Student interns at the OECD

Christine Uriarte, Law '83, General Counsel of the OECD's Anti-Corruption Division, and student intern Daniel Dawalibi, Law ‘11,  at the OECD in the summer of 2009

While many students dream of summering in Paris and doing exciting work for an international organization, Daniel Dawalibi, Law ‘11, actually did so. Daniel spent July and August 2009 interning at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international body dedicated developing the world economy, maintaining financial stability and raising the standard of living in member countries.

Daniel spent May and June 2009 at the Queen’s Bader International Study Centre at Herstmonceux Castle in England and it was there that he first became aware of the OECD internship opportunity.

“During the Spring term at Herstmonceux Castle, those of us in the International Business Law stream were contacted by a Queen’s Law alumna, Christine Uriarte [Law ‘83], who is General Counsel of the OECD’s Anti-Corruption Division,” Daniel says. “The thought of spending two months living and working in Paris grabbed my attention first. But I quickly realized that this was an outstanding opportunity…[I was] well aware of the kind of work done by the OECD and the very positive reputation it enjoys across much of the world.”

Daniel spent his time at the OECD preparing research and background documents to be used by OECD on-site examiners during a trip to South Africa, where they would be reviewing South Africa’s compliance with the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, which focuses on combating the bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions. In the case of South Africa, the review looks at how effectively it is preventing, detecting and prosecuting cases of South African companies bribing officials in other countries, to for instance, obtain lucrative infrastructure contracts. Daniel prepared a high-level summary of South Africa’s political, economic and legal history, and drafted a detailed overview of the country’s judicial system.

“I also spent a significant amount of time looking into South Africa’s corporate business culture; namely the degree to which the country’s largest firms adhere to corporate codes of conduct that are supportive of the provisions of the Anti-Bribery Convention,” he says. “On the whole, these tasks gave me a balanced workload of research and analysis that I hope is a good reflection of what I might expect as a young lawyer.”

Daniel Dawalibi, Law ‘11, at the Eiffel Tower during his stay in Paris for his internship in the summer of 2009

The OECD’s formal evaluation of South Africa, which will take place June 15-18, 2010, will be published in a report soon after. “You will be able to see how Queen’s, through Daniel, contributed to the fight against the bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions,” says Uriarte. “Daniel is a credit to Queen’s Law. He performed a tremendous amount of research and his legal analysis was first-rate.”

Daniel received a Torys Public Interest Summer Internship Award during his internship, which helped cover his living expenses.

“The Torys Award was instrumental in making my time at the OECD a reality,” he said. “I remain very grateful to the firm for their generosity and I hope that this relationship will continue to thrive between our law school and Torys.”

In the end, Daniel's internship was a highlight of his legal education.

“I had the opportunity to work with highly skilled lawyers from every corner of the world in a setting that is completely unlike what I expect to find during any future career in Canada,” he says. “As an intern I had the freedom to take on a wide range of different tasks, all in an atmosphere that my colleagues made efforts to ensure was conducive to my own learning and development. My internship did help focus my career direction by reaffirming that I wanted an international dimension to whatever sort of practice I come to have here in Canada.”

For more information on the OECD, please visit http://www.oecd.org/home/

For more information on Queen’s Law internships and the Torys Public Interest Summer Internship Award, please visit http://law.queensu.ca/international/internshipPrograms.html