American Society of International Law Announces 2009 Helton Fellowships

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Topic: Law Students

The American Society of International Law (ASIL) has announced the eleven student and young professional winners of its 2009 Helton Fellowships for projects in international law. Selected from more than 50 applicants from Africa, Asia, Europe and Eurasia, Oceania, and North and South America, the students will receive micro-grants of $1,500 to pursue fieldwork in or research on issues involving international law, human rights, humanitarian affairs, and related areas.

ASIL established the Helton Fellowship Program in 2004 in honor of Arthur C. Helton, an internationally renowned lawyer and advocate for protecting the rights of refugees and internally displaced persons. Helton died in the August 19, 2003, bombing of the United Nations (UN) mission in Baghdad.

Helton Fellows undertake their fellowship fieldwork and research in association with established educational institutions, international organizations, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The following are the 2009 ASIL Helton award recipients:

Jeremie Bracka, LL.M, New York University School of Law. As a full-time intern in the Middle East and North Africa Unit of the International Center for Transitional Justice, Jeremie’s work will be two-fold, focusing on transitional justice education between Israel and Palestine and in Morocco. Jeremie will be disseminating transitional justice curricula in Hebrew, Arabic, and French to civil society organizations, academic institutions, research institutes, and intergovernmental organizations.

Peter Forster Chapman, J.D. Candidate, Washington College of Law, American University. Peter will work with the Public International Law & Policy Group in providing legal and technical assistance to Ugandan officials to support the development and implementation of key aspects of the Juba Agreements on Accountability and Reconciliation. In particular his work will focus on developing mechanisms that support truth telling, reconciliation, and memorializing the conflict between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Justin Dubois, J.D. Candidate, McGill University Faculty of Law. Justin accepted an internship with the Refugee Law Project to work at a legal aid clinic in Kampala, Uganda, providing free legal assistance to Uganda’s refugee population. He will also be working to improve the implementation on the ground of the recently adopted 2006 Refugee Act.

Bahaa Ezzelarab, J.D. Candidate, University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Bahaa will offer legal support on right to health cases litigated by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). He will assist EIPR’s lawyers in challenging a decree that raises health insurance fees for school children and newborns and narrows their coverage.

Jacqueline C. Green, J.D. Candidate, Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Jacqueline will be working with the AID and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), a regional partnership of NGOs that promotes a human rights approach to HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in southern Africa through capacity building and advocacy. She will work on the Advocacy Campaign on Mining and TB for ARASA, which aims to reform the management of and compensation for occupational TB in the mining sector.

Brittan Heller, J.D. Candidate, Yale University Law School. Brittan will be working with the Office of the Prosecutor, Prosecution Section, at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. Dyilo is a former rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the first suspect arrested on authority of an ICC warrant, and the first defendant put on trial by the Court.

Rachel E. Lopez, J.D. Graduate, University of Texas at Austin School of Law. Rachel will work with the Open Society Justice Initiative on an anti-corruption project in Cameroon. The aim of the project is to monitor violations of laws associated with exploitation of natural resources. The violations to be covered will include breaches of standards of oil field or environmental practice and standards relating to the prevention and prohibition of corruption.

Amanda Montague, J. D. Candidate, University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Amanda will conduct field research on the violation of aboriginal youth rights for equal access to education in Canada for Justice for Children and Youth, an organization that provides select legal representation to low-income children and youth in Toronto and its vicinity.

Nicola Palmer, D.Phil Candidate, University of Oxford Faculty of Law. Nicola will be conducting research under the auspices of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa’s States in Transition Observatory (SITO) Programme, an independent South African-based public interest organization committed to social justice. In addition to conducting research, Nicola will contribute to SITO’s ongoing monitoring of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.

Aziz T. Aliba, LL.M., University of Arizona College of Law, and LL.B., University of Itaúna, Brazil. Under the auspices of Humanitas Minas Gerais, a non-governmental human rights organization, and the University of Itaúna, Aziz will be designing and creating human rights-related courses that will be available on the Internet and on DVDs distributed free of charge to community leaders in Brazil and worldwide.

Rebecca Ann Sutton, J.D. Candidate, University of Toronto Faculty of Law. This summer, Rebecca will participate in the Migrant Rights Monitoring Project with the Forced Migrations Studies Program, based at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. As a legal intern, she will be interviewing detainees in the Lindela Detention Facility where asylum seekers are kept, pending their deportation. The information from these interviews will be used to train eligible officials on domestic and international human rights standards.

“The Society is very pleased to announce this year’s exceptional group of Helton Fellows,” said ASIL Executive Director Elizabeth Andersen. “The eleven 2009 Fellows come to us from nine different institutions and will work around the world. We look forward to their success as future leaders in developing and implementing international human rights law and are proud to play a part in their career development.”

Helton Fellowships are administered by ASIL through its Career Development Program. For more information, including eligibility and application details, visit www.asil.org/Helton. To contribute to the Helton Fellowship fund, visit www.asil.org/Heltongift.

ASIL is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational membership organization. It was founded in 1906, chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1950, and has held Category II Consultative Status to the Economic and Social Council of the UN since 1993. ASIL’s mission is to foster the study of international law and to promote the establishment and maintenance of international relations on the basis of law and justice. The Society’s 4,000 members (from nearly 100 countries) comprise attorneys, academics, corporate counsel, judges, representatives of governments and nongovernmental organizations, international civil servants, students, and others interested in international law.