Students Prepare for Human Rights Careers at the UN General Assembly Session

L-R: Andra Nicolescu '14, Andrea Furger, Juan Mendez, Vanessa Alvarez, Maria Corina Muskus


Professor Juan Mendez, United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, invited two American University Washington College of Law students to attend the 70th Session of the General Assembly of the UN.

Vanessa Alvarez and Maria Corina Muskus had the opportunity to observe the work of Professor Mendez firsthand during his presentation on extraterritorial application of the prohibition of torture and other ill treatment and attendant obligations under international law.

Alvarez, a 2L, and Muskus, a graduate student in the LL.M program, are both Dean’s Fellows for the Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law’s Anti-Torture Initiative at the law school, a project that supports the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on torture.

Together with Professor Mendez and Dean Claudio Grossman, the Chair of the United Nations Committee against Torture, the students attended events at the United Nations, met with the UN officials and delegates, as well as members of the civil society in New York City.

“Having the opportunity to attend the 70th Session of the UN General Assembly allowed me to contextualize the issues I have been working on throughout my human rights-focused coursework at American University Washington College of Law,” Alvarez says.

Muskus learned how state delegates work with the ‘special procedures’ – independent experts with mandates that report and advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective. 

“This opportunity allowed me to see what it would be like to work for the United Nations secretariat in the near future,” says Muskus.