A couple of Fridays a month, I like to feature non-profits and changemakers on my blog to raise awareness of the great work they do, provide a dose of inspiration, and show that positive change is possible. Catch up on my other Feature Friday posts here. This Friday, I would like to feature an incredible…
Path to Justice from Penal Reform International on Vimeo. This quarter, I’m interning with the Northwestern University Center on International Human Rights, a legal clinic in the law school. One of our projects is an access to justice project in Malawi, where we work to improve legal representation for prisoners – particularly those sentenced to…
Today, more and more young people are finding service-oriented careers attractive. Indeed, there is a seismic generational shift underway. Generation Y is breaking with the tradition of paying one’s dues and climbing the corporate ladder; instead, Millennials seek to find work that they are passionate about, that reflects their values, and that brings deep meaning…
As an undergraduate student thinking of going to law school to become a public interest/civil rights/human rights lawyer, I’ve been talking to a lot of attorneys in the recent months. Informational interviews galore. I literally scoured the Northwestern University alumni database and searched for attorneys, both in the corporate and public interest area. I then…
I’m a graduating senior. June 2010. Those words hang ominously in the air, haunting me, frightening me, and at the same time, exhilarating me. Thankfully, I’ve managed to secure some exciting opportunities for post-graduation despite the lackluster economy, and I’m grateful to the universe for that. Yet, I’m finding – for the first time –…
This Friday I wanted to highlight an amazing project which recently won the 2009 Echoing Green Fellowship. Accountability Counsel is an organization aiming to partner with communities harmed by international finance and development projects in order to hold international institutions and corporations accountable, and develop new accountability systems where none exist. Communities around the world…
A few days ago, amidst my crazy studying for final exams (which I have finally finished!), I ran across this simple, yet immensely poignant “Letter to a Law Student Interested in Social Justice,” by Professor Bill Quigley. Now, I’m not a law student, but I hope to be sometime in the next few years. And,…
Today I want to feature an amazing organization in Sierra Leone, called Timap for Justice. Timap for Justice is an innovative organization aiming to provide basic access to justice to the people of Sierra Leone. Timap for Justice formed to address the shortage of lawyers in the country, and employs and trains community-based paralegals instead…
We need more – we need the truth. We need to look back at the Bush Administration and investigate what went wrong with America’s rule of law during our “war on terror”: torture, illegal wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and other human rights violations. Why did this happen? Who let it happen? And how can we ensure…
Recently, I watched an excellent interview of Kevin Jon Heller of Opinio Juris, a professor of international law as well as a defense adviser for Radovan Karadzic. Karadzic is a former Bosnian Serb leader who is currently being indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for counts of genocide, war crimes, and…