I’m on the rails again, but it’s not the 6 Train commute to which I have become accustomed. Instead, I’m back aboard Amtrak’s “Adirondack” service, watching the scenery change as the locomotive carves its way north to Montreal. This is how I got to New York City three months ago, and it’s how I’m leaving it now, too. Earlier today, after navigating through the network of gloomy tunnels buried underneath Manhattan, we emerged into the morning light with the Hudson River on our left and the sun on our right. As I write, the sky is cloudy, and the river view has been replaced by trees, farms, and power lines.
The journey back puts a definitive end to my summer in New York. Since my last post, I’m glad to report that it remained a positive experience until the last, the only exception being a week of illness in the middle of July. Other than that period of incapacity, I continued to make the most of my time, building relationships with friends (old and new), eating amazing food (see the “featured image”), and exploring the city on foot. Though I never made it to the UN, I did get to the top of the Empire State Building. Not a bad place to work.
The main highlight, however, and the reason I went to New York in the first place, has to be the work itself. I came to Human Rights Watch at a difficult time, a moment when international justice, particularly international human rights law, is being threatened on multiple fronts. Despite this, my work as an intern was fulfilling, interesting, and, I hope, useful. While my colleagues labored to counter the mounting pressure on the system, I took parts of less-urgent projects off their plates. These included a memorandum on pre-trial detention procedures at the International Criminal Court and analyses of draft statutes for domestic and hybrid tribunals proposed in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Every day at HRW was an opportunity to look behind the curtain at how human rights monitoring and advocacy operate. And what’s behind the curtain? A lot of really impressive, dedicated, and knowledgeable people who are in this field for the right reasons, who weave harrowing testimonies, historical research, area expertise, and legal analysis into a final product that must withstand the strictest scrutiny. For those with whom I worked, this is their passion, not a stepping-stone to something else. From the courses I’ve taken at McGill, I think it is safe to say that there is no consensus on how to measure the success of the human rights project—but, based on what I’ve observed over the past three months, if this framework fails, it won’t be because of the folks behind the curtain.
One of my goals this summer was to have a good time in New York City. Mission accomplished there. Another was to learn about human rights work up close and see, perhaps, whether it was something I could see myself doing. I think I’ve managed to complete that one too; I’m not sure if I’m actually capable of fitting 25 hours of work into a 24-hour day, as others on this team seem to be, but as far as what they do is concerned, I’m definitely interested. Again, I have been very lucky, and I am so grateful to those who gave me the opportunity to even set these goals.
We are in the eastern foothills of the Adirondacks now, with Lake Champlain stretching out for miles on our right, and the Green Mountains beyond it, blued by the distance. Soon, we’ll be at Plattsburgh, then the border, then home.