An Interview with Sarah Khan

Dear Readers, I would like to introduce to you to my friend and former classmate Sarah Khan. Sarah is a lawyer by training and has focused on public international law for her entire career. Her focus has been international humanitarian law, human rights law and refugee law and their applicability primarily in zones of conflict and natural disasters. Her work expertise is known as “protection” - i.e., the protection of rights of refugees and displaced populations and other civilian population.

Her work has involved implementing these various international laws, by supporting the development of: government legislation; policies for governments, international organizations (including UN country teams- that is all UN entities in one country), and civil society; training programs for various entities including, armed forces and national security actors; establishing monitoring systems to track the situation of people in zones of crisis including, access to humanitarian assistance and services such as, education, health and legal aid; and advocacy on crisis situations. In the last few years, Sarah has worked in management, heading offices and has had less to do with law. Her day-to-day work has been managing  governmental relations, budgets and staff and overseeing programs on health, education, livelihoods, legal aid etc., for populations in crisis areas.

Sarah has worked with various NGOs and at the Red Cross prior to working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as a Senior Protection Officer and then Head of Office. Her work has taken her to various places in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. She notes, a happy accident gave her over 12 years of incredibly rewarding work with UNHCR. She has worked in some of the significant crisis’ of recent times, including, Afghanistan, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Syria.  She has worked with UNHCR both in a country (colloquially called “the field) and at its headquarters -- however, her real love has been working in “the field”.

Sarah has very kindly agreed to tell us a bit about her experiences at UNHCR and give some career advice to budding public international law students who may wish to work for the UN or an International NGO  or a think tank which focuses on situations of humanitarian crisis.

Winnowed: Sarah, thank you so much for agreeing to spare a few moments and talk to Winnowed’s readers.

Sarah: It’s my pleasure and thank you for asking. I’m always happy to help law students who are interested in global affairs and  who see themselves as future public international lawyers.

Winnowed: Tell me, if a law graduate wants to work for the UNHCR, is doing a masters’ degree in public international law from a Western university still the best route into that domain? Also, are there other public international law opportunities for students other than the UN?

Sarah: There are many positions in UNHCR and other UN entities that are not just for people with a master’s degree and it was never ever the only way. However, a masters’ degree may make it possible to be recruited directly to a higher position in the UNHCR or other entities within the UN. The best way to understand what is required is by looking at the job descriptions of various positions that interest you and talking to people who work there is key.

There are different paths to join any UN entity. People have started in the UN as national officers in the country that they are from and then moved to overseas positions. So please do consider working in New Delhi UN offices as a start. Others have joined the UN Volunteer Program, which enables you to work for different UN entities either in your own country or overseas. After 5 years of service (please check if the number of years required has changed) as a UN volunteer, one can get a regular staff contract (UN civil service). The UN volunteer program is paid. There are others who have had a Junior Professional Program post with a UN agency (these are not always open to Indian nationals and are very few since they are funded by a select group of wealthy countries). I joined UNHCR as a consultant, as many do and then you apply for regular position. There are also roster positions in a lot of UN entities – where you get selected and then when a position is opened your name is selected from the roster for the position.  There is a common system for the UN secretariate for UN peace keeping, political affairs, legal affairs etc. and then the UN specialized agencies like UNHCR and UNICEF  have their own systems. You need to study each entity to understand what the methods are since new things keep getting added over the years in terms of employment schemes. I apologize that it is not simple!

After NLSIU, I opted to go to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston for a master’s in law and diplomacy (International relations with law). Graduate school broadened my sense of the world and the career possibilities. I am thankful for that. I will list here what I did -- in case any of these entities interests the reader since they are all in human rights and related areas and beyond just the UN.

The opportunities included a paid internship at Calvert Investments (an American social responsibility firm), where I worked on developing human rights indicators. I chose that over an unpaid internship at the UN office for Legal Affairs at the UN Secretariate in New York. I believe now there are a number of UN paid internships available with different UN entities, which students reading this should check out. Note UN internships are competitive and limited but not impossible to get. Fletcher also nominated and funded me to intern with the US Institute for Peace (think tank), who put me on a project for the Pearson Peacekeeping Center in Canada. Some years later, Pearson recruited me to do trainings for NATO forces deploying to Afghanistan and  senior military officers in UN peace-keeping missions around the world --  as I had previously interned with them.

