Student interns at The Hague

Gerard Kennedy (second row, second from left), Law '10, in court at the ICTY in The Hague during his summer 2009 internship.

Gerard Kennedy, Law '10, spent the summer of 2009 interning at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where he already knew one of the judges he worked for from the Bader International Study Centre (BISC).  Gerard decided to apply for a summer internship at The Hague during his studies in one of the school's Global Law Programs at the BISC.  

The ICTY was established by the United Nations in 1993 as a response to the atrocities taking place in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.  The ad hoctribunal, with its objective of bringing war criminals to trial, was the first international war crimes tribunal created since Nuremberg and Tokyo, and is situated in The Hague, The Netherlands.

"I'm interested in how the judiciary works," Gerard says, "and I thought that, especially having met a judge and a prosecutor at the BISC, it would be a great opportunity to work in a very exciting field of law with people from around the world."

Gerard worked in Trial Chamber II, with responsibilities ranging from researching legal issues and preparing witness summaries to going to court and observing examinations and cross-examinations of witnesses.  He was able to finance his internship with assistance from the Dean's Excellence Fund.

"It's worth it in the long run for the sheer experience and to get to know these people," Gerard says, "if you ever want to work in the field, it's a valuable thing to have done."

One of the difficulties Gerard faced was reconciling procedural aspects due to the mixture of civil and common law influences from a variety of jurisdictions.  While his Queen's Law education familiarized him with evidentiary and criminal procedural concepts, Gerard found the internship complemented it with a wealth of practical experience.

"I met and worked with people from all around the world, being exposed to different cultures and legal backgrounds," Gerard says. "Throughout all of this, these people had come together to a government town in The Netherlands to contribute something common to the betterment of the world. I am confident I will remain in contact with many individuals I met in The Hague, and might just return there somewhere in the future."

Most of Gerard's work was on the Prosecutor v. Popovic et. al case, a prosecution of seven Bosnian army and civilian police officers who are alleged to have played a role in the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995.  He also assisted in the Prosecutor v. Zdravko Tolimir case, the trial of a general who was captured too late to be tried in the Popovic et al. case, and a motion by convicted prisoner Momcilo Krajisnik for custodial release.

"I remember when a verdict on another case came out when I was there," Gerard says. "To see it all come together and in some small way denounce the atrocities that occurred in the Balkans in the 1990s - I'll always remember that."