Week Seven: Goodbyes, The French Riviera, and UN Treaty Bodies
I spent most of the week on an emergency project from Karen. The team is headed to Rwanda this week
for several important meetings with stakeholders in the Rwandan legal system (judges, lawyers, police). We found out early last week that our associated lawyers had not yet created a report on Rwanda’s progress on the UN’s recommendations for the country. Essentially, every core human rights treaty has a committee of independent experts who monitor the implementation of those treaties around the world. Emmanuel and I were assigned to check out each of the treaty bodies and their recent legislative recommendations for Rwanda, and then to research whether any of these legislative changes had been made. The product was a memo that ended up being nearly eighteen pages in length. It turns out that the UN has quite a few recommendations for Rwanda to bring the country up to par with the Human Rights Treaties it has signed. The memo will be presented to the lawyers and government officials IBJ meets with next week.
The most relevant treaty for IBJ was the Committee Against Torture. Something interesting I’ve learned this summer: most countries these days have signed Human Rights treaties, and have laws in their books to back them up, but the implementation on a local level is the issue. The Committee had a lot to recommend involving the specific language of the laws against torture. Specifically, the legal definition should be “pain or suffering inflicted at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of, a public official or by another person acting in an official capacity.”
Outside of Work This Week
- My weekend brought me to Nice, France, which (I’m getting tired of saying this) was again one of the most insanely beautiful places I’ve ever been. The weekend was spent taking buses to little towns and beaches along the French Riviera. It was a lovely little solo trip!
- John, a Stanford Law intern, and Guilia, from the University of Fribourg, left this week. This was both sad and happy because both of them have been party to many of our summer adventures. John has already been sending us updates about the American delicacies he has been enjoying since returning.
