The Rewards of a Career in International Justice
Olivia Swaak-Goldman*
My career path, like that of many others, has resulted from a bit of luck and a lot of hard work. I always knew that I wanted to have a career in public interest work, and my interest gradually shifted from civil rights to international human rights and humanitarian law.
After studying political science at Trinity College I spent a year working at the Middle East Policy Institute and interning at Amnesty International in New York. By then, I was convinced that the field of human rights was the area of law that I was the most interested in pursuing. With this in mind, I enrolled in the Washington College of Law (WCL) at American University, which has an excellent program in international human rights and humanitarian law. While at WCL, I received a fellowship in public international law from the Ford Foundation and worked as a Dean's Fellow for several professors active in this field.
I utilized my summers in between law school to re-confirm my interest in human rights law. During the summer after my first year in law school, I interned at an international human rights NGO in the Hague, the Netherlands. I thought that it was important to make sure I was not interested in any other field, so just to make sure I the next summer I was a summer associate in a large Wall Street firm.
In 1994, after graduating and passing the New York bar exam, I returned to the Netherlands to join my husband, a Dutch attorney. Having moved to the Netherlands without any clear career opportunities, but convinced of the type of work that I wanted to do, I enrolled in an LL.M program at the University of Amsterdam and sent my curriculum vita to a few organizations, including the newly formed United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In late 1994, I received a call from Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, the first American Judge at the ICTY, asking if I would be interested in an interview. I began as her first legal assistant in February 1995 while finishing my LL.M. This was an incredible opportunity where I worked on extremely interesting issues with a wonderful boss and a group of highly motivated colleagues.
After the ICTY, I joined the faculty of the international law department at Leiden University to begin work on my Ph.D. dissertation. However, before I could finish, I left Leiden to become a Legal Assistant at the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal. There I was able to assist the American Judges with intergovernmental and private arbitral claims. In this period, I also published quite a few articles, a practice that I have maintained throughout my career, and edited two volumes on international criminal law with my former boss, Judge McDonald.
It was also during this period that my first child was born. Pregnant with my second child, I decided it was time after five years to leave the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and begin work at the International Law Department of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). International law departments for ministries of foreign affairs in any country are fascinating places to work since they operate on the border of law and foreign policy.
With the birth of second child, I decided it was best to work part-time (75 percent), and later on the birth of my third child made it even more of a necessity. Having the ability to work part-time was one of the greatest advantages of working for the government, particularly in the Netherlands, where almost all parents (mothers in particular) are allowed to work part-time. ). During my time with the Netherlands MFA, I was responsible for international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and terrorism.
In 2006, after five years at the MFA, I was offered a position as the International Cooperation Adviser in the Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division of the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) at the International Criminal Court. Although I was thrilled at the opportunity, I was wary of giving up the delicate balance that I had managed to establish at the MFA. I was, however, able to organize a leave of absence from the MFA to work at the ICC. In the first three months at the ICC, I worked full time, but as soon as I broached the subject of working four days a week, I was given immediate support by the Prosecutor and others within the OTP. While they never had anyone work part-time at the OTP, any work precedence in the Court as a whole was still young, so they were willing to let me try. However, the implementation process has been varied. Some weeks I succeed in working only four days and leaving the office at a reasonable time, while other weeks, when deadlines loom, it is more difficult. It remains a challenge to find a way to get my work done and to supervise the work of others while getting to spend sufficient time with my three small children. The ability to log on to the Court's system from home certainly helps in this regard.
My time so far at the ICC has been both extremely rewarding and busy. Within the OTP my work is concerned with the OTP's external relations with States, NGOs, and other stakeholders. In addition to general relationship issues, a lot of my work involves communication issues related to our investigations and prosecutions, in other words, how to explain the work that the OTP is doing to the outside world. This is done through reports, speeches, periodic briefings, the preparation of written background materials, etc. all involving a lot of consultations and coordination both within the OTP and outside. Due to the importance of the OTP's relationship with its stakeholders, as well as the fact that much of the OTP's work is not yet well known, my workload is quite heavy. My position is not unique in this regard since almost everyone in the OTP works long hours.
My background was ideally suited for this position in that I had acquired specialized, substantive knowledge of international criminal law while also learning at the MFA the importance of policy issues and the way in which legal issues can be explained to stakeholders. These two aspects are critical for someone in this position. Additionally, a master's degree is an enormous asset for work in international organizations, and the ability to work well with people from different backgrounds and cultures is essential. Finally, the ability to work in a second language (ideally French) remains important.
From being a part of an NGO that lobbies states on domestic prosecution of international crimes to providing legal advice to international prosecutors, a career in international justice can take many forms. Although I have not worked in all of these areas, my experience over the last 12 years has left me convinced that this is one of the most rewarding career fields within international law.