Summer Fellowships in Human Rights & Inequality

Deadline: March 2022 TBD

As part of a five-year project to explore the relationship between economic inequality and human rights, the Rapoport Center is offering summer fellowships for UT law and graduate students to intern with organizations, globally and locally, working on issues of human rights and inequality— particularly (but not limited to) the areas of economic justice, labor, and natural resource governance.

The Rapoport Center can arrange student placements, based on the candidate's skills, foreign language proficiency, and background interests and experience. We have a number of placement sites available for qualified students. Past placements have included Workers' Defense Project (Austin),  Juvenile Justice Advocates International (Mexico or Dominican Republic), and the Democracy and Workers' Rights Center-Palestine (Ramallah).

Students are also welcome to identify their own placement sites: all organizations working on human rights and inequality, either domestically or internationally, will be considered.

Human Rights and Inequality Fellowships are available for UT-Austin law and graduate students of any level.

If you are interested in learning more about the Inequality and Human Rights Fellowship, please contact Rapoport Center Assistant Director Sarah Eliason.

Other past placements include:

Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND)
Beirut, Lebanon

ANND is a regional network, working in 12 Arab countries with nine national networks (with an extended membership of 250 CSOs from different backgrounds) and 23 NGO members. ANND aims at strengthening the role of civil society, enhancing the values of democracy, respect of human rights and sustainable development in the region. ANND advocates for more sound and effective socio-economic reforms in the region, which integrate the concepts of sustainable development, gender justice, and the rights-based approach. Knowledge of Arabic (both written and oral) is strongly recommended.

Conectas
São Paolo, Brazil

Conectas is a non-governmental and not-for-profit organization whose mission is to promote the realization of human rights and consolidation of the Rule of Law in the Global South - Africa, Asia and Latin America. Conectas operates under the conviction that civil society has a fundamental role to play in strengthening corporate accountability and liability mechanisms for human rights violations committed by the private sector, in particular by Brazilian companies operating in Brazil and abroad. Knowledge of Portuguese (both written and oral) is strongly recommended.

Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA)
Mexico City, México; San José, Costa Rica; Bogotá, Colombia; Lima, Perú

AIDA is a nonprofit environmental law organization that works across international borders to defend threatened ecosystems and the human communities that depend on them. Environmental health and human rights can no longer be protected by working within the political boundaries of individual nations: the 35 countries of our hemisphere are united under a common environmental flag. International problems call for international responses, and AIDA develops transnational strategies to address the environmental and human rights challenges of the 21st century. Knowledge of Spanish (both written and oral) is strongly recommended.

Legal Resources Centre (LRC)
Accra, Ghana

The LRC, Ghana is a non-governmental organization based in with significant community-based grassroots initiatives. The LRC develops human rights capacities within communities where it works so as to ensure social progress and development through the instrumentation of law, justice, development and good governance. The LRC also links community concerns to national level policy institutions to ensure that decisions take into consideration less privileged populations within Ghana.