AFR - "Budding diplomats test career waters"

Monday, 01 December 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | Erica Cervini

International internships inspire law students to continue humanitarian work, write Erica Cervini.

As Jihan Mirza walked the halls of the United Nations in Geneva earlier this year, some people assumed she was a diplomat. She was, in fact, a final-year Monash University law student.

For two months Mirza was a UN intern at the Human Rights Council, which gave her the chance to mix with diplomats and academics and learn the finer points of diplomacy.

"It was an amazing experience," says Mirza, who was one of five students awarded a global internship for 2008 by Monash's Castan Centre for Human Rights Law.

Because Mirza was part of the Australian delegation to the Human Rights Council, she had the chance to address plenary sessions in the Palais des Nations on behalf of Australia. On one occasion, she gave Australia's response to human rights issues in Zimbabwe.

Mirza is one of many law students who head overseas to complete internships at organisations such as the Centre for Justice and International Law in Buenos Aires and the Global Policy Forum in New York.

Students often gain credit for the internship as a subject towards their degree and law schools often provide travel grants for the internships. The experience can also provide career direction.

Mirza says her internship has crystallised her decision to work in international policy and human rights. Next year Mirza, who has a Lebanese background, hopes to work for the UN in Lebanon or East Asia.

Sarah Callaghan agrees that doing an international internship cemented her wish to work overseas in humanitarian law. Callaghan spent three months with the UN Commission for Refugees in Cairo in 2003 while in her final year of law at the University of Adelaide.

"It [the internship] made me realise that there were a lot of people doing different things," she says.

"If you are open to opportunities and open to try different things, you never know where they will lead."

After graduating, Callaghan worked for the South Australian minister for justice but was always keen to return overseas.

Callaghan also spent a year in Liberia working on the 2005 elections and two years in Afghanistan working with the minister of counter narcotics with a UN non-governmental organisation on a refugee legal aid project.

She has also worked briefly in the Sudan on a law project.

Now, Callaghan is in Uganda working for Irish Aid on governance issues, such as justice reform, and expects to stay in the country until the end of the year.

John Riordan's three-month Reprieve Australia internship at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Centre in the US has inspired him to seek work overseas in humanitarian law.

Riordan, who finished his law degree at the University of Melbourne in June this year, says the internship in New Orleans gave him large responsibilities.

"I visited three prisoners on death row, and to chat to clients is a huge responsibility," Riordan says.

"We're there to give humanitarian support [so the prisoners] have some contact with the outside world," he says.

"There are not many opportunities in Melbourne to deal with clients so intimately, especially in such serious circumstances."

Riordan, who has assisted barrister Julian McMahon on the Bali Nine case, hopes to do a UN internship next year.

"I am really keen to do something other than corporate work," he says.