sons of con­cern to UNHCR.

Nature of the Extern’s Work and Supervision

The externs assist in the final­iza­tion of UNHCR​’s con­fi­den­tial com­ments to the sev­en human rights treaty bod­ies, attend the treaty body ses­sions, and pre­pare feed­back to UNHCR col­leagues cov­er­ing the coun­tries under exam­i­na­tion. Externs also fol­low pro­ceed­ings at the Human Rights Coun­cil, and pro­vide feed­back to UNHCR col­leagues on dis­cus­sions of rel­e­vance to the work of UNHCR. In addi­tion, externs are required to under­take legal research and analy­ses on var­i­ous top­ics of rel­e­vance to UNHCR​’s work.

While the pre­cise tasks of interns vary, tak­ing into account the sched­ule of treaty bod­ies, the reg­u­lar and spe­cial ses­sions of the Human Rights Coun­cil, and the Human Rights Coun­cil Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic Reviews, as well as the spe­cif­ic skills, com­pe­ten­cies, and areas of inter­est of the respec­tive intern, the main tasks in which interns at our sec­tions are involved are the following:

• Con­tribut­ing to the com­pi­la­tion of infor­ma­tion and prepa­ra­tion of UNHCR sub­mis­sions to the dif­fer­ent treaty bodies.
• Mon­i­tor­ing of ses­sions of treaty bod­ies as observers on behalf of UNHCR.
• Prepa­ra­tion of feed­back to the con­cerned field offices on the delib­er­a­tion and out­come of the debate on coun­try reports by treaty bodies.
• Par­tic­i­pa­tion as observers in the ses­sions of the Human Rights Coun­cil, as well as in infor­mal meet­ings orga­nized in par­al­lel to the Coun­cil ses­sions, or any spe­cial Coun­cil meet­ings through­out the year and prepa­ra­tion of reports.
• To con­tribute to the com­pi­la­tion of infor­ma­tion and prepa­ra­tion of UNHCR sub­mis­sions on coun­tries to be exam­ined under the Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic Review (UPR) mech­a­nism.
• To con­tribute to the prepa­ra­tion of sum­maries of UPR sub­mis­sions to be used for ​“lob­by­ing” pur­pos­es ahead of the UPR sessions.
• Par­tic­i­pa­tion as observers in the ses­sions of the Human Rights Coun­cil Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic Reviews.
• Legal research tasks on human rights issues relat­ing to refugees and oth­er per­sons of con­cern to UNHCR.
• Search for and analy­sis of doc­u­ments pro­duced by the UN human rights machinery.
• Edit­ing posi­tion papers and oth­er legal documents.

In addi­tion, where occa­sions arise, interns may par­tic­i­pate in bi- and mul­ti­lat­er­al meet­ings of UNHCR with gov­ern­ment and oth­er agency part­ners, as well as in train­ing sem­i­nars or brief­in­gs offered by UNHCR colleagues.

Interns may occa­sion­al­ly be asked to offer sup­port to oth­er units with­in the Divi­sion of Inter­na­tion­al Protection.

The Pro­tec­tion Pol­i­cy and Legal Advice Section

PPLA is the core legal sec­tion with­in the Divi­sion of Inter­na­tion­al Pro­tec­tion and is at the cut­ting edge of the pro­gres­sive devel­op­ment of inter­na­tion­al refugee law. PPLA works to enhance the rights of asy­lum-seek­ers and refugees through legal and pol­i­cy advice and research, the

pro­duc­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of guide­lines and posi­tion papers, com­men­taries on nation­al (as well as region­al and glob­al) legal and pol­i­cy frame­works, sub­mis­sion of court inter­ven­tions (ami­cus briefs), as well as mon­i­tor­ing and engage­ment with region­al and glob­al process­es, human rights and stan­­dard-set­t­ing mech­a­nisms, and the Exec­u­tive Committee.

