Rabat, Morocco

This is Sarah Braasch writing to you from Morocco. I am working for a great organization -- the Moroccan Organization of Human Rights (OMDH) -- in Rabat. I couldn't be happier with my internship. Everyone is so kind and helpful here. I am working with another American intern, Caitlin Steinke, on a terrific project. Caitlin is an undergraduate at Connecticut College. We're developing a network of young human rights lawyers in Morocco to handle the onslaught of police brutality and torture cases which OMDH receives constantly. We're seeking funding, developing a training program for the lawyers, as well as an advocacy program for the police and the public. We're also creating an online forum / network, which we're looking to take international. Speaking of police brutality -- every night there is a demonstration in front of the parliament building, which occasionally gets out of hand, but is, for the most part, relatively peaceful. The group protesting is composed of young people with graduate and professional degrees and training who cannot find work. I took several pictures, and I'll post a few.

Separately, I am also studying the recent revisions to the family code, the mudawana, as well as the nationality code. I am terribly interested in the impact on women's rights, and the effect, generally, of the existence of a state religion, and, specifically, Islam. There have been a lot of exciting developments recently with respect to women's rights in Morocco, and I am fascinated by the dynamic between this push towards modernity and Islamic Law.

My French improves each day. While I read and write well, my speaking French was a little shaky at first. I am also trying to pick up as much Arabic as possible.

Morocco is beautiful, and the people are wonderful. So welcoming and kind and hospitable. The men are a little aggressive -- which took some time to get used to -- but now I feel comfortable and know how to handle myself pretty well. I've made it a point to talk to as many people as possible. The young people in particular are incredibly open and more than happy to discuss any subject, be it politics, religion, cultural and social mores, the war in Iraq, etc., etc..

That's all for now folks. More from Morocco later. Ma'asalama.

June 20 is World Refugee Day

Today is World Refugee Day. There are 40 million people who have been forced from their homes by war-- not to mention the many more that have fled for other reasons. To experience displacement ever so briefly, through the eyes of our clients, is harrowing, sad, exhilirating and powerful. The eyes that touched me those first days of work are now ones that recognize me and have learned to say hello in English. Her parents, I now consider my friends. Her baby sister is still intrigued.

In my third week of work, I have come to appreciate the stories I have heard. As I sometimes must try to maneuver my Chinese and they, their English, I often wonder what would possess a 15 year old to swim across a river, or walk across a border to get away from what they know to be home. What makes them strong enough to survive being sold into marriage, or years of imprisonment and still have a smile on their face? I guess for the stories I hear, there is in some ways a happy ending-- that through it all, they are the ones who have reached their destination. A new hope for the future.

But for the many millions more, their stories are still being made- they live in tents, they don't know whether they will be caught, deported, and even killed. They can't be sure where their next meal will come from and whether their children will be able to go to school. So it continues- they struggle with the unknown, with instability, and as they wait, they merely continue to live.

Bon Soir from Paris

It's been far too long since my last post, but I've been so absorbed at work, and at play, trying to live the life of a Parisian, that I've almost come to think that the world I left behind in NYC is simply an illusion.

But to snap back into reality for a moment--here is a glimpse into my life:

The OECD(http://www.oecd.org) has been amazing to work with. It is a truly ideal setting, with an enormous staff of inspired, forward-thinking, internationally diverse, and talented individuals. There is a true sense that we are all working towards something great--despite wide divergence on the subject matter and focus within the different directorates and divisions of the organization. The building is located in la Défense, the major business district just outside of the city proper--an area of looming glass skyscrapers and modern art surrounding a plaza that looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Each day I work among the throngs of Parisian businessmen(and women!), the center of Paris' economic life and the locus of its productive workforce--a purposefully constructed business district which is far more focused than in any other city I have every visited.


I have been placed in the Science, Technology, and Industry Directorate, in the Information Communications Technology division, one of the larger divisions within OECD. The division is responsible for tracking and analyzing the worldwide progress of technical development, and what firms, governments, and universities are doing in the field. I am working on the IT Outlook 2008--which is a biannual report detailing a wealth of data on the ICT industry and is one of the preeminent primary sources for statistical data in the field as well as an invaluable, and influential, tool for policy makers. My assignment right now is twofold--I'll be writing a module in the ITO that examines the emerging technologies that are currently being researched worldwide, and what their impact will be, especially in the developing world. A subsection of this module will be a report on the advancements in 'green' technology, and this will likely also be developed into a standalone paper a bit more in-depth than what will be published in the ITO. So far, it's been research, research, research, and while it's very challenging, it's incredibly stimulating--and quite intriguing to think that the work I'm doing now may have an impact on future policy.

