Aaron Krieger – 2010
European Public Law Organization
Legrena, Greece
May 28, 2008 – August 7, 2008
At its core, the European Public Law Organization (EPLO), located in Legrena, Greece, is an international organization dedicated to implementing human rights reformation projects throughout Europe. The EPLO, now an independent international organization, was originally conceived by the European Group of Public Law and realized by an Act of the Hellenic Parliament in Greece. The organization deals with projects ranging in scope from comparative constitutional law to children’s rights law. The EPLO engages in projects researching these fields of law, and educating and training legal institutions throughout the world in the aforementioned areas. Currently, the EPLO is involved in several projects dealing the study of human rights law in conflict afflicted areas, such as Bosnia, Israel, and Pakistan. The self described mission of the organization is to promote democracy and the rule of law and to foster democratic institution building in the European Union member states and beyond.
Structurally, the organization has several offices, including its headquarters in Legrena, approximately 45 miles outside of Athens, an office in downtown Athens, and several other properties, including a campsite in Maroneia, Greece. The staff of the organization can roughly be considered in two groups. First, there is subset of employees, the project managers, whose responsibility, essentially, is to find applicable human rights projects, draft proposals to bid on said projects, and than manage the implementation of the projects. The project managers are an incredibly talented and qualified group, all of whom have law degrees and most of whom have masters in fields such as human rights law or environmental law. The second subset of employees consists of those who enable the project managers to successfully achieve their project goals, such as accountants, administrators, and other such logistical positions. Also of note, is a third group, the external consultants and experts whom the EPLO employs to implement their projects. While the consultants are independent contractors, and not considered staff of the EPLO, qualified experts are vital to the success of the EPLO’s projects, and therefore to the success of the EPLO as an organization.
Much of the day to day work at the EPLO, in terms of the project managers, with whom I worked during my internship, is administrative in nature. Managers communicate with experts in their various projects, providing valuable oversight, contract with government entities, manage budgetary issues and deal with making various arrangements and decisions for each of their projects (flight plans, organizing study visits to a variety of countries, researching and contacting experts, etc.).
I spent the majority of my internship working on two projects. These two projects are representative of the kind of work done at the EPLO, and I will elaborate in greater detail to provide some insight as to the workings of the organization. First, I helped to draft a technical offer (project proposal) for a program aimed to implement human rights reform in the judiciary of Jordan. Second, I assisted in running a 2 week program in which the EPLO invites law students from the Black Sea states to a campsite in Maroneia where they participate in lectures and classes on such topics as European Union law, transparency, and country cooperation.
The “Project of Support to Human Rights and Good Governance in Jordan” was proposed, jointly, by the European Union and the Ministry of Justice in Jordan. Essentially, with projects such as this one, the funding entity (here the European Union) and the beneficiary country (here, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) identify several objectives for a project of reform, and then provide a budget and timeline, including deadlines for project proposals and for the actual implementation of the project. The EPLO, and similar organizations, then draft technical offers which outline more specific project objectives, compile research discussing the problems and issues that are preventing these objectives from being met, and then present a specific strategy and methodology to be implemented to achieve these objectives. Included in the strategy and methodology are the expert consultants who will be taking part in on the ground implementation of the project and description of specific activities that will help to implement this strategy. My role on the project was to locate, contact and negotiate with external consultants and to coordinate different activities, including the writing of the offer, with the partnership consortium with which we were working. The consortium consisted of 5 organizations, the EPLO in the role of lead partner, two organizations from France, one from Ireland, and one from Jordan. While this role was not as legal based as I had hoped, it was an incredibly valuable experience, working with colleagues in different types of organizations in very different environments.
The project in Maroneia, known as Kikones, brings together law students from Black Sea States, including but not limited to, Croatia, Georgia, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine, to hear lectures from human rights experts on such topics as government transparency, regional cooperation and implementation of human rights reforms. The purpose of the project, which is funded by the Greek government, is to bring together elite and promising law students from nations who have had a history of conflict, to work together in an environment which fosters debate and discussion. The idea of the project is that these students, who will be the lawyers and professors of their communities, carry the values of communication and cooperation learned at Kikones back to their native countries. The two weeks I spent at Kikones was a truly eye opening experience. Witnessing young people, from countries with history of conflict and violence, openly discuss every topic from political agendas, to war, to modern literature from their country, was inspiring. What impressed me the most was how much Kikones meant to the students. All of the students, who ranged in age from 18 to 27, took very serious efforts to embrace the concepts of cooperation that were the focus of the lectures. These were not students looking for a two week vacation in Greece. While the students certainly enjoyed the country, the nearby sea, and the field trip to view ancient Greek ruins, the students openly accepted the challenge of the Kikones project.
While most of my experience during my internship at the EPLO was valuable and challenging, there are two takeaways that I feel will be particularly relevant as I move forward with my education and career. First, working with international organizations teaches, or reinforces, the importance of never making assumptions in terms of communication or work management because misinterpretation is always possible. One particularly illustrative example occurred while our consortium was discussing potential experts to be our team leader in Jordan. One of the experts proposed surpassed all of the positions criteria and seemed, to our organization, a great fit for the position. However, in speaking with our Jordanian partner, we found several, more subtle reasons why this candidate was not the best choice. Our partners explained to us that the candidate, who was a female from Lebanon, would have a very difficult time being the team leader. Essentially, it could prove difficult for the candidate to be successful not only because she was a woman, but also because those in Jordan might be reluctant to follow a team leader from another Arab nation. While to our Jordanian partner this was obvious, to our organization, it was not. Had we not consulted with the Jordanian partner, our assumption that she was a good fit could have lead to difficulties for the project.
Secondly, I found that in any type of organization, regardless of structure, the most important aspect is the quality of the individuals. The organizational structure at the EPLO was very different from what I have experienced as a paralegal at a large New York law firm. At the EPLO, for instance, an intern could be given responsibility for vital aspects of a project without much supervision. Additionally, the organization of projects, such as meeting deadlines or making decisions, could seem to an observer to be a bit chaotic. The technical offer for the project in Jordan, for instance, was due July 25. Leading up to the deadline there were absolutely times when I was skeptical that we could meet the deadline. If we did miss the deadline, there were several identifiable reasons, ranging from poor planning to inefficient uses of resources, to power outages in the Legrena – scenarios less likely to have been at issue in a New York law firm. However, in the end, we did submit out proposal and the primary reason was the work and the dedication by my colleagues.
In the end, this was the overarching principle with which I left the EPLO. Regardless of the country, the organization, or the type of work, the character of the individuals who make up the organization is what is most important. Where an organization has quality individuals, an organization will perform quality work. While this is a simple statement, and I think that must not be taken for granted and is something I absolutely learned to embrace through my internship.
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