Established in 2016, the International and Transnational Law Intensive Program (ITLIP) places students with a variety of partner organizations at the same time as students engage in parallel academic work. The goal is for students to develop specialized, advanced, and critical knowledge of international and transnational law both through study and through exposure to the workings of the law in a program that integrates scholarly inquiry, skills development, and reflective practice.
What You Will Do
As a student in the ITLIP you will have a clinical placement in either an intergovernmental organization located in Canada or abroad, a law clinic, a non-governmental organization, or a law firm in Canada, that grapples in a significant way with international or transnational law questions/issues. In your clinical placement, you will be engaged in providing international legal and related services to these organizations and any clients they might have. Although your classmates will be dispersed in various locations across Canada and around the world, we will use technology (both video-conferencing and postings on the course website) to unite the class in sharing their experiences, reflecting and discussing their experiences through a weekly online academic seminar. Seminar meetings provide an understanding of the nature, design, work, and impact of international and transnational law and of international and non-governmental organizations as a set of dynamic social institutions rooted in history and unequal power relations.
Examples of Past Placements
- Paul Clark (London) in-person
- GLAN – Global Legal Action Network (Ireland) virtual
- CERA – Canadian Centre for Housing Rights [formerly CERA] (Ontario) virtual
- CLD – Centre for Law & Development (Halifax) in-person
- CCPA – Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Ottawa) virtual/in-person
- CFM Lawyers – Camp Fiorante Matthews Mogerman LLP (Vancouver) in-person
- SRAC – Social Rights Advocacy Centre (Ontario) virtual
- OHCHR – Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Geneva) in-person
- Champ Law (Ottawa) in-person
- HIV-AIDS Legal Network (Ontario) in-person/virtual
- Greenpeace International (Toronto) in-person/virtual
What You Will Learn
- aspects of the history and purposes of international and transnational law
- innovative ways of utilizing international law and organizations in domestic courts, legislatures, public discourse, community organizing, and other local settings, in the service of social change
- reflective practice (praxis) in the context of international/transnational law and organizations
- the nature of “transnational law” and lawyering, and their relationship to public international law
- specialized, advanced, and critical knowledge of international and transnational law
- skills related to dispute resolution, handling ethical dilemmas, collaborative/team work, work-flow and time management, and/or policy development and advocacy