I was at Fletcher when 9/11 took place, and like a lot of young people working on global affairs then (scholar Michael Igantieff has written a great essay on this!) - I wanted to go to Afghanistan. My professor at the Kennedy School at Harvard University found me funding to go work for a tiny civil society organization in Kandahar, which was working on out-reach to women to increase their political participation in Afghanistan’s first “Loya Jirga” deliberations after the fall of the Taliban (note: Fletcher School, Harvard and MIT students can cross-register for classes with each other). In the same year, I got funding from Fletcher to intern for an American NGO, Mercy Corps in Tajikistan (I was tasked to write a report suggesting ways human rights could be incorporated into conflict resolution programs they were running there). As a result, I suspended my graduate degree for a year and half, which, luckily, Fletcher allowed me to do. These  were amazing opportunities for me as young person and I seized them when offered – so keep a look out to see what all is out there and it might be not what you have planned or foreseen. It did help my CV stand out in my initial job applications and led me to my first paid international job with Oxfam GB in Afghanistan, and it counted that I had worked in the country as an intern.

Winnowed: If I am in the fourth year of my five-year law degree in India, what should I do to create a career in the field of public international law?

Sarah: I cannot speak to the entire field but at least vis-à-vis the UN humanitarian and political actors, I would advise students to identify what interests them. The UN is vast with different entities dealing with different aspects of public international law. I would identify what interests you in the area of public international law and then check out the entities which deal with it and then apply for an internship there. Internships give you an idea of the place but also make you become a known entity for future job applications.  For example, if you are interested in human rights, do an internship with a human rights NGO or even UN offices like UN Women or UN Development Program which have representation in New Delhi. If you can afford an internship overseas as some Indian law students have done, then please do so. From NLSIU I know some who interned with International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague and subsequently got jobs there. Many from ICTY now work for the International Criminal Court.

Of course, you can write and publish on a topic that interests you and that too is a plus.  Academia is another great route to work for the UN as an expert further down the line in your career, if you so wish.

The key is to take opportunities on offer. Do also try to ask for opportunities and show an interest in your topic. While at NLSIU it was clear to my professors that I was interested in public international law, and I did get very good grades in that subject as opposed to say contract law. So right after I graduated from NLSIU, I got offered my first job with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Delhi by my former international law professor at NLSIU who became their regional advisor for South Asia. I still remain in touch with him and am thankful that he gave me my first big break. Working for the Red Cross for a year did wonders for my CV and helped me get into a master's program of my choice. A Red Cross contact became my reference for my job with Oxfam later in time since the Red Cross has a certain gravitas for other actors in the international law/humanitarian field. Both UNHCR and ICRC have a lot of lawyers working for them.

Winnowed: You’ve learnt French, haven’t you? How useful do you it think it’s to learn a foreign language when working in the field of public international law? 

Sarah: I just can’t emphasize sufficiently how important it is to learn an international language, in addition to English. Of course, it is much easier to learn an additional language when you are young. Most South Asians are bilingual, if not trilingual. However, that doesn’t mean one is not able to pick up an international language as an adult. In this area of work many learn foreign languages as adults since it increases your geographic work opportunities. Those who work in the foreign services of large governments learn new languages prior to each diplomatic posting. You need to be open to the possibility and have a willingness to put in the time and effort.

I have studied French for some years and have also studied Dari a little (similar to Persian and Urdu) while in Afghanistan. I tried Arabic and Russian while in the Middle East and Central Asia but found both very difficult for my limited linguistic skills.  

So having second language other than English, is a distinct advantage to have in the UN or with an international NGO. So, it’s worth learning one of the 6 UN languages, apart from English, while at law school. For crisis areas, French, Spanish and Arabic and now Russian are languages of focus. 

Winnowed: Currently, what are you up to?

Sarah: I resigned from UNHCR in 2021 to try and have a ‘normal’ life rooted in one place and decided to go back to school. For the last two years, I’ve been in a research LLM program at Osgoode Hall Law School (as law continues to be the parlance of global affairs) and as a Graduate Research Scholar at York University’s Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research in Toronto. My research centers on NATO’s landmark Policy on protection of civilians and the harm of displacement in law and policy of the international community. I am grateful for the funding I have from York to think, research and write about the eight significant post 9/11 wars - where over 38 million people have been displaced. I have engaged with these wars for most of my career over the last decade or so.

Winnowed: Sarah, this is very helpful. Thank you very much.

Sarah: You are welcome! Thank you.

Sarah Khan tweets at @Khan2005Sarah

Cover photo © with PBS from Part 2 of the documentary series “When Disaster Strikes”, which is a good series to watch for students, to understand the mechanics of aid work.