Student Spotlight: Aidan Leonard '10
Two weeks into my job last summer, I flew to Kigali with my supervisor to monitor witness interviews in Rwandan prisons. During the trip I visited nearby memorials to the 1994 genocide. They included two churches where thousands of men, women and children had been slaughtered with simple farm tools.
Afterward, I sent an email to Dr. Jean-Marie Kamatali, then an adjunct professor with Notre Dame’s Center for Civil and Human Rights. Kamatali, a genocide survivor himself, contributed to the legal and institutional rebuilding in Rwanda, and had served as dean of the Faculty of Law at the National University of Rwanda. He wrote back, saying he had known the defendants in my case. He asked about my legal research. And, almost in passing, he added: “I am familiar with the [church] you visited in Nyamata. My uncle Martin, his wife, his children and grandchildren were killed in that church.”
In the midst of finals, law school can feel like the worst idea you ever had. Last summer, sitting in a courtroom at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, I thought it was my best. As an intern in the Office of the Prosecutor in Arusha, Tanzania, I worked with a team of lawyers from three continents in the final stages of a case involving three defendants charged with genocide, rape and crimes against humanity.
It was an invaluable experience, and one I might not have had but for Notre Dame. NDLS boasts two alumni in the ICTR Appeals Division –Dr. George Mugwanya (J.S.D. ’00) and Florida Kabasinga (LL.M ‘03). When Mugwanya, author of a book on the Tribunal’s contribution to international law on genocide, returned to campus last winter to speak about his work, he settled any doubts I might have had as to where I wanted to spend my summer.
I am now a 2L in the London Program, and my experience at the ICTR helped me secure an internship here with the Department of Justice’s Office of Foreign Litigation. Working at the U.S. Embassy, I am assisting lawyers who oversee all the civil litigation in Europe, the Caucuses and Central Asia to which the United States is a party. And next summer, thanks to NDLS’ On-Campus Interview Program, I am extremely fortunate to have the chance to experience the private side of international law at a multinational firm in New York.
I came to NDLS after five years’ experience in both journalism and education. I knew I wanted to transition to work in international law, but I wasn’t sure how. I could never have predicted the doors Notre Dame would open.
