Julia Ann Chamberlin, a student at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, will spend the next six months in the former Yugoslavia working as an intern for the United National International Criminal Tribunal. She has offered to share her impressions and expressions of that experience with her colleagues at the College of Law. Below is her first communiqué.
This past week I arrived in The Hague, the epicenter of international law, and began working at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Monday, May 14. The United Nations created the ICTY to prosecute perpetrators of war crimes that arose out of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The ICTY, the second tribunal after Nuremberg to specifically prosecute war criminals, has furthered international humanitarian precedent and provided justice to countless of victims. During my six months internship in the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICTY, I will solely be working on Ratko Mladic’s trial preparation. Ratko Mladic, known to many as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” is currently indicted by the ICTY for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and numerous other war crimes.
I first developed an interest in international law when I studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University. During this semester, I first visited the ICTY on a field trip with my fellow American college students. Since seeing my first trial at the ICTY, I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in international criminal and humanitarian law. The College of Law helped prepare me for this experience in numerous ways. Under the excellent international law faculty, I have been lucky to take numerous related classes in this field including international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and international law. In addition, I participated in the Jessup international law moot court competition, where Professors Anghie and Guiora personally worked with me and four fellow students for six months researching complex issues of international law.