As a mem­ber of the Pro­tec­tion Pol­i­cy and Legal Advice Sec­tion (PPLA) in the Divi­sion of Inter­na­tion­al Pro­tec­tion (com­pris­ing the chief of sec­tion, three senior legal offi­cers and two legal offi­cers), interns will be engaged in a range of tasks includ­ing dis­crete legal research projects on var­i­ous top­ics of rel­e­vance to UNHCR​’s work. The intern may also be called upon to assist in the prepa­ra­tion of expert meet­ings, or to attend and report on var­i­ous brief­in­gs or bilat­er­al or mul­ti­lat­er­al meet­ings, to draft or edit pol­i­cy and legal doc­u­ments or advice, as required, and oth­er tasks as they arise.

Interns will par­tic­i­pate in a range of activ­i­ties with­in PPLA, and will become famil­iar with the dai­ly real­i­ties of work­ing in a large human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tion. The over­ar­ch­ing objec­tives of the intern­ship – from the per­spec­tive of the intern – are (i) to gain a deep­er knowl­edge of the work of UNHCR and the inter­na­tion­al legal frame­works gov­ern­ing the organization’s inter­ven­tions and (ii) to prac­tice and develop ​‘pro­fes­sion­al work­ing skills’, such as project and time man­age­ment, pri­or­i­ti­za­tion, team work, pre­sen­ta­tion skills, draft­ing, etc. While we aim to engage the intern in a dis­crete legal research project, interns may also be called upon to become more direct­ly involved in all the oper­a­tional aspects of our work. The intern­ship how­ev­er also includes some ele­ments of rou­tine (e.g. com­pi­la­tion and prepa­ra­tion of sem­i­nar fold­ers, oth­er admin­is­tra­tive work).

Interns may be asked to offer sup­port to oth­er units with­in the Divi­sion of Inter­na­tion­al Protection.

Judi­cial Engage­ment Section

More infor­ma­tion to come.

Impor­tant Infor­ma­tion for Students

UNHCR, is cur­rent­ly fac­ing desk space lim­i­ta­tions and out of neces­si­ty, a num­ber of interns are currently ​“hot desk­ing”. This has meant that they are not in a posi­tion to be able to offer a desk for each intern on a full-time basis for the dura­tion of their intern­ship. Interns are able to use an avail­able desk when staff are away on mis­sion, work­ing remote­ly, or on leave. How­ev­er, from time to time, interns will need to work from the UN Library at the Palais des Nations in Gene­va (a few hun­dred meters walk from the office). Interns must be able and will­ing to work from loca­tions oth­er than the office. 

Externs work­ing with the Human Rights Liai­son Unit must have stud­ied transna­tion­al law and human rights law. Knowl­edge and/​or expe­ri­ence in the field of refugee law will be high­ly val­ued. Flu­en­cy in Eng­lish is a pre­req­ui­site, and knowl­edge of anoth­er UN lan­guage would be an asset. While not being a for­mal require­ment, any rel­e­vant work expe­ri­ence will of course also be tak­en into account in the selec­tion of interns.

To learn more about the UNHCR, please vis­it their web­site.

The Mission’s role is to rep­re­sent the U.S. gov­ern­ment in Gene­va with the Unit­ed Nations and oth­er inter­na­tion­al agen­cies in Gene­va, as well as with the more than 100 coun­tries that also main­tain per­ma­nent mis­sions to the UN in Geneva. 

Diplo­mat­ic Mis­sion to the Unit­ed Nations

As the Mis­sion staff man­ages a heavy work­load, externs will assume sig­nif­i­cant respon­si­bil­i­ty under the super­vi­sion of the three legal advi­sors. It is crit­i­cal that select­ed externs pos­sess excel­lent legal research and writ­ing skills. Ide­al appli­cants have a demon­strat­ed inter­est in inter­na­tion­al trade law. The posi­tion is open only to U.S. cit­i­zens; the select­ed appli­cant will need to obtain a U.S. Gov­ern­ment secu­ri­ty clearance.

To learn more about the Office of the U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and the U.S. Mis­sion to the WTO, please vis­it www​.ustr​.gov.

