Warwick Law School News

LLM student Laura Kisiang'ani (International Economic Law), recently undertook an amazing two week human rights internship at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. We caught up with her to find out more about her experience. Laura told us:

"In May, I joined the Human Rights Unit as an intern within the Governance and Peace Directorate at the Commonwealth Secretariat. While human rights law wasn't entirely new to me, it was certainly a departure from my current focus on International Economic Law. Still, I embraced the opportunity with a genuine willingness to learn.

From the very beginning, the Secretariat proved to be a supportive and enriching work environment. The members within my department went out of their way to help me adapt, offering clear guidance, patient instruction, and a genuine interest in my growth.

Through this support, I was also introduced to other departments, including the Economic Policy in Small States Section. There, I learned about the Secretariat’s role in providing technical assistance and advocacy for small states, such as, advancing reform initiatives within the global financial architecture to address structural inequalities that disproportionately affect these states. This resonated closely with my LLM studies in International Economic Law and deepened my understanding of how legal and policy tools can be used to foster economic justice on a global scale.

Back in the Human Rights Unit, I was reminded that law is ultimately about people. It is not just about who presents the strongest case, but who listens, and who chooses to act. At the Human Rights Unit, we engaged directly with member countries to hear and document human rights concerns. A colleague said something rather profound that has stayed with me, “If we don’t document it, if we don’t report it, then it never happened.” I had the chance to work on freedom of expression violations in Malawi, which opened my eyes to the broader social role of law.

I also spent some time in other departments, one of the most impactful being the Rule of Law section. There, I learned something truly interesting as I had never seen from that point of view, that war is not simply the absence of peace but more significantly, it is the absence of law.

Two key lessons I took from this experience are the quiet power of documentation and the vital role of law in giving structure and voice to human experience. "