On Oct. 23, Lewis & Clark’s International Law Society and Public Interest Law Project hosted the panel “LAW: Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Discussion” with Assistant Professor of Lawyering Charlie Martel. The event, led by International Law Society Co-President Connor McRobert and Secretary Annette Cruz, was open to all students curious about Martel’s educational and professional experience in international human rights and humanitarian law.
The conversation was of interest to law students interested in or pursuing a career in humanitarian or international law, though the subject matter applied to much more than just this particular field of law — topics ranged from the trials and tribulations of publishing a creative, narrative essay in a law journal, to the struggles of transcending cultural barriers as an American in an international professional setting, to the emotional intensity of humanitarian work to the importance of passion, flexibility and openness in one’s career.
Before coming to LC’s law school, Martel taught at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, the Washington & Lee University School of Law and the American University Washington College of Law. He led an investigation on the response to Hurricane Katrina, worked with refugees seeking asylum both internationally and domestically, has participated in voting rights teams since 2001 and led the Obama campaign’s legal headquarters in Virginia.
He has published a variety of scholarship on constitutional issues, human rights, civil rights, voting rights, public policy, the law of armed conflict and humanitarian response.
The panel was hosted in the Legal Research Center on the law campus in a nearly-full classroom. After introducing Martel, along with his scholarship and professional background, McRobert started off the discussion by asking Martel about his experience receiving advanced training for a Master of Laws (LLM) in International Human Rights Law at the London School of Economics.
“If any of you have experience with international law, it operates differently than U.S. domestic law. Also just culturally, to be in a place where 90% of the students were not U.S. citizens, was itself an education about what’s going on on the ground,” said Martel. “It was really theoretical compared to U.S. law and super interesting in terms of creative thinking and access to people doing human rights work, working on the ground all over the world.”
Martel elaborated that although he does not regret pursuing his LLM in International Human Rights Law, he believes that most organizations prefer candidates with real-world experience over candidates with more scholarly experience. He emphasized the overlap between international and domestic work in the field of humanitarian law.
“If you’re thinking about things like human rights, there’s a lot of areas that are adjacent to human rights,” said Martel. “So civil rights, voting rights, things like public defense work, I think, would translate for somebody looking to fill a human rights job as adjacent to that kind of work that they’re doing.”
McRobert looped the conversation back to Martel’s scholarship, and in particular, his essay published in the Harvard Human Rights Journal in 2022: “I Was a Stranger, and You Welcomed Me.”
“That’s a narrative story about what happened when I volunteered to work with refugees in Greece,” he said. “Sometimes, particularly those of us who are professors, we get way up in the academic world, and sometimes we forget about the stories of the people that are impacted.”
Cruz agreed that the field of law can easily become detached from the people being most impacted by the issues in a case, pointing to her experience as a law student reading cases in a classroom rather than interacting with clients out in the world.
McRobert redirected the conversation to the narrative nature of the writing piece, asking about Martel about his experience getting the essay published.
“You have to be both a lawyer, but also a true writer in a narrative sense,” McRobert said.
Martel shared that the piece was rejected several times before it was finally published, and described how very few legal journals accept narrative essays.
“I don’t know how many of you have tried to get a legal academic article published,” said Martel. “It’s a very ritualized thing, and my article was completely not what usually gets published.”
He described how although the piece was rejected from UC Berkeley’s California Law Review, they encouraged him to find a law review that would publish more of a story.
“I really targeted human rights journals,” he said. “And Harvard was interested, because they have an online publication that is well-suited for this kind of thing.”
As the conversation shifted towards recommendations for law students aspiring to work in the field of international human rights law, Martel repeatedly emphasized the value of practical, hands-on experience, as well as the abundance of opportunities here in the U.S. to build up that experience before applying to international organizations.
“A lot of times, the people seeking asylum or immigration are doing it because they’re a victim of human rights violations somewhere else,” said Martel. “I would encourage you to consider immigration rights, because it’s an area that connects very nearly with international human rights work, and you would be very credible to international human rights organizations if you have done immigration rights work in the U.S.”
He also touched on the relevance of prosecution and defense work in the field of human rights law.
“Work in criminal defense is adjacent to human rights in a lot of respects,” he said. “I have some students who prosecuted child abuse and domestic violence. Sometimes, we don’t typically think of being a prosecutor as necessarily a human rights-adjacent kind of work, but for that kind of work, it is.”
Martel also noted that the expansion of remote job opportunities for international human rights law organizations, such as Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch and the International Refugee Assistance Program, could be of interest to students intent upon gaining professional experience.
He emphasized the importance of networking throughout the discussion, and encouraged law students to build connections with professionals in their field of interest. He recalled how attending his colleague’s dinner party when he was a fourth-year associate attorney led to a conversation with someone working for an asylum organization in Chicago, and he gained the opportunity to work as a pro bono lawyer handling asylum cases in federal court.
At the end of the panel, the hosts opened the floor to questions for Martel.
One student asked him about how he has overcome challenges regarding his career, to which he responded with the example of his article on voting rights which was rejected 250 times before it was published.
“Part of it is a high tolerance for the fact that things are going to be challenging, and it’s going to take a lot of nos to get to yeses,” said Martel. “The nos are learning experiences, sometimes.”
He also identified the emotional intensity of human rights work as a challenge he has faced in his career.
“A lot of the organizations that do this have support counseling internally to take care of people so they don’t absorb second-hand trauma,” he said.
He recounted his career’s trajectory through transitions, from private practice to volunteering to teaching to working with Congress.
“I would really encourage you to think about your opportunities in your career as having chapters,” said Martel. “Looking back at mine, there are a lot of changes.”
The next students asked him what advice he would offer to students on how to transcend cultural boundaries and overcome international perceptions of American scholars as an individual with an American legal background in the field.
Martel recalled his experience studying abroad as having broadened his sense of how the U.S. is perceived internationally, as well as his sense of how to function in the culture and field of international law.
“My experience in London really helped me a lot because I was immersed in that culture, and a year of lived experience gave me a sense of how culturally international law is different — and how the U.S. is perceived in a lot of different ways, and not always positively,” said Martel.
He emphasized the importance of openness to other perspectives.
“There’s a value to having the U.S. perspective with our issues,” he said. “I learned very quickly that listening is a pretty important thing too … and hearing other people’s points of view, too, about how to engage.”
In his responses to the final few questions from students, Martel continued to highlight the fluid nature of a career within and beyond humanitarian law.
“Sometimes you walk through a door for one reason, and what you find at the other end is a different reason that is equally cool,” said Martel.
The panel concluded with Martel’s advice for transcending cultural barriers, supporting clients and navigating emotionally intense work in the field of human rights law.
“I think listening, and trying to be tuned into what people’s drivers are, what brings people to the table they’re at,” said Martel. “Sometimes it’s not legal issues, it’s how things feel to people, it’s the things that they’ve been through. As a lawyer, I think well, how can I be effective for this client telling this kind of story – and particularly when the stories they’re telling are so deeply traumatic and so deeply personal, listening in a way that makes them feel understood. And at a certain point, plugging in with enough of an explanation of the legal process, that they appreciate what you’re trying to do for them has been really helpful.”
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