Internship with the European Roma Rights Centre
Rebecca Miller
This summer I worked for the European Roma Rights Centre in Budapest, Hungary as a legal intern. The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) is an international public interest law organization engaging in a range of activities aimed at combating anti-Romani racism and human rights abuse of Roma. The approach of the ERRC involves, in particular, strategic litigation, international advocacy, research and policy development, and human rights training of Romani activists. Since its establishment in 1996, the ERRC has endeavored to give Roma the tools necessary to combat discrimination and win equal access to government, education, employment, health care, housing and public services. The ERRC works to combat prejudice and discrimination against Roma, and to promote genuine equality of treatment and equality of respect.
As a legal intern, I was primarily involved in the strategic litigation work of the ERRC. The ERRC works with local partners throughout Europe to find clients and cases to advance the human rights of the Romani people. The attorney I was working under at the ERRC focuses her work on the Roma in the Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Moldova.
One of my biggest contributions to the organization was completing an extensive research project on "hate speech". This project involved organizing a legal plan for the ERRC to take with "hate speech" litigation, an issue that has never before been litigated in front of the European Court of Human Rights. By interpreting various international treaties and UN directives, and reviewing related case law in the European context, I formatted a guideline for our local partners to use when litigating "hate speech" both domestically and internationally. My research is currently being translated into Russian, and it will be used as the basis for our European-wide legal battle against "hate speech". After I completed my project on hate speech, I researched ways we could approach litigating school segregation in Romania and the Ukraine. My final major project of the summer involved doing research on how to litigate a housing rights case involving a Romani family in Hungary. I also worked on a political asylum case and a failure to investigate claim.
My legal internship at the ERRC was a great opportunity to grow as an attorney. I was able utilize my legal research and writing skills, while pushing myself to stretch beyond my comfort level. Being in a small organization, I was able to take on major projects and to craft a litigation strategy that will have a real affect on how the organization approaches hate speech litigation in the future. I was given a great level of autonomy and responsibility. I was told to take the projects and to work with them as though I already had a JD. I don't believe I would have been given such responsibility or such an opportunity to advance my legal skills if I would have worked for a private firm for the summer. I can see the tangible effect of how my work this summer will affect the public interest. The projects I did were important to the organization and were not just busy work. The research I did will be passed on to the attorneys at the local level and when the cases reach the European Court of Justice, the work I did will be used as the basis for our arguments in one of the highest European courts, affecting not just one country, but the whole of Europe. My summer experience was one that changed my outlook on the world, and gave me real perspective on my career as an attorney.