Live, From Mae Sot!
As some of you may know, this summer LSRJ has set up a series of fantastic international opportunities to send law students into the field, and fight for reproductive justice abroad. LSRJ has put dedicated activists in Thailand, the Philippines, and Nepal. Our crew will be blogging about these experiences throughout the month of July. This first post is by Emily Kane. Emily is a rising 3L at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law in Tucson, AZ. A native of California, Emily spent her two years in between undergraduate and law school in Washington, DC at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) doing advocacy work predominantly in the areas of reproductive justice and judicial nominations. She is currently spending her summer as an LSRJ International Intern in and around Mae Sot, Thailand working on international reproductive justice advocacy.
In Thailand, where I am one of two LSRJers placed, we are working on a project through the New York based Global Justice Center. Specifically, we are asking two major questions of international human rights law: 1) are women (and their partners) protected from government pressure and interference in making their family planning choices?; and 2) if maternal birth rates are abnormally high, at what point can a government be blamed? These questions, perhaps seemingly uncomplicated, have not been asked in quite this way and represent uncharted territory in the reproductive justice world. In seeking these answer, we are scouring the net (thank you Westlaw and Lexis Nexis!) and the countryside (interviewing Burmese refugees in western Thailand).
As with all summer law jobs, it is amazing to see the outlines of classroom conversations and mountains of text filled in by the color of experience. Last fall, I took a course about the UN and human rights, related treaties, and the processes by which these treaties are actualized. Reading CEDAW for class last November, while fantastic, cannot compare to reading it now as we try to apply it to the project before us.
Struggling with language barriers, gauging foreign cultural norms, and mining through the vast universe that is international human rights law has been humbling. At the same time, studying the law and (perhaps) finding new avenues to help women attain the international human rights to which they are entitled is emboldening.
July 14th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Hooray! I spent last summer in Mae Sot — also through an LSRJ internship — doing research for the Committee for the Protection and Promotion of Child Rights, a group affiliated with the Mae Tao Clinic that works with the children of Burmese migrants in Thailand, many of whom are unrecognized by either the Burmese or Thai governments, making them effectively stateless. Mae Sot is a fascinating place — a border town on the receiving end of a steady stream of people fleeing conflict and repression under the Burmese military junta. So many people in need of aid, health care, education, and jobs…and also an inspiring array of activists, advocates, and researchers who use Mae Sot as a homebase for their work in the border region.
In my conversations with Burmese colleagues and acquaintances, I was continually struck by the powerful impact of human rights language and concepts — even with limited or no enforceability in the present context — and how important it is for Burmese activists to have human rights law and institutions to draw on for inspiration and guidance in their work. This is especially true in the RJ context, where women’s rights advocates may not always be able to speak directly about sexual and reproductive issues but can draw on human rights concepts to convey important information about women’s choices in a way that is empowering and effective.
Emily, I hope you’re enjoying Mae Sot as much as I did — look forward to hearing more about your work and experiences there!