Week Five: The Fourth of July, Vineyards, and Judicial Capacity Building
Bonjour mes amis!!
This week at IBJ and in Geneva was one of the quieter ones so far. For work this week, I was hard at work on the Armenia grant proposal for IBJ. This is an immense project, and through it I have been collaborating with Armenian state officials and local community service organizations. This week, we spoke with the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Armenia and began to draft a Memorandum of Understanding with them to promote IBJ’s mission on the ground in Armenia. I’m very excited to see where this project goes!
In addition to the Armenia grant proposal, I’ve also been working on our ongoing legal research project regarding the issue of capacity building on the domestic judicial level as a preventative measure against the need for international courts’ and tribunals’ intervention when serious crimes are committed in a country. The overarching idea is that investing early in capacity building within the criminal justice systems of developing countries allows for greater state sovereignty, clearer paths to justice, and increased public trust in judicial proceedings. This, in turn, helps ease the burden on international courts like the ICC and further advances the rule of law in these states. In the process of this research, I’ve explored the criminal justice systems and criminal codes in countries where IBJ operates as case studies to offer plausible recommendations on how to advance the rule of law in these states. It’s been a very interesting project, and I’m excited to continue with it in the future!
In my free time this week, I mostly spent the evenings exploring new parts of Geneva! On Tuesday, Laura, John, and I found an adorable cafe around the corner from IBJ – Qafé Guidoline. It’s open later than just about everything in Switzerland. Most things here close at 6pm on the dot (if not a little before) but this cafe is open until midnight every night! It’s a fabulous after-work hang out and they have showings of the Euro matches on a projector screen. It’s such a fun spot to catch up with the other IBJ interns, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s one of the least expensive cafes in the city!
On Wednesday, Laura and I went wandering around a new part of the city for a little while and we made some fantastic finds. First, there’s an amazing Italian restaurant in Old Town that has truly the best tiramisu I’ve ever had. You can get the dessert in a little takeout container, and walk around the most beautiful part of Geneva to enjoy it. We took ours down past the Ancient Arsenal and finished it while looking out over the city from the top of Old Town. The second find we had was that the City of Geneva has its own vineyard! It’s an adorable plot of land just on the edge of Old Town, and we stumbled upon it entirely by surprise. Every week, Geneva continues to surprise and delight me!
Thursday was definitely the busiest day we had this week – it was the Fourth of July! Laura and I found a little American Market where we could buy a couple of American flags to celebrate our first Independence Day away from the states, and our European friends at IBJ were so excited to celebrate with us. One of our friends, Itana, invited us to her home to host a Fourth of July barbeque and it was so much fun. Our IBJ friends helped us feel so at home for the Fourth, and I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it in any other way. Sadly, I did catch a cold on Friday, so I didn’t get up to too much else this weekend, but I did have a great time watching the Euro at home! Hopefully next week I’ll be feeling a bit better, because the IBJ interns have an exciting trip planned for next weekend!
This week was truly so much fun with the other interns, and it’s truly started to hit that I’m already halfway through my time with IBJ. It’s definitely bittersweet, but I’m so excited to make the most of the rest of my time here. See you all next week!
Kristen