Human Rights Brief
A Legal Resource for the International Human Rights CommunityWinter 1996
ALUMNUS PROFILE
Alumnae Works to Improve Status of Refugees
by Stephen Jacques
Courtney O'Connor, currently a consultant in public international law for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), has enjoyed a rich, rewarding career since receiving her J.D. from WCL in 1986. She received a fellowship with the International Human Rights Law Group while at WCL, and then after graduating, worked as a Staff Attorney for the Law Group and as a consultant to various NGOs regarding human rights and constitutional law issues. Ms. O'Connor then moved on to the UNHCR, where she encountered the personal challenge of doing 'hands-on' human rights protection.
As the only American working as a UNHCR protection officer in El Salvador from 1988 to 1990, Ms. O'Connor assisted in repatriating Salvadoran refugees and determining the refugee status of Nicaraguan asylum seekers in a politically charged atmosphere. The situation was very intense, she noted. It was the cutting edge of UNHCR's protection work in the country of origin. It was very hard to go in there and be utterly neutral. If I had taken sides, however, I would have lost my legitimacy and my effectiveness.
After gaining experience in the field, Ms. O'Connor was transferred in 1990 to UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, where she served as a legal advisor in the Division of International Protection. She advised on various protection issues including refugee status determination and the particular protection problems faced by uprooted women and children. She broke up her time in headquarters by serving from 1991 to 1992 as Legal Advisor to the Director of Human Rights in the first UN peace-keeping mission ever to have a human rights component - the UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL). After returning to Geneva, Ms. O'Connor prepared the High Commissioner's first comprehensive policy on the protection of uprooted persons against sexual violence, which was adopted by UNHCR's Executive Committee (of States) and has served as the basis of that organization's work on this issue since 1993.
She has recently been consulting on two UNHCR projects, the first of which followed up on her earlier work by evaluating UNHCR's project for survivors of sexual violence in Kenya and making recommendations for its future related efforts elsewhere. She is currently drafting for UNHCR a reference and case book on advanced issues in refugee status determination which, inter alia, updates many of the legal questions addressed in UNHCR's 1979 Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status. The book will place refugee law into the broader context of international human rights and humanitarian law.
While the book and other work consulting in public international law and policy will consume much of the rest of the upcoming year for Ms. O'Connor, she is eager to emerge from behind the word processor and return to field work. Reflecting on her time with UNHCR in El Salvador, she said, Every day I went to work, my identity was challenged -- as a member of the UN, as a protection officer, as an American, and most importantly, as a human being. Despite working under often unnerving, precarious conditions, Ms. O'Connor looks back fondly on her time with UNHCR in the field, It was a turning point for me. It provided me with one of the richest experiences of my life.
The proper citation for this article in the Human Rights Brief Volume 3, Number 2, beginning at page 5 is: 3 No. 2 Hum. Rts. Brief 5 (1996).
