Chapman Law Students Offered Prestigious NGO Internships

Two Chapman Law students will be traveling across the globe to Phnom Penh, Cambodia this summer for highly selective summer internships with the Open Society Justice Initiative.

Supported by generous grants and fellowships from the law school’s Public Interest Law Foundation and the Center for Global Trade & Development, second-year student Katrina Jaffe will spend six weeks with the non-governmental organization working on issues related to the Khmer Rouge genocide tribunals, and first-year student Julie Anne Ines will spend eight weeks working on the advancement of media rights.

For Jaffe, whose graduate work dealt with foreign policy and international economics, the trip abroad punctuates an already impressive international resume. “I've been very fortunate in having the opportunity to travel extensively throughout my life,” Jaffe said. In high school, she went to Venezuela for an exchange program and lived with a Venezuelan family for a summer. During her junior in college she did a study abroad program in Tokyo, Japan. Jaffe enjoyed Tokyo so much that she returned to Japan after graduation and worked there for a few more years.

Despite her extensive experience, however, Jaffe is still “ecstatic” about travelling to the Cambodian capital. “I'm both giddy and anxious knowing how rewarding and challenging the internship will be. It's one of those things where I won't believe I'm actually going until I'm on the plane,” she said.

Ines – a former community reporter for the Orange County Register, and former university and community college editor – is also thrilled about the trip abroad. “I’m incredibly excited about travelling to Phnom Penh, but I’m just as excited about the work I’m going to be helping with,” Ines said.

“Here in the United States, it’s very easy to forget and take for granted just how lucky we are to live in a country where free speech is not just allowed but encouraged. I think it will be a humbling and rewarding experience to protect and promote public conversation and press freedom in a place where it is stifled to some degree,” Ines said.

The internships will not only be valuable for Jaffe and Ines, they will also make Chapman one of the most heavily represented law schools in the international human rights community, according to John Hall, associate professor of law. 

“Internships like this will give important practical experience that compliments the international law program. They also give legitimacy and prestige to the international law program while gaining recognition for Chapman Law within the international legal community,” Jaffe said.

Ines will be chronicling parts of her trip on her personal blog, The Chronicles of a Blawgirl at http://blawgirl.julieanneines.com.