Besides work, Paris has been treating me well--I bought a motorscooter so I can get around like a Parisian(i.e. very fast, and always *this close* to being run over by a taxi). I've managed to visit quite a few of the city's amazing parks, including the gorgeous Parc des Buttes Chaumont. I'm enjoying the free time of summer by going running everyday in the nearby Parc Monceau. I spent an amazing evening with two Canadians and an Australian who were passing through Paris, sitting on the steps of La Basilique du Sacré Coeur, drinking red wine and listening to the musicians who bring their guitars there every night. Sadly, however, my own guitar did not make it to Paris in one piece. It was completely destroyed when British Airways finally delivered it to me a day and a half late. The pictures are too frightful to post. However, that devastating turn of events quickly became an opportunity for me to visit the famed Rue de Douai, near Pigalle, an amazing street in the heart of Paris with guitar shop after guitar shop--literally over 30 of them within less than a kilometer. A guitar lover's paradise. I bought myself a new one, and I can happily report that there is nothing quite as enjoyable as playing a guitar on a park bench in Paris in the summer.

Finally, I've made friends with a group of French students who have all just finished lycée. They are helping me with my French and I'm helping them improve their already impressive English. Last weekend, they took me to an enormous outdoor fête at Parc du Champ-de-Mars, the large greenspace below and behind la Tour Eiffel. Tens of thousands of French high school students gathered there, drinking, singing, shouting, dancing, and generally partying-hard as they celebrated the end of le bac, the high school exit exam. It was incredible. That night, I also managed to perfect my French accent on the phrase "Ouru de vous rencontre," or "Nice to meet you," as I moved around the crowd and shared in the massive jubiliation of the Parisian youth until early in the morning.

This is, in a nutshell, my Paris experience thus far, and I eagerly await more. To Leitner scholars and dear readers--be well. À bientôt.

Saludos from Zapópan, Jalisco, México

Hola todos! I've been meaning to contribute to this blog for a while, but my laptop took a dislike to Mexico early in my trip and crashed, so my internet access has been touch and go. I am working at an organization called Acortar Distancias, http://www.acortardistancias.org/, which serves people living in the poorest neighborhoods in the outskirts of the city of Zapópan, which borders Guadalajara, Mexico. In addition to working at Acortar Distancias during the days, I am happy to be taking an evening class on human rights law at the Universidad Panamericana in Guadalajara. This has been a great way to meet people and to study some of the topics that animated me to go to law school in the first place.
Guadalajara is one of the wealthiest, most modern cities in Mexico, and so the contrast between the excess and extreme poverty is startling and impossible to ignore. I spend a good amount of my commute time each day trying to make sense of this dichotomy as the bus bumps its way from the middle class neighborhood where I am living to the neighborhoods where I work, where the architecture of the houses can best be described as forts scattered amid the city's garbage dump.
I haven't done any sightseeing yet, but I´m taking in the city during the course of my adventures to visit judges and jails each day with the lawyers in my office. Most of the clients in the neighborhood where we work are abused women, people who are the victims of exorbitant interest rates and unconscionable contracts (think 2-wheel corp. times 10) and people imprisoned without a fair trial.
In the last week, we started our summer "campaña" which is a 6 week-long push to alert the people in the community around our center to their legal rights and to process extemporaneous birth certificates and identification cards for the people who don't exist according to the State. This campaign involves going from house to house and talking with all the people about their rights and needs of their families. So, I've been doing the work of a social worker. Ideally, I´d be trained to handle the kinds of sensitive issues that I come upon in every doorway, but what is needed above all is someone to show some compassion and to treat the people with dignity. For example, this morning I tapped my 5 peso coin on a piece of metal fence post long enough that a little girl crawled out from under a blanket/tent like structure to see what the gringa with the sunglasses wanted with her family. She let me in and I was introduced to 9 children under age 12 - all brothers and sisters huddled together under a blanket. None of them goes to school, the mother works all day, and the father is not in the picture. It wasn't a moment to act like a lawyer, so i sat down and began talking to the children about how they spend their days, how strong the sun is here, what the streets of New York look like. When I left, I made note in my log that the professional social workers in Acortar Distancias would have to return to this family. Although I am witnessing horrible injustices in this work, I find it incredibly life-giving to meet wonderful, generous people in the midst of such poverty. It's beautiful to see that they have faith in God despite the fact that the dogs in Manhattan live in far more comfort and dignity than they do. Almost every dwelling, no matter how poor, has an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the entrance, and it helps me to keep presence of God as I make my way through the trash and the signs of life. I'm also grateful to find motivation to continue in the legal profession because I see that, poco a poco, the lawyers I work with are improving the lives of the people in the community.

Thanks all for posting. Keep up your good work and let's not forget these experiences as we choose our career paths in the next 2 years.
-Monica Brown

Kolkata Daze

Tonight, while watching a cloudy sunset from the balcony of my guesthouse and listening to the medley of cawing crows and chanting coming from a nearby religious service, I thought about how I could concisely verbalize my experience in Kolkata (Calcutta) thus far. I can’t.

