Legal Fellow, Strategic Litigation Project

Description

About the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project

The Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project (SLP) works to advance prevention and accountability efforts for atrocity crimes, human rights violations, terrorism, and corruption offenses.

The SLP seeks to achieve this through the following ways:

• Advocate for legislators to create new legal tools and improve existing ones to aid victims and survivors of serious international crimes in seeking accountability.
• File and support impact litigation and human rights interventions in international, regional and national courts and forums.
• Publish leading scholarship and convene public and private events, all designed to advance the global debate on the sophisticated use of strategic litigation.  

The SLP’s work is global in scope. The current project focus for Legal Fellows includes China and ongoing atrocities against the Uyghurs.

Overview of the Role

Under the supervision of the head of the SLP and in close cooperation with the project team, you will provide human rights and law-related research and draft support for China’s human rights-related project deliverables and analyze rule of law-related developments in key jurisdictions around the world.

This position is based remotely within the US. Applications submitted by December 31, 2024, will be prioritized for consideration.

Job responsibilities

• Research, analysis, and drafting related to the use of international, regional, and national courts, forums, and mechanisms for justice and redress for ongoing human rights violations and atrocity crimes committed against the Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities.
• Draft diverse project outputs including legal memos, legal briefs, analytical pieces, blog posts, explainers, and fact sheets for submission to various intergovernmental justice mechanisms and international, regional, and national forums.
• Exploring creative and novel approaches to seek redress for ongoing human rights violations.
• Work closely with SLP senior legal & policy advisor and China project lead, Rayhan Asat to represent the SLP and advocate for ongoing accountability mechanisms to governments, policymakers, the media, victim and survivor communities, the global legal and human rights communities, academics, donors/funders and other stakeholders.
• Other duties as assigned by the SLP’s management team.

Qualifications

• Current or recently graduated law students, who has already secured or seeks to partner with the SLP to apply to secure funding.
• Demonstrated interest in international human rights, humanitarian law, comparative law, and/or criminal law and procedure.
• Excellent writing skills.
• Team player with good interpersonal and diplomatic skills.
• A high level of personal dedication, reliability and commitment.
• Problem solver and ability to work independently.