Nature of the Extern’s Work and Supervision

The U.S. Mis­sion Legal Office expects externs to pre­pare writ­ten legal research and analy­sis on a vari­ety of inter­na­tion­al and U.S. law sub­jects, includ­ing human rights, armed con­flict, refugees, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, labor, priv­i­leges and immu­ni­ties, and the war on ter­ror. In prin­ci­ple, legal issues may come up relat­ed to any of the more than 50 inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ed in Gene­va which address a wide array of eco­nom­ic, sci­en­tif­ic, envi­ron­men­tal, and human­i­tar­i­an mat­ters. The U.S. Mis­sion tries to expose interns to a vari­ety of top­ics and assign­ments and involve them in the dif­fer­ent aspects of mul­ti­lat­er­al nego­ti­a­tions, with the goal of pro­vid­ing a sol­id basis for them to under­stand the role of inter­na­tion­al law and diplo­ma­cy in inter­na­tion­al affairs.

Impor­tant Infor­ma­tion for Students

The Diplo­mat­ic Mis­sion to the UN will con­sid­er only 2L stu­dents. A course in inter­na­tion­al human rights law is required.

The extern­ship of the stu­dent select­ed by the U.S. Mis­sion will be depen­dent upon his or her receiv­ing a secu­ri­ty clear­ance from the U.S. Depart­ment of State, and will require the stu­dent to apply through the cen­tral­ized U.S. State Depart­ment Intern­ship Appli­ca­tion process once select­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan selec­tion pan­el, and giv­en pre­lim­i­nary approval by the U.S. Mis­sion Legal Office. The for­mal offer of an intern­ship will not be made until after this entire process is com­plet­ed, and the stu­dent may not receive this final offer until just before depar­ture for the pro­gram. It is imper­a­tive that the stu­dent start this process imme­di­ate­ly upon selec­tion by the U.S. Mission.

On a space avail­able basis, the US Mis­sion offers a hous­ing option at its ​“Mis­sion Intern Chalet.” This is dor­mi­­to­ry-style hous­ing just out­side of the city cen­ter with reg­u­lar bus and train ser­vice into town.

To learn more about the U.S. Diplo­mat­ic Mis­sion, please vis­it its web­site.

Mis­sion to World Trade Organization

(Please note that the USTR is not pro­cess­ing secu­ri­ty clear­ances for this place­ment site at the moment. If you are inter­est­ed in the work of this mis­sion, there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that you can be assigned some work there as a part of oth­er us mis­sion place­ment to the un. Accord­ing­ly, please select the diplo­mat­ic mis­sion to the un and make a note in the com­ment field to that effect.)

The Unit­ed States Mis­sion to the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion (WTO), locat­ed in Gene­va, Switzer­land, offers an unpar­al­leled oppor­tu­ni­ty for law stu­dents to work for the Office of the U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive (USTR) abroad and observe first-hand the work­ing of the WTO, an orga­ni­za­tion with over 150 mem­bers. We wel­come law stu­dents with an inter­est in inter­na­tion­al trade law to apply for this position.

About the Legal Externship

The Mis­sion is part of the Office of the U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and is head­ed by the Deputy Unit­ed States Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive hold­ing the rank of Ambas­sador with a staff of approx­i­mate­ly 15 pro­fes­sion­als, includ­ing three legal advi­sors. Externs will assist Mis­sion staff in work­ing with oth­er WTO mem­bers and the WTO Sec­re­tari­at, as they for­mu­late U.S. posi­tions both in dis­pute set­tle­ment mat­ters and inter­na­tion­al trade negotiations.

Externs con­duct research relat­ed to ongo­ing dis­putes, his­tor­i­cal infor­ma­tion relat­ed to the WTO dis­pute set­tle­ment process, and nego­ti­a­tions on poten­tial reforms to the rules gov­ern­ing dis­pute set­tle­ment in the WTO. Externs also assist USTR staff in prepar­ing for meet­ings relat­ed to the pan­el selec­tion and orga­ni­za­tion­al process­es. Dur­ing the extern­ship at the Mis­sion, legal externs also will have the unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend hear­ings of dis­pute set­tle­ment pan­els, the Appel­late Body, and arbi­tra­tors in par­tic­u­lar WTO dis­putes. At present, many of these hear­ings are not pub­lic and only mem­bers of a gov­ern­ment del­e­ga­tion may attend.

About the Applicant

As the Mis­sion staff man­ages a heavy work­load, externs will assume sig­nif­i­cant respon­si­bil­i­ty under the super­vi­sion of the three legal advi­sors. It is crit­i­cal that select­ed externs pos­sess excel­lent legal research and writ­ing skills. Ide­al appli­cants have a demon­strat­ed inter­est in inter­na­tion­al trade law. The posi­tion is open only to U.S. cit­i­zens; the select­ed appli­cant will need to obtain a U.S. Gov­ern­ment secu­ri­ty clearance.

