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As part of its mission to merge theory with practice, the Human Rights Program continually offers students the opportunity to leave the law school environment to engage in scholarly inquiry and gain practical experience in the field. Winter Term is but one period that offers JD students a short yet intensive time to do research or internships abroad in human rights. This year, the Program provided Winter Term fellowship awards to four students to immerse themselves in different arenas of advocacy, human rights research, and documentation with courts and NGOs.

Elisa Quiroz, JD ’19, conducted research in Chile, examining the government’s legislative and policy responses to the country’s rapid rise in migration. Recently, Chile has sought to strengthen migrants’ access to socio-economic rights, including labor rights, the right to health, and the right to education. Quiroz examined how services are being delivered, and whether the government is meeting commitments in line with its international human rights obligations.

Without working under the umbrella of an organization, Quiroz undertook this research initiative largely independently. Assistant Clinical Professor Sabi Ardalan of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic served as her adviser, as the project had grown out of an International Labor Migration reading group Ardalan had taught with Lecturer on Law Jennifer Rosenbaum. Spending time in Chile doing desk research and speaking with academics and civil society experts allowed Quiroz to further contextualize the historical conditions of this recent migration and the legal responses to it. In one instance, she notes, migrants’ equal access to housing is compromised by the insufficient attention the government gives to housing rights in general. Quiroz hopes to analyze this rights gap, as well as the innovative responses by the government and civil society to the influx of new peoples, in a longer academic paper.

In addition to Quiroz, other Winter Term grantees included Molly Ma, JD’18, Ellen Zheng, JD’18, and Mila Owen, JD’18. Ma traveled to The Hague to work with Judge Chung Chang-ho of the International Criminal Court, where she researched the operations of the Court and potential reforms. As a returning intern at Justice Base in Myanmar, Zheng studied ethnic violence and discrimination in the Rakhine state. Likewise, Mila Owen, JD’18, also continued her work for the second year in a row at Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights in Harare, where she focused on disability rights, among other projects. You can read more about her experience in Zimbabwe on the OCP blog here.

This summer, the Human Rights Program has funded six fellows to intern abroad at various human rights organizations. Among these are: Ginger Cline, JD’20, who will travel to Kenya to work for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society; D Dangarang, JD’20, for Lawyers for Human Rights in South Africa; Krista Oehlke, JD’20, for EarthRights, International in Peru; Sara Oh, JD’19, for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Turkey; Delphine Rodrik, JD’20, for Human Rights Watch in Lebanon; and Eun Sung Yang, JD’20, for Justice Base, in Myanmar.