Gideon Boas - Human Rights Career Series

A career in international law?

Career paths into the international law area vary tremendously, probably because they are pursuits for which no obvious career track exists. The purpose of sharing my experience with you is to convey an idea of the sorts of working opportunities that exist for Australians in the international law area and some ideas of how to go about obtaining such work.

I should start by saying that the there are natural obstacles that exist for Australian lawyers who wish to work in international law in institutions overseas.

The first obstacle is the sheer distance and cost involved in obtaining relevant work experience that lead to paid institutional employment. For European students, visiting and obtaining internships in institutions responsible for a broad range of international law is a relatively affordable and accessible option. Indeed, it is built in to, and therefore facilitated by, many European universities as part of the relevant area of coursework. Having the opportunity to work directly with an institution and to impress is a valuable part of creating future paid work opportunities, as is obvious from the common experience of undertaking seasonal clerkship at law firms. Because of it’s importance, I will come back to this later when discussing how to break into international law work in these areas.

The second obstacle is access to people who might facilitate or assist in applying for work (paid or unpaid) in these institutions. Obviously, the most important aspect of any application for work is to have a meritorious profile and one that will clearly assist the institution at the level relevant to your application. You must have studied the relevant subjects, be pursuing relevant areas of interest, academically, professionally and/or in other ways. Now, that is not as difficult as it may seem. There are a number of ways to pursue the domestic equivalent of your interest while building towards an international foray. For example, if your interest is international criminal law, practicing in criminal law will be highly relevant. If it is international trade law, then commercial practice in relevant areas will assist you. If it is labour law, the same applies. Indeed, if the area of your interest requires more legal application than policy, then any legal practice experience will hold you in good stead. Of course, directly relevant postgraduate studies will also assist in your preparations.

Beyond preparing your profile as much as possible, if you can obtain a contact in the institution of your interest, that will facilitate both your understanding of the workings of the institution and application procedures, and give you that additional association that will assist.

Therefore, relevant studies and practice experience are crucial factors to attend to. Another way to build towards this sort of work is studying, if you can achieve it, at a European university. The advantage of this, apart from the obvious, is that it puts you close to a large number of European based international institutions (and therefore the vast majority of international institutions), with the opportunity of visiting and possibly undertaking an internship or seeking short term contract work, with the longer term goal of full time employment.

My experience may not be the most apparent way of obtaining employment in international law, but it in many ways indicative of the sorts of things that might lead you in that direction.

My interest in the law has always followed a logical thread of thought and belief. I have always seen the law as a crucial tool in the realm of social justice. An early formative influence on me was watching Geoffrey Robertson’s “Hypothetical” on ABC and marvelling at the capacity of the legally trained mind to synthesis important social issues and funnel competing information, thought and belief towards a meaningful and (potentially) just result.

When I undertook my law degree, it was clear to me that my path did not lay in the corporate law area. I started the Social Justice Action Group with a group of like-minded law students and pursued these interests as much as I could in study areas and in extracurricular activity. During my degree, I became interested in a law firm in Sydney (Cashman & Partners), the senior partner of which had appeared in the media as an advocate of social justice issues. I contacted the firm and obtained their agreement to work as a seasonal clerk. Because they were a small firm without such a programme, I had to insist and offer to work for free, which I did. I did this twice, received great experience and set myself up for an application to do articles with the firm.

When I graduated, I therefore articled in Sydney and worked at Cahmans for two years in product liability, medical negligence and a range of odd general practice areas, including taking on most of the responsibility for the legal work for Greenpeace Australia. I was particularly lucky to get the opportunity to go to the High Court on a case concerning access to medical records.

One weekend, sitting on a balcony of a holiday rental, a friend of mine who was reading ‘The Australian’ employment section found an add for a position as International Humanitarian law Officer for the Australian Red Cross (New South Wales). I had no idea what International Humanitarian Law (IHL) was but it sounded interesting and I was tiring of legal practice. When my friend, a little older and more experienced, discovered what the remuneration was, he withdrew his interest. But I applied. In preparation for my interview, I visited the Red Cross office and picked up an A5 leaflet on IHL, the sole education in the subject that I had in the area.

Having been employed by the Red Cross, I spent two years developing my knowledge of IHL and building a network in the area. I was fortunate to be able to work on a range of interesting projects during that time. I became involved in the banning of landmines campaign and appeared on behalf of the Red Cross at the Senate Standing Committee considering Australia’s position. Under the supervision of Professor McCormack, I led the research team on Australian state practice and opinion juris the International Committee of the Red Cross’ customary IHL study. I was the Asia-Pacific representative for national societies in the work of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent on reforming the governance of national red cross and red crescent societies. I met a lot of interesting people and worked at networking the Red Cross (a naturally conservative organisation) with other NGO’s with similar social concerns.