To learn more about the Office of the U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and the U.S. Mis­sion to the WTO, please vis­it www​.ustr​.gov.

The aim of the intern­ship is to sup­port UNICEF​’s engage­ment with human rights mech­a­nisms in Gene­va, includ­ing the Com­mit­tee on the Rights of the Child, Human Rights Coun­cil and the Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic review.

Descrip­tion

UNICEF works in some of the world’s tough­est places, to reach the world’s most dis­ad­van­taged chil­dren. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them ful­fill their potential. 

Across 190 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries, we work for every child, every­where, every day, to build a bet­ter world for everyone. 

And we nev­er give up. For every child, rights.

Advo­cat­ing for the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of the rights of every child, every­where, is at the core of UNICEF​’s man­date. In over 190 coun­tries, UNICEF sup­ports Gov­ern­ments and civ­il soci­ety in mak­ing the Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child a real­i­ty for all chil­dren. The Human Rights Unit in the Pro­gramme Group Lead­er­ship Team sup­ports the Organ­i­sa­tion in tak­ing a human rights and child rights-based approach to its work at all lev­els, from poli­cies to pro­grammes. In par­tic­u­lar, the Human Rights Unit focus­es on pro­mot­ing greater account­abil­i­ty for child rights, includ­ing through engage­ment with human rights mechanisms.

How can you make a difference? 

The aim of the intern­ship is to sup­port UNICEF​’s engage­ment with human rights mech­a­nisms in Gene­va, includ­ing the Com­mit­tee on the Rights of the Child, Human Rights Coun­cil and the Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic review.

The intern will work under the direct super­vi­sion of the Gene­­va-based Human Rights Spe­cial­ist, and will under­take the fol­low­ing tasks:

• Attend ses­sions and pre-ses­­sions of the Com­mit­tee on the Rights of the Child and pre­pare inter­nal notes for the record for use by UNICEF coun­try offices.
• Cov­er meet­ings at the Human Rights Coun­cil and fol­low side events and infor­mal con­sul­ta­tions on res­o­lu­tions and pre­pare inter­nal notes.
• Attend ses­sions of oth­er treaty bod­ies and take notes as required.
• Attend oth­er meet­ings on rel­e­vant issues and take notes as required.
• Assist in oth­er activ­i­ties as required.

Office of the Legal Counsel

The World Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Orga­ni­za­tion (WIPO) is a spe­cial­ized agency of the Unit­ed Nations. It is ded­i­cat­ed to devel­op­ing a bal­anced and acces­si­ble inter­na­tion­al intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (IP) sys­tem which rewards cre­ativ­i­ty, stim­u­lates inno­va­tion, and con­tributes to eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment while safe­guard­ing the pub­lic interest.

WIPO was estab­lished by the WIPO Con­ven­tion in 1967 with a man­date from its mem­ber states to pro­mote the pro­tec­tion of IP through­out the world through coop­er­a­tion among states and in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er inter­na­tion­al organizations.

Nature of the Extern’s Work and Supervision

The stu­dent will be doing research for and assist­ing the Legal Coun­sel in the per­for­mance of his/​her work. It gen­er­al­ly cov­ers host state rela­tions, con­tracts, research, and mem­os on treaty law ques­tions, as well as gen­er­al inter­na­tion­al law ques­tions (admin­is­tra­tive, con­sti­tu­tion­al, and gen­er­al) that come up in the prac­tice of law in an inter­na­tion­al organization.

Impor­tant Infor­ma­tion for Students

WIPO will take one stu­dent. An inter­na­tion­al law dis­tri­b­u­tion course is a require­ment. A course in intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty law is not required. French or Span­ish lan­guage skills would be an asset, but is not required.

This place­ment site may pro­vide a stipend for its interns. The amount may vary depend­ing on the year and the indi­vid­ual student’s over­all finan­cial aid pack­age. The stu­dent will need to reg­is­ter with Swiss tax author­i­ties, and may incur tax lia­bil­i­ty (Swiss and US).