I spent the afternoon at a shelter in the Kidderpore red-light district. It’s run by Apne Aap Women Worldwide, the NGO I’m interning with. To look at it, you could not tell it is a place of refuge. On either side of the alley that marks its entry, stood women waiting for their next client. They looked at me curiously as I approached. I smiled. They smiled. I wondered what they were thinking…how they viewed me walking into their world.

A world best classified as hell. Every night, hundreds of women waiting. Man after man. And rape when the women would rather say no. Filthy mattresses. A shared shower to wash away despair that must never disappear. Escape mostly impossible. Some young girls even in cages until they are seasoned to the lifestyle. Nine year olds neither uncommon nor the youngest. A price over their head that they are working to pay off but because of their helplessness lingers on indefinitely. Unimaginable. And yet true.

Following Reena, the woman showing me around, I walked down the littered alley into a dark doorway and up paan-stained stairs. On the second level, we were greeted by a group of excited, young girls. We sat on the cement floor in a circle, or rather, in a circle around me. I smiled and laughed as they practiced their English and pointed to their drawings on the wall. And then they laughed at me when I tried pronouncing their names.

In the corner of the room sat a pile of blankets for when the kids return to sleep at the shelter while their mothers “service” customers. Not all kids in the red-light district are fortunate enough to be sent to classes and a crèche at night. These kids’ mothers are hoping to break the cycle that is only so common to prostitutes and their daughters.

It’s hard to comprehend being in a red light district of Kolkata, looking at the playing kids, the waiting women and the men who nonchalantly walk by. I can’t quite grasp it, and I suppose the reason why is that it makes no sense. There is no justification for why these women are oppressed and enslaved.

Enough depressing realities…here are some photos around town. They are random and not really representative. Next time I promise to take some of the amazing colonial architecture, covered in grime and with the plaster peeling and chipped. Their dilapidated conditions strangely seem fitting though; the buildings that have been restored seem a little too ostentatious and emblematic of a time gone wrong to be amid this chaotic city.


Interior of a bus

Where I buy fruit






Not all of my days here are spent in the shelter. I have been asked to write a proposal on how India should adopt legislation similar to the protocol we have in the US that protects nonimmigrant trafficked victims. Basically, in the US once a nonimmigrant victim is rescued they can apply to get a temporary visa (along with the possibility of eventually getting permanent residence status) and will have access to certain benefits. In India, there is no similar protection. The rescued victims are dealt with unevenly. Many are just dropped off at the border of their country, where they face the likely event of being trafficked again. There is a lot more to it of course (like the fact that the US system hasn’t been very effective), so most of my time is spent on a computer reading reports on trafficking laws from various countries and international agreements. It is arduous, but I actually love it.

In other news, monsoon started early last week. Temperatures had been in the upper nineties and the locals were waiting for it impatiently. The deluge started at around seven. It slacked to a light shower by nine, but some streets were already flooded. All the taxis were taken, so I trudged to the bus stop, clutching my bag under my waterproof jacket. As miserable as I was, I couldn’t help but smile at having dry feet. I had felt foolish putting rubber boots on that morning, knowing that no one else would be in anything other than sandals, but I hadn’t realized how necessary (at least to me) they are. Bits of garbage floated in the water and it was impossible to see what lay in the deep sections. On a side street a tree lay on downed power lines. I walked gingerly hoping not to step on something dangerous or, even worse, into an open manhole…like the one I had just seen moments before. In my delight at having dry feet, I decided to take the following photo. Just guess what happened a moment later when the approaching wave reached me…let’s just say, it’s too bad I didn’t have hip waders on. :)

A Briefing: Prosecuting War Criminals

One of the benefits of working at the United Nations during the summer is that the Internship Program encourages the interns to attend many of the meetings that occur within the UN headquarters everyday. These meetings are typically closed door meetings regarding issues covering a wide array of areas that the UN is involved in. Some of the meetings I have seen on the UN daily journal cover areas such as disarmament, missiles, peacekeeping and human rights.

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to attend a briefing by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The ICC is one of the few international criminal tribunals that have been established to prosecute those who are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. (Incidentally, some of my supervisors were involved in the drafting work for the Rome Statutes of the ICC.) The briefing was attended by numerous representatives from the many Permanent Missions. (On a side note: There was also free lunch courtesy of the Permanent Missions of Australia and Liechtenstein.) The Prosecutor was represented by the head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division.

