Closing Date:

Oct 18, 2015

Salary:

Reimbursement of local travel costs, and lunch up to £5; we are unable to pay any stipend or salary.

How to Apply:

To apply, please download and complete the application form on our website. Send via email to Alex Janczenia janczenia@business-humanrights.org. Please include “Legal Research Internship” in the subject line. Note we cannot accept CVs.

Job Description:

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre is seeking a Legal Research Intern to provide support to our Corporate Legal Accountability Project, the leading global information hub about human rights lawsuits against companies. Working with our Corporate Legal Accountability team and other members of our global team, you will assist in monitoring news about lawsuits against companies over alleged human rights abuses, and help highlight affected communities’ struggle to access justice. We are a small team and often ask interns to help with a variety of other tasks as well (see task description below).

We are looking for someone who is enthusiastic, reliable and well-organised. You must have, or be currently enrolled in, an undergraduate or a professional law degree (LLB/JD or similar). You should have a strong interest in international human rights issues. You will need the ability to concisely communicate and demystify large amounts of complex information. You should be self-motivated, and able to work independently while functioning well as a member of a small team. You will need research skills, but also must be willing to do some amount of routine work efficiently & accurately. Attention to detail and accurate spelling are essential. Previous experience working with websites is not necessary. You must have excellent working knowledge of English. Fluency in Spanish, Russian or Arabic is highly desirable but not essential. Other language skills (particularly good working knowledge of Chinese, French, German or Portuguese) would be very welcome, in which case some of your work will include research & input in those languages.

Period: Starting in February 2016 onwards for at least 3 months full-time or 6 months part-time (2-3 days a week)

Reimbursement of local travel costs, and lunch up to £5; we are unable to pay any stipend or salary.

Location: our office in central London (after training is completed, the intern may also work from home at times if he/she wishes).

Next: If shortlisted, we will invite you for an interview and a written test. Provisionally, these will be held on 5th or 6th November 2015.

About us

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre is an international NGO that tracks the human rights impacts (positive & negative) of over 6000 companies in over 180 countries making information available on its eight language website. We seek responses from companies when concerns are raised by civil society. The response rate is over 70% globally.

The Resource Centre has 9 paid staff in London, including the Executive Director. Our team members are also based in Brazil, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Senegal, South Africa, Myanmar, Ukraine & USA. The Centre is a non-profit organization, and does not accept funding from companies. Further details about the Centre are on our website (http://www.business-humanrights.org).

Your tasks

Online legal research & inputs: find relevant news, commentaries, reports and court documents relating to lawsuits against companies over alleged human rights abuses; composing abstracts;

  • Categorising articles; adding and updating pages on the website, including broken links.

  • Drafting & updating case profiles: draft brief profiles in non-legal language explaining what the lawsuit is about, and what procedural stage it has reached.

  • Dissemination of content: help develop contact lists and disseminate our corporate accountability materials to legal contacts.

  • Participate in meetings, including fortnightly staff meetings with all staff & regional researchers.

Full-time Legal Research Interns will also spend half of their time assisting the Ressource Centre’s general, non-legal work, including:

  • Online research & input: Finding relevant news & reports online; composing abstracts; completing an input form to add each item to our site – helping us draw global attention to how companies are impacting the rights of people and communities.

  • Updating broken & outdated links on our site.

  • Researching companies and creating new company sections on our site.

  • Raising awareness about the Resource Centre by contacting relevant organizations.

You will be trained, supervised and supported by our staff.

Please note that this internship is not academically oriented, and does not involve extensive analysis or writing. Rather, it is a practical internship focused on bringing global attention to company conduct affecting people and communities, with the aim of promoting respect for human rights.