Judi­cial Institute

Orga­ni­za­tion­al Setting

The intern­ship is locat­ed in the WIPO Judi­cial Insti­tute, with­in the IP and Inno­va­tion Ecosys­tems Sec­tor of the World Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Orga­ni­za­tion (WIPO). 

The WIPO Judi­cial Insti­tute, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er rel­e­vant WIPO areas, works to empow­er judi­cia­ries to ful­fill their vital role in ensur­ing that intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (IP), inno­va­tion and cre­ative ecosys­tems in Mem­ber States are bal­anced and effec­tive. It com­ple­ments the work of the WIPO Arbi­tra­tion and Medi­a­tion Cen­ter, as togeth­er these encom­pass the full range of options for the res­o­lu­tion of IP dis­putes. It also con­tributes to wider and more effec­tive use of WIPO​’s ser­vices, knowl­edge and data through the WIPO Lex database.

The Institute’s work in 2022 – 2023 will focus on:

• Fos­ter­ing increased transna­tion­al dia­logue for the judi­cial com­mu­ni­ty through the annu­al WIPO IP Judges Forum and oth­er judi­cial col­lo­quia, to exchange exper­tise on the most press­ing IP chal­lenges, to observe judi­cial approach­es of oth­er coun­tries and to gain insight to strength­en courts’ own analyses;
• Under­tak­ing tar­get­ed stud­ies to pro­mote in-depth under­stand­ing of top­ics of rel­e­vance to the glob­al IP judi­cia­ry, and to sup­port pol­i­cy choic­es in the judi­cial admin­is­tra­tion of IP, which may encom­pass leg­isla­tive, court admin­is­tra­tion and pro­ce­dur­al reform;
• Con­tribut­ing to increased IP knowl­edge and skills in all Mem­ber States by work­ing with nation­al and region­al judi­cial author­i­ties to pro­vide a holis­tic suite of tai­lored capac­i­ty build­ing sup­port and resources for judi­cia­ries, premised on nation­al own­er­ship and sus­tain­abil­i­ty and aligned with the legal tra­di­tions, and eco­nom­ic and social cir­cum­stances of Mem­ber States;
• Through refined data col­lec­tions and an improved user inter­face, facil­i­tat­ing use of the rich offer­ings of WIPO Lex as the glob­al knowl­edge base for IP-relat­ed treaties, nation­al and region­al laws, and judi­cial deci­sions and judi­cial sys­tems infor­ma­tion, for a wider, gen­er­al audience.

More infor­ma­tion on the work of the WIPO Judi­cial Insti­tute is avail­able at: https://​www​.wipo​.int/​a​b​o​u​t​— i​p​/​e​n​/​j​u​d​i​c​i​a​ries/​.

Duties and Responsibilities

The intern will support:

• stud­ies on the IP lit­i­ga­tion land­scape that include empir­i­cal research on the impact of cost of IP court lit­i­ga­tion and enhanc­ing access to jus­tice for SMEs, by under­tak­ing research and pro­duc­ing pre­lim­i­nary drafts;
• the Institute’s pub­li­ca­tions, by pro­duc­ing pre­lim­i­nary drafts, edit­ing, proof­read­ing and formatting;
• the orga­ni­za­tion of the WIPO IP Moot Com­pe­ti­tion, by pro­vid­ing gen­er­al pro­gram­mat­ic and admin­is­tra­tive support;
• the orga­ni­za­tion of WIPO judi­cial edu­ca­tion pro­grams, by draft­ing work­ing doc­u­ments and case sce­nar­ios, under­tak­ing coun­try-spe­­cif­ic research, and pro­vid­ing gen­er­al pro­gram­mat­ic and admin­is­tra­tive sup­port; and
• tech­ni­cal assis­tance to pol­i­cy reform in the court admin­is­tra­tion of IP dis­putes, by under­tak­ing research and pro­duc­ing pre­lim­i­nary drafts. 

This place­ment site may pro­vide a stipend for its interns. The amount may vary depend­ing on the year and the indi­vid­ual student’s over­all finan­cial aid pack­age. The stu­dent will need to reg­is­ter with Swiss tax author­i­ties, and may incur tax lia­bil­i­ty (Swiss and US).