In his time at Harvard Law School, Ha Ryong (Michael) Jung ’18, a Chayes International Public Service Fellow in 2016 and 2017, has completed extensive coursework and clinical training in children’s rights, human rights and child protection, criminal justice, international and foreign law, and human rights advocacy and negotiation to shape a future career in child advocacy.
Nineteen Harvard Law School students have been awarded the 2017 Chayes International Public Service Fellowship, dedicated to the memory of Professor Abram Chayes, who taught at Harvard Law School for more than 40 years. These summer fellowships provide HLS students with the opportunity to spend eight weeks engaged in international public service within the governments of developing nations and those making transitions to peace, stability, and democracy, as well as the inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations that support them.
This year’s Fellows will spend this summer in Cambodia, Chile, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Myanmar, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Uganda, and the United Kingdom, as well as in New York City. Read brief biographies and descriptions of their summer placements; we’ll bring you updates on their experiences later this summer!
Michael Jung ’18 at the UNICEF offices in Bangkok. All photos courtesy of Michael Jung.
Working at the UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) in Bangkok has been a phenomenal learning experience. My work primarily deals with violence against children and justice for children in the 28 countries that are overseen by EAPRO.
I’ve been writing and conducting extensive legal research and legislative and policy analyses. It’s been fascinating to observe the incredibly diverse legal frameworks on children and juvenile justice, and particularly exciting to see the legislative reforms and initiatives in recent and upcoming months.
On top of the respectable mandate of UNICEF, every person in our office is inspirational, and my supervisor is simply fantastic with profound expertise and experience in this field. I already feel as though I have been with UNICEF for years.
I recently returned from a UNICEF mission to Timor-Leste that was aimed at better understanding the landscape of juvenile justice and better strategizing the efforts of UNICEF in the country. It was an extraordinary opportunity to visit a prison facility and engage with the incarcerated young persons, meet with the legal drafter of the forthcoming laws on children, and speak with various actors in the system including ministry officials, prosecutors, and legal aid organizations.
In Bangkok, I was able to visit a juvenile vocational training center for boys and assist with a juvenile justice meeting attended by representatives of the 10 ASEAN countries and other entities in the region. I also had the occasion of visiting the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok with my three HLS colleagues here and had some interesting discussions with two political officers, one dealing with human rights and another dealing with security, cybersecurity, and issues in the deep south of Thailand.
Bangkok is a wonderful place to be, especially given the number of organizations and regional bodies in the city, and my collaboration with various individuals has led to some thrilling opportunities in the months to come. The weather is hot, but that is exactly the way I like it, and I love the district I live in (the older part of the city).
I couldn’t have asked for a better summer, and I look forward to seeing the types of work I will be conducting going forward!
Nineteen Harvard Law School students have been awarded 2016 Chayes International Public Service Fellowships. This summer the fellows will be working in Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Guam, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Ukraine, as well as San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Read the 2016 Chayes Fellows biographies.
Elephants in Chiang Mai; Lauren Blodgett ’16 at work; Erawan Falls. Photos courtesy of Lauren Blodgett.
I am really enjoying my experience in Thailand. For my internship at ECPAT, I am working on a project called Access to Justice for Child Victims of Sexual Exploitation. We are doing a multi-country comparative study to identify the barriers that child victims face regarding access to justice.
In particular, I am focusing on victims’ access to compensation, and I am researching the criminal, civil, and administrative avenues for compensation. I am writing about the theory behind compensation, and pulling best practices and lessons learned from the comparative study. From this research, we hope to provide our network members and other NGOs with a toolkit to help child victims in the aftermath of sexual exploitation. We also hope to use this study to inform international discussions on children’s rights and shape our advocacy efforts before the United Nations.