In Winter 2022, Kelsea Gillespie, a fourth-year student in the joint Juris Doctor/Master of Arts (JD-MA) program completed a Student Proposed Internship (for credit in the Common Law section) at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre (HRREC)’s Human Rights Clinic. Her tasks included developing a resource tool on Business and Human Rights cases at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, drafting an amicus brief for submission to the Court, and co-authoring a blog post focused on the effectiveness of reparation orders of the Court in 2021 (now published in both English and Spanish).
Kelsea’s Testimony on her Involvement with the Clinic
"I was keen to have an internship placement in a field that I am passionate about. Interning at the HRREC Human Rights Clinic allowed me to work on projects to advance the development of international human rights law. The project I worked on aim to advance international human rights law and advocate for victims of human rights abuses in Latin America. During the internship, I was able to hone my legal research and writing skills. I was exposed to new international case law on human rights, particularly regarding the rights of Indigenous peoples’ rights and the right to collective ownership of property. I learned a lot from reading the decisions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and from dissecting the reasons of the Court. As an aspiring human rights lawyer, I feel that this exposure to the Inter-American system will help me to better understand how judges of human rights courts make decisions. I would recommend interning with the Human Rights Clinic to any student who is interested in international human rights law, or international law more generally, especially students who are interested in completing an internship with real world impact.”
You study at uOttawa and you are interested by the Clinic and its projects? Send us an email at [email protected]!