Two years of this was enough for me. The work was very policy oriented and there were genuine institutional constraints on the way in which work could be undertaken. But it was an extraordinary experience and no doubt set up my future professional life. After a brief trip back into legal practice, I received a call from a friend (in fact, the same friend who had seen the add for the Red Cross a few years earlier). He had gone to work for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, one year earlier. He told me that the United Nations (UN) were regularising the legal posts in Chambers at the ICTY and that I should apply. It was obvious that if I had not had direct involvement with IHL in my work at the Red Cross I would have been hard placed to secure a position at the ICTY. But it was also important that I had some solid experience as a legal practitioner under my belt and that I had enrolled in (albeit without progressing far) in an LLM in the area of international law. Other candidates who succeeded in the same round as me had a range of different experience, including general legal practice, Masters level qualifications in the area, work experience with other international organisations and/or research work experience with academics of note in the field. Some had a military (law) background, while others had trained to be judges in their own civil law countries.

Working in Chambers at the ICTY was an extraordinary experience. The work varies according to the particular area – trial or appeals chamber, legal officer attached to a judge or ‘floating’ in the Chamber and therefore more associated with the relevant Senior Legal Officer. There are various employment levels and, therefore, work and responsibilities. An Associate Legal Officer (P2 UN grade) will work as a legal assistant closely ‘aligned’ with one judge, but also as a member of the legal team working on trial or pre-trial matters. Alternatively, an Associate Legal Officer is unaligned to a particular judge and reports more directly to the Legal Officer or Senior Legal Officer in the Chamber. Above the Associate Legal Officer is a Legal Officer (P3 and P4 UN grades), often responsible for the direct conduct of a trial or pre-trial case and with some limited supervisory responsibilities for Associate Legal Officers. Finally, Senior Legal Officers (P5 UN grades) oversee the work of the Chamber, act as the senior legal adviser to the judges in the Chamber, and can be directly responsible for the conduct of a particular trial.

I worked for eight years in Chambers at the ICTY.  Started as an Associate Legal Officer and worked my way to Senior Legal Officer of Trial Chamber III. The work varied enormously but, because there is so much work and so few resources, it was always challenging and interesting. The day I arrived, one of the Senior Legal Officers grabbed me and asked me to write a memorandum on the question of whether one of the judges in the Celebici trial should be recused because she had also taken up office as the Vice-President of Costa Rica! A few weeks after that, I was asked to draft the murder and wilful killing sections of the Celebici  Judgement, the first time an international criminal tribunal had sought to lay down the elements of these crimes. So the work was fascinating and profoundly challenging. But by far the most interesting, consuming and memorable work of my time at the Tribunal was the Milosevic trial. I worked on that case from the arrival of the accused at The Hague until his death in March 2006 (after more than four years of trial). Assisting the judges in steering a way through the unprecedented legal and procedural challenges of the first international criminal trial of a former head of State (and a difficult one at that) was an unforgettable experience.

There are a number professional opportunities at the ICTY. There is legal work in Chambers, in the Office of the Prosecutor (in trial and appeal legal work) and in the Registry, working more on policy and administration of the institution (including implementation of court orders, court management, diplomatic relations, international contractual issues, etc.).

With the proliferation of international or internationalised criminal courts and tribunals (the ICTY, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), the now defunct East Timor Tribunal and new Cambodia Tribunal), there are growing opportunities for work in this area. Of course, the establishment of the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) creates further opportunities, particularly as Australia is a signatory to the Rome Statute and has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Court and what it stands for.

There is also a wealth of other international tribunals and institutions dealing with a wide variety of issues, including trade, labour law, human rights, intellectual property, law of the sea, etc. The largest hub of international institution is Geneva, while The Hague and New York also have much to offer.

I have often been asked whether it is possible for younger lawyers to crack into these institutions and the answer is definitely yes. Often jobs in these institutions are available at the entry end or the more senior end and it is a lot harder to get in at the medium level of experience – so don’t be discouraged by relative inexperience or youth so long as you have relevant skills to offer.

I referred earlier to the difficulty Australians have in getting access to relevant work experience that leads to paid institutional employment. This is most often achieved by undertaking an unpaid internship. For Australians, the cost of this is enormous. We have to pay to get there and live for 3-6 months without money. The Hague, Geneva and New York are all places with a high cost of living, so the commitment can be prohibitive. That is why initiatives like the Castan Centre scholarship to the ICTY are so valuable. My experience at the ICTY was that applicants for positions who had interned at the ICTY and impressed had a vastly greater chance of success than “untested” applicants.  No doubt that is the same for all institutions – just as it is in any area of business. So if you get such an opportunity, I encourage you to take it.

Another important thing to note is that Australian lawyers are generally rated very highly in international institutions. Partly because of the quality of education and training and partly because of the distance and difficulty getting to such institutions, Australian lawyers working in international institutions are often very competent and highly regarded.

The career path to work for an international organisation is not clearly paved and is not an obvious one. There is more information available now and better accessibility than there was when I studied and when I went to The Hague. The key, like anything, is to pursue your interests and take your opportunities when they come.