Bertha Justice Fellows

Two-year fellowships for emerging lawyers

Institute – Training & Co-learning – Bertha Justice Fellows

With the help of the Bertha Foundation ECCHR has the capacity to offer two-year fellowships to particularly qualified candidates from our alumn* and volunteers. Bertha Justice Fellows form an integral part of our team. They are distinguished not only by their professional competence but also by their political insight and radical approach to legal work.

Project

Bertha Justice Fellows are part of a global network comprised of more than 200 participants from more than 17 countries. They all work with organizations whose goal is to enforce human rights by legal means.

Context

The Bertha Justice Fellowship Program is training the next generation of human rights and movement lawyers in pursuit of social justice and human rights for all. Funded by the Bertha Foundation, which fights for a more just world by supporting activists, storytellers, and lawyers, the Program provides two-year fellowships to emerging lawyers at the best public interest law centers around the world.

During the Fellowship, Fellows gain practical experience working alongside renowned professionals and build connections with a global network of like-minded Fellows and senior lawyers for solidarity and mentorship. Fellows get exposure to movement lawyering, in which lawyers are deeply connected with social movements and work collaboratively with activists to define legal strategies, and to the use of media as a tool to advance legal advocacy campaigns.

In the next ten years, the Bertha Justice Fellowship Program aims to train 1,000 lawyers, who are motivated to work alongside storytellers and activists to hold states and corporations to account.

Media

Logo Bertha Foundation
Logo Bertha Foundation

Persons

In the last years, those lawyers have joined ECCHR as Bertha Justice Fellows:

Theresa studied law at Passau university in Germany and holds an LL.M. in Human Rights, Conflict and Justice from SOAS, University of London. She is the co-founder of the Refugee Law Clinic Passau and has worked on corporate human rights violations in situations of armed conflict and occupation. She first joined ECCHR as a trainee in 2021 during her legal clerkship, and has returned as a Bertha Justice Fellow in February 2023 to support the Business and Human Rights Program, with a focus on climate and environmental justice. 

Leokadia Melchior studied law at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg and at Sciences Po in Paris with a focus on International and European Law. She then began studying sociology and philosophy at the University of Hamburg. As part of her legal clerkship, she joined ECCHR in 2021 as a legal trainee. As co-founder of an interdsciplinary theater collective, she explores the boundaries between art and law. Since December 2022, she is a Bertha Justice Fellow in ECCHR’s Institute for Legal Intervention.

Delphine Rodrik completed her law degree at Harvard University, USA, where she qualified as a lawyer and previously completed her bachelor’s degree in history and literature with a focus on postcolonial studies. Prior to joining ECCHR she worked in the United States, Tunisia, Mexico, Lebanon, and Greece on international human rights, humanitarian, and migration law issues. Since 2021 she has been a Legal Advisor in ECCHR's Border Justice team, where she supports cases challenging pushbacks, violence, and rightlessness at Europe's borders. 

Arne Bardelle studied law in Berlin, Germany, and Istanbul, Turkey, with a focus on legal policy as well as fundamental and human rights. In 2019, he was licensed as a lawyer in Berlin. He worked in the field of asylum law and was legal advisor in an NGO that supports traumatized refugees in Germany. Additionally, he has working experience in the Latin America program of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Bogotá, Colombia, and a law firm in Marseille, France. Since September 2021, he is a Bertha Justice Fellow in ECCHR’s International Crimes and Accountability program.

Michael Bader studied law at Humboldt Universität Berlin and holds an LL.M. in Law, Development and Globalisation from SOAS, University of London. From 2013-19, he was a scholar of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, he is the co-founder of Refugee Law Clinic Leipzig and an editor of Völkerrechtsblog. Michael Bader joined ECCHR in September 2019 as a research fellow where he supported the Business and Human Rights program with a focus on corporate exploitation in global supply chains. Since September 2020, he is Bertha Justice Fellow in ECCHR’s Institute for Legal Intervention.

Laura Duarte Reyes studied law at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia, as well as human rights and multilevel governance at the Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy. During her studies, she worked in strategic litigation and in support of the Colombian peace process (MAPP-OAS). After that, she was legal advisor for the implementation of public policies and public-private partnerships and provided legal support to human rights organizations in the field of women’s rights in India, Colombia, and Italy. In September 2019, she joined ECCHR with a scholarship by Kreuzberger Kinderstiftung and since October 2020 works as Bertha Justice Fellow in the Business and Human Rights program.

Antonia Klein studied law and philosophy in Tübingen, Germany, and Aix-en-Provence, France, with a focus on international law and human rights. In 2017, she was licensed as a lawyer in Berlin. Previously, she gained experience in strategic litigation in environmental law at the law firm Geulen & Klinger, and asylum and residency law at the human rights NGO JUMEN. She has also worked with the Association of Defence Counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, and the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Beirut, where she researched the legal situation of refugees in Lebanon. Antonia Klein joined ECCHR as a legal advisor in June 2018 and became Bertha Justice Fellow in ECCHR’s International Crimes and Accountability program in September 2019.

Matija Vlatković studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University and received a Master's degree in Human Rights Law from the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) in London. He worked at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), INQUEST and the Innocence Project and later lectured at the Free University of Berlin’s Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science. He joined ECCHR as a Kreuzberger Kinderstiftung Fellow in May 2018 and has been a Bertha Justice Fellow in ECCHR’s Migration team since September 2019.

