Duties of the intern may include but are not limited to the following to helping service meetings of the human rights treaty bodies and their respective working groups or the meetings of the Board of Trustees of the Funds. In particular, the intern may:

• Prepare country and legal analysis and draft legal background papers for human rights treaty bodies, related to the State party reporting procedure and treaty body-based individual complaints procedure;
• Conduct research into and draft reports on the jurisprudence of the treaty bodies concerned;
• Assist with the handling of individual communications received under the different treaty body complaints procedures;
• Provide support in relation to inter-state communications submitted to the treaty bodies;
• Assist in the preparation of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) country visits;
• Take notes during the sessions/pre-sessions, and provide support with administrative duties such as the preparation of documentation and reference files in advance of and during the session;
• Provide input to outreach and information tasks, including the Branch newsletter;
• Support the work of the Universal Human Rights Index (UHRI) and the treaty body documentation databases;
• Conduct research and develop training exercises for use in capacity building activities on reporting by States to the treaty bodies;
• Prepare the Weekly Human Rights Treaties Branch Update;
• Assist with preparation of reports and background papers for the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council (HRC) and the annual meeting of Chairpersons of the human rights treaty bodies;
• Support the organization of training activities and development of relevant training material;
• and Assist with evaluation of project proposals for funding; and Perform other duties as requested by the supervisor, as appropriate.

• To qualify for the United Nations Secretariat internship programme, applicants must, at the time of submission, be a graduate or enrolled in a graduate school programme (i.e. Master's degree or equivalent degree, or higher) or, be a graduate or enrolled in the final academic year of a first-level university degree programme (i.e. Bachelor's degree or equivalent degree) preferably in the area of law, political science, international relations, social sciences or a related field, OR have graduated with a university degree as defined above AND, if selected, must commence the internship on the date specified in the Acceptance letter.
• Applicants are not required to have professional work experience for participation in the programme.
• English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For this internship fluency in English or French is required, knowledge of the other is an asset. Knowledge of another United Nations official language would be an advantage (i.e. Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish).