News Archive

The Program in International Human Rights Law (PIHRL) will mark its 20^th anniversary sending 12 Summer 2017 and three Fall 2017 interns – 11 J.D. students and 2 LL.M. students – for work with a variety of human rights organizations domestically and across the globe. Students took part in a pre-departure briefing and training at IU McKinney (depicted in the photo at left) on May 6.

This marks the first summer in the program’s two decades that there will be interns on all six inhabited continents at one time, said the program’s founder and executive director, Professor George Edwards.

A total of 13 IU McKinney students, many of whom are taking part in more than one internship placement, will take part in 26 internship placements over the course of the summer and fall semesters. They will visit 12 countries and 16 different cities, bringing the total number of nations visited during PIHRL’s history to over 65. The 2017 PIHRL interns also will visit a total of 10 cities that are new to the program. Students will visit Argentina, Australia, Czech Republic, Poland, Kingdom of Swaziland, Thailand, Uganda, and some will visit human rights organizations in the United States. New countries to be visited by PIHRL participants this year are Cuba, Mongolia, Morocco, and Portugal.

In the photo at right, in the front row, from left, are Kaweme Ng'andwe, Swati Pradeep, Hannah Croucher, and Cindy Alfaro. In the second row, from left, are Professor George Edwards, Aron Hagos, Vice Dean Antony Page, Joseph Scales, Sheila Willard, Ben Hicks, Kari Knight, Tex Boonjue, Yeonjee Lee, Longmei Qiu, and Jacob Irven.

J.D. students participating include:

• Cindy Alfaro will intern at Ayuda in Washington, D.C.
• Hannah Croucher will intern at Droit & Justice in Casablanca, Morocco, and another placement that has yet to be determined.
• Ben Hicks will intern at the Community Transformation Foundation Network (COTFONE) in Masaka, Uganda; the Hunter Community Legal Center in New Castle, Australia; and the Military Commission Observation Project (MCOP) at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
• Jacob Irven will intern at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Warsaw, Poland; COTFONE, and the LGBT Centre in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
• Kari Knight will intern at the Foundation for the Development of Sustainable Policies in Cordoba, Argentina; Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) in Manzini, Kingdom of Swaziland; and Saving Orphans through Heatlhcare and Outreach in Mhlosheni, Kingdom of Swaziland.
• Yeonjee Lee will intern at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea in Washington, D.C.; COTFONE; and WLSA.
• Kaweme Ng’andwe will intern at Bridges Across Border Southeast Asia, Community Legal Education in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
• Longmei Qiu will intern at California Rural Legal Assistance in Stockton, California.
• Joseph Scales will intern at West Justice in Melbourne, Australia.
• Sheila Willard will intern at Direito Pro Bono, facilitated by the University of Lisbon, in Lisbon, Portugal; the Refugee Assistance Organization in Prague, Czech Republic, and MCOP. She also will take part in a yet-to-be-determined placement in Fall 2017.
• Tex Boonjue will take part in a yet-to-be-determined placement in Fall 2017.

Of the LL.M. students:

• Aron Hagos will inter at Immigration and Refugee Services and Catholic Charities-Archdiocese of New Orleans in Louisiana.
• Swati Pradeep will intern at Amnesty International in New York City during the summer. She will take part in a fall placement that has yet to be determined.