Mirka Fries studied German and International Law (LL.B.) in Münster and Potsdam (Germany), as well as international criminal law and human rights law (LL.M.) in Amsterdam and New York. After her bachelor's degree, she worked at the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. She gained further professional experience working with human rights organizations focused on children's rights, victims of sexual violence and refugees. Before joining  ECCHR, Mirka Fries worked as a Mercator Fellow focusing on legal and political questions arising in the context of the recruitment and use of child soldiers e.g. in Uganda. From February until July 2018, she joined ECCHR as a legal trainee. In autumn 2018, she joined ECCHR’s International Crimes and Accountability program as a Bertha Justice Fellow.

Cannelle Lavite studied law at the Université de Toulouse (France). She was awarded an LL.M. with a specialization in corporate governance and criminal law from the Université de Montréal (Canada) and the Université de Lyon (France). After her graduation, she worked for several local organizations in Brazil and Mongolia focusing on socio-economic rights. She then worked at Human Rights Watch on the trial of Hissène Habré. Cannelle Lavite’s doctoral thesis looks at the protection of whistleblowers under asylum law. In autumn 2018, she joined ECCHR’s Business and Human Rights Program as a Bertha Justice Fellow.

Simon Rau studied international relations in Dresden and Managua (Nicaragua). After obtaining an LL.M. in human rights law from the University of Nottingham (UK), he supported ECCHR as Legal Trainee and Personal Assistant to General Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck. As a Mercator Fellow, he then worked at Human Rights Watch on the right to education of refugee children in Turkey, Greece, Lebanon and Jordan, and for Judge Nußberger at the European Court of Human Rights. He was a Bertha Justice Fellow at ECCHR from the fall of 2017 to the summer of 2019.

After completing her BA at Oxford University with a scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, Vera Wriedt obtained an LL.M. in Human Rights from Birkbeck College University of London with a Postgraduate Fees Award from Birkbeck's School of Law. During and after her studies, she was involved in numerous projects challenging the injustice of restrictive migration or asylum policies as well as their manifestations at the multiple borders of Europe. Vera Wriedt joined ECCHR in 2016 and became a Bertha Fellow in 2017. Her work at ECCHR seeks to intervene against collective expulsions and other human rights violations at the external borders of the European Union.

Linde Bryk is a Dutch licensed attorney and a graduate (LL.M.) of the New York University (NYU) School of Law where she focused on International Human Rights Law and Transitional Justice. She holds her law degree from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. In 2015, Linde obtained an NYU Human Rights Fellowship allowing her to train with ECCHR over the summer, where she assisted the International Crimes and Accountability Program. In 2016, she worked as a Human Rights Officer for the European Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, EULEX. She joined ECCHR as Bertha Justice Fellow and works with the Business and Human Rights team as of October 2016.

Hanaa Hakiki graduated in law at the University of Cambridge and also holds a degree in French law and a maîtrise in comparative law from the University of Paris II. She qualified as a solicitor in England, where she specialized in litigating cases of state violence and detention at Bhatt Murphy Solicitors. Hanaa Hakiki joined the ECCHR in 2014 and works as a legal advisor in the Migration program. She became a Bertha Justice Fellow in 2015.

Alejandra Muñoz Valdez holds a Liberal Arts Bachelor's degree at University College Utrecht (Netherlands) where she majored in Law and an LL.M. in International Human Rights at the Irish Centre for Human Rights in Galway. She also completed an internship in the Appeals Chamber at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague (Netherlands). She joined ECCHR in 2014 as a Legal Trainee in the International Crimes and Accountability program where she worked as a legal advisor since July 2015. She became a Bertha Justice Fellow in October 2015.

Nicolas Bueno specialized in Public International Law and Human Rights Law at the University of Lausanne and at the Freie University in Berlin. He interned at the European Court of Human Rights (2008) and at the International Criminal Court (2009). In 2013, he was a Fulbright Research Fellow at Columbia Law School in New York. He wrote his PhD thesis on "Democracy and the Future of Political Human Rights". During his Bertha Fellowship, Bueno worked as Legal Researcher for the Business and Human Rights program.

After his law studies in Berlin and Strasbourg, Christian Schliemann-Radbruch worked at the Free University Berlin, where he among other topics analyzed the rules of public international law for business operations of transnational corporations in weak and failing states. In his PhD project he investigates the entitlement of minorities and indigenous peoples under public international law to autonomously regulate their own collective affairs. Part of this project is an analysis of the dangers transnational corporations create in this regard. He conducted research and worked in Costa Rica and Peru for this purpose. After his Bertha Fellowship, he continued working in ECCHR’s Business and Human Rights program as a legal advisor.

Dr. Carolijn Terwindt, graduate in law and anthropology from Utrecht University, joined ECCHR in 2012 in the Business and Human Rights program where she works closely with workers and their families in Pakistan and Bangladesh on cases of corporate liability in the textile industry (Bertha Fellowship 2013-2015). She further developed novel litigation on socio-economic rights in relation to the agribusiness in India. She has published on a wide range of topics, including identity politics, anti-terrorism legislation, contentious criminalization, and the liability of pharmaceuticals off shoring their clinical trials.

Annelen Micus studied law at the Bucerius Law School in Hamburg and the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires. Furthermore, she has worked in Costa Rica and Colombia. In her PhD thesis she analyzed the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and transitional justice in South America. Annelen Micus is a member of the Working Group against Impunity of Amnesty International Germany. After her Bertha Fellowship, she continued working at ECCHR in the Program on International Crimes and Accountability until 2015.

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