She basically briefed us regarding the recent actions taken by the International Criminal Court regarding the issuance of arrest warrants against new suspects. Currently, the ICC has so far looked into situations in Uganda (the Lord's Resistance Army), the Democratic Republic of Congo (Thomas Lubanga, who is the first person to be arrested under the Rome Statutes), the Central African Republic and the Sudan (Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmad Harun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb). After the meeting, it was interesting to hear several ambassadors make comments and ask questions. The briefing was off the record, so I cannot write about what was said. Let me say though that diplomatic language makes it difficult for a listener to realize that what is being said is actually already a form of criticism.

After the meeting, I also had an opportunity to speak with Professor Giusseppe Nesi, the Legal Adviser to the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations. I remembered Professor Nesi because he was invited by one of my former international law professors to speak about the International Criminal Court for one of my classes in my previous school. I made sure to mention that we would invite Professor Nesi to give a talk at Fordham Law soon.

For those interested in getting more information regarding the International Criminal Court, visit: http://www.icc-cpi.int/

On a somewhat related note, Professor Richard Goldstone, who is a former Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, will be a Visiting Professor at Fordham Law School this coming fall. He will be teaching a course on international criminal law.

Belfast, week 3

Well, I'm entering my third week of work in Belfast and have now had the chance to develop a few more concrete impressions of my time here. Overall, Belfast strikes me as a gritty city in midst of a development boom. The optimism and excitement over the city's future is quite palapable through short conversations with local residents and the presence of many construction sites throughout the city center is also evidence of this. Although this increases the annoyance factor for city residents, I suspect that many will gladly accept this as a price for the city's nascent prosperity.

My work at the CAJ has gone smoothly so far and has involved substantial interaction with government entities such as the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. One process currently making news in Belfast is the lawsuit that various religious churches (Protestant and Catholic) have filed to enjoin goverment legislation guaranteeing equality for the gay and lesbian population from taking effect. The NIRHC, along with other government and civil society organizations has responded in defense of the legislation and regardless of how this process culminates, two things come to mind. It is interesting to note that this is one of the few instances in which members of the Protestant and Catholic churches have banded together on the same side to vigorously contest government legislation. So much for the notion that the two sides can't work together under any circumstances.....

Secondly, I think it's important to note that the concept of equality in Northern Ireland is moving beyond the traditional Catholic v. Protestant mindset to become cognizant of the need to have other at-risk segments of the population included in legislative process.

On a lighter note, the weather is a bit erratic but I'm told that it's to be expected during this time of the year. Till next time....

Working in "International Territory" in New York

I began my internship at the United Nations last Monday. Every summer term (the UN also takes in interns during the fall), around 200 graduate students from all over the world descend on the UN headquarters to work for the various offices of the United Nations. This year, the interns represent more than 70 countries. So far, I've met students from England, China, Korea, Lithuania, among others, and law students from Australia, Canada, Russia and Sweden. (I believe there are quite a number of law students who are interns this summer; but not all of them work in the Office of Legal Affairs)

I work in the Codification Division of the Office of Legal Affairs. I work with two other interns, both of whom are LLM students. Our division conducts research for the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly, the International Law Commission and the numerous legal publications of the UN. Several of my supervisors are also involved in the drafting of different international legal instruments. (Our office is located on one of the top floors of the building and has majestic views of Manhattan and Queens. Pictures to come soon!)

What is interesting to note is that the UN compound enjoys some kind of extraterritorial status. (The UN offices are actually spread around the area. There are a few UN buildings which are located outside of the headquarters.) Federal and state laws of the United States have very limited application and enforceability within the headquarters district. (at least when these laws conflict with applicable UN regulations) Many members of the UN staff also enjoy diplomatic immunity and thus cannot be prosecuted by local courts unless this immunity is waived by the UN Secretary General. Because of this unusual character of the UN compound, the headquarters is probably one of the few (or the only?) building in New York where smoking is still allowed indoors! Of course, staff cannot smoke anywhere they please. There are still designated areas within the building where smoking is allowed. The UN also has its own post office. (and its own stamps! Incidentally, if you are a tourist -- or not -- and want your stamps personalized and have your picture printed on the stamp, you can do that too.) Aside from the post office, there is an in-house police force and fire department among other things.

If you're curious to see the provisions of the UN Headquarters agreement between the United States and the United Nations, visit: http://www.un.int/usa/host_hqs.htm

My next post: A short story about a briefing by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

blue, crystalline eyes stare up at me as i walk towards my cubicle, and she points half a chocolate bar in my general direction. surrounded by legos and toy cars, in a mid-town office at the International Rescue Committee Refugee Resettlement Office, i've come across a girl of 4 or 5, whose father, mother, or maybe grandmother, and younger brother with those same blue eyes, are our clients. i think they're from kazakhstan.

i've only been here three days, of which i have spent three of in training. this has consisted of learning the process of how refugees and asylees get here, and what we do when they come to our office. for the past three days, this has mainly consisted of lots of forms and data bases. but now there's a set of eyes and a quad of handshakes that seem to have welcomed the work to begin!