Six weeks ago, I arrived in Lima, Peru, innocently thinking that my cultural heritage had prepared me for what was to come. This trip marked my return to Latin America after more than a decade after I immigrated from Venezuela. Initially, the mere fact of speaking Spanish regularly made me feel at home, but it also felt unfamiliar. This experience reflected my outlook on my work.

The Inter-American Human Rights System: My First Lesson

When I received my mandate, I realized that, unlike everyone else on my team, I had never studied the Inter-American Human Rights System in school. Fresh off my first year of law school, my knowledge of international public law was extremely limited, if not non-existent. I felt ashamed of not having the capacity to complete my tasks right away, almost like a burden. However, I also knew my work would be inaccurate without that base knowledge. My first challenge was to admit it to my supervisor and being okay with being lost. Thankfully, my supervisor helped me by lending me books and resources to familiarize myself with the system. During these two weeks, I accommodated myself to this new legal system and thanked myself for being humble on that first day. With a good base of the system, I embarked on my biggest project during my stay: compiling and analyzing decisions from the Comision Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) about countries that still need to ratify the Convention Americana Sobre los Derechos Humanos.

Fostering Sensibility: My Second Lesson

I had to read and systemize about 600 pages of reports describing horrifying human rights violations. While I had read graphic cases during my first year, I had no experience in processing such a massive amount of pain. I had to determine whether I should detach myself or use my empathy as motivation while reading about these traumatic experiences. This is a question that I often heard about at school and had conflicting answers. I realized I fall on the positive side of the spectrum because I did not want to reduce people’s hardships to numbers or trends. Instead, I wanted to give each case the respect it deserved. Thus, I embarked on this journey with empathy, as such work requires dignity for victims, which involves a deep understanding and connection to their accounts of traumatic situations. While I may never fully understand how it feels, I can empathize and turn that horror into determination. In the six weeks that I have been immersed in the world of Human Rights, I have realized that victims often feel isolated and ignored. The requirement by CIDH that a petition exhaust all internal legal resources means that their own country has systematically ignored these people. Although my work might not directly affect them, I feel that regarding their cases with respect and investing time is the least I can do to undo that systemic ignorance.

For my next lessons

Consequently, the most important lesson I have learned during the first half of my internship is not necessarily about improving my legal writing or analytical skills, but about approaching my tasks with humility. This lesson is not something I could find in a TL session, but rather through facing the unknown. Although I highlighted the advantages of accepting one’s limits, it felt terrifying. However, fear is a normal response to vulnerability. Therefore, over these six weeks, I learned not to let it consume me but to drive me to face my limits and learn.