Schell Center Names 2018-2019 Post-Graduate Fellows

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<p>(Clockwise from top left) Jim Silk, Julia Wang, Kai Fees, Evan Welber, Hope Metcalf, Hyun-Soo Lim, Elena Brodeala and Lara Dominguez.</p>

The Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights announced its fellows for the 2018–19 academic year. Kyle Fees ’18, Julia Wang ’18, Evan Welber ’18, and Lara Dominguez ’16 will be Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellows. Hyun-Soo Lim ’18 and Elena Brodeala ’18 LLM will be Robina Foundation Human Rights Fellows.

The Robert L. Bernstein Fellowships in International Human Rights enable two or three Yale Law School graduating students or recent graduates to devote a year to full-time advocacy human rights work. The Robina Foundation Post-Graduate Human Rights Fellowships were designed to enable several recent graduates of the Law School to work full time in the field of human rights for up to a year.
About the 2017–18 Fellows:

Elena Brodeala ’17 LLM will be a Robina fellow at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, where she will work directly with one of the 47 judges and with the Research Division of the Court. Through this work, Elena hopes to bring a positive contribution to the development of human rights jurisprudence in Europe. Elena is a committed defender of women’s rights with a special interest in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. She is currently completing a Ph.D. thesis on this topic at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Before coming to Yale, Elena held research positions at New College Europe in Bucharest, Romania and at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and studied in different European countries, including Romania, Iceland and Norway. Elena has also collaborated with two NGOs in Romania and Sweden working in the field of gender equality, intercultural learning and youth development. At Yale, she was a proud member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic.

Kyle (Kai) Elliot Fees ’18 will spend his Bernstein Fellowship year working with UCLA Professor E. Tendayi Achiume, the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. Serving as her inaugural Research and Advocacy Fellow, Kai will conduct international human rights legal and interdisciplinary research and assist Special Rapporteur Achiume (J.D. 2008; 2010-11 Bernstein Fellow) in coordinating her regional and national consultations. In addition, Kai will take the lead in drafting two reports directed at policy makers, civil society organizations, and social movements on priority issues relating to discrimination and intolerance. At Yale, Kai was a student director of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal and International Human Rights Chair of Law Students for Reproductive Justice, and as a teaching assistant to Professors Harold Hongju Koh and Samuel Moyn. Kai also participated in the Global Health Justice Practicum, and, as a Kirby Simon Summer Human Rights Fellow, provided research support to Professor Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. Prior to attending law school, Kai earned a B.A., summa cum laude, in Philosophy from the University of Arizona and an M.A. in Social Justice and Human Rights from Arizona State University.

Lara Domínguez ’16 will be spending her fellowship year at Minority Rights Group (MRG), an organization that promotes the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples. Lara will be based in London, working closely with MRG’s Legal Director on strategic litigation before international human rights tribunals. Lara will focus primarily on advancing MRG’s cases before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, including developing the merits of a pending case on behalf of the Batwa people. Lara currently works at Three Crowns LLP, a small firm that specializes in international litigation. At the Law School, Lara was student director of the Immigration Legal Services Clinic, a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, and a student fellow at the Center for Global Legal Challenges.

Hyun-Soo Lim ’18 will be a Robina Fellow at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. During her year at the Court, Hyun-Soo will research and draft opinions for Judge Helen Keller of Switzerland, and complete comparative legal research and writing for the Research Division. Hyun-Soo studied East Asian Area Studies and International Development at the University of Pennsylvania and McGill University. During college, she interned at public interest legal organizations in South Korea, assisting asylum litigation and advocating for corporate social responsibility. At Yale, Hyun-Soo was a co-director of the Lowenstein Human Rights Project, Co-chair of the Women of Color Collective, Professional Development Chair of Yale Society of International Law, Managing Submissions Editor of Yale Journal of International Law, Student Fellow of the Paul Tsai China Center, and Chair of the Korean Graduate Student Association.

Julia Wang ’18 will be spending her fellowship year at the Center for Reproductive Rights’ office in Geneva, Switzerland. Julia’s work will focus on the legal barriers that undocumented migrant women face in accessing sexual and reproductive health services in Europe. She will also contribute to the Center’s advocacy work to address regressive legislative restrictions on the access to abortion in countries such as Poland. At Yale, Julia was a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. She served as a student director of both the Lowenstein Clinic and the Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights. Julia is the founder and president of the Immigrant History Initiative, a non-profit organization that creates and provides immigrant-focused history curricula to heritage and language schools. Before law school, Julia was a Gates Scholar at Cambridge University, where she received her MPhil in Modern European History. She holds an A.B. in History from Harvard. 

Evan Welber ’18 will be spending his fellowship year at the Open Society Justice Initiative, an operational program of the Open Society Foundations. Rather than give grants, the Justice Initiative’s team of human rights lawyers and staff pursue legal work that supports the broader mission and values of the Open Society Foundations, such as promoting human rights and building legal capacity for open societies. At the Justice Initiative, Evan will be working on a portfolio of human rights cases before national and international fora and will produce research products to further OSJI’s advocacy goals around the world. Evan has worked in the highest courts of Brazil, Hong Kong, and Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as at the International Criminal Court, the UN Department of Political Affairs, and Human Rights Watch. He has advised governments on constitutional reform, provided legal assistance to refugees, and drafted submissions for litigation at the International Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights. He has worked in 15 countries across 5 continents and has studied 16 languages.