Fellowships

Note: You can learn more about fellowships in the Legal Encyclopedia and in the Dictionary of Law.

Postgraduate Fellowships

Amnesty International

Ralph J. Bunche International Human Rights Fellowship
The Fellowship focuses on building the competencies of activists in the core areas of international human rights advocacy including research, action mobilization, campaigns, and media communications. The Fellowship also aims to connect Amnesty’s mission and work with international issues that are relevant to communities of color in the United States. Fellows work with a program or unit manager in one of Amnesty’s U.S. offices on projects that are designed by one or more of Amnesty’s programs or units. Three awards are made each year. Fellowships begin in September and end in August.

American Council of Learned Societies

American Research in the Humanities in China
This program is for scholars in the humanities to do research in the People’s Republic of China. U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have lived in the U.S. continuously for at least three years by the application deadline are eligible to apply. This program supports individuals with a Ph.D. or the equivalent to do in-depth research on China or the Chinese portion of a comparative study. Grants are offered for 4 to 12 months of continuous research in China. Applicants should demonstrate that they have fully utilized the available resources in the U.S. and are prepared by virtue of study, training, and planning to take full advantage of an opportunity to do research in China. The program has been made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Language Grants to Individuals for Summer Study
Pending confirmation of funding, ACLS will offer grants of up to $2,500 each for intensive summer study of Albanian, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, or Romanian. These awards are intended primarily for people who will use these languages in academic research or teaching. Applicants may request support for elementary, intermediate, or advanced language study, or for attendance at advanced-mastery language courses sponsored by ACLS.

Ashoka

Global Scholar Fellowship
Ashoka’s mission is to develop ‘social entrepreneurs’ around the world. Ashoka fellows develop projects that will lead to social change in education, child development, health care, environment, human rights, access to technology, and economic development. Applicants must be a resident of the country for which they are proposing a project.

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Fellowship
The Center’s mission is to provide leadership in advancing policy-relevant knowledge. Applications are welcome from recent recipients of a Ph.D. or equivalent degree. Fellows devote some time to collaborative endeavors, as well as complete a significant publication during their yearlong residence. Pre-doctoral research fellows contribute to the Center’s research activities, as well as work on – and ideally complete – their doctoral dissertations. Fellowships available in: the International Security Program; the Environment and Natural Resources Program; the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; the World Peace Foundation Program on Intrastate Conflict, Conflict Prevention, and Conflict Resolution; and the Caspian Studies Program.

Center for Reproductive Rights

International Reproductive Rights Fellowships
Fellows will work towards the achievement of enforceable reproductive rights and accessible quality reproductive health care for women around the world. Fellows will also conduct general legal and policy research on international law, human rights law, foreign and comparative law and U.S. laws that impact women’s reproductive rights. Fellows also engage in public speaking and draft reports, educational materials and briefs. International travel may be required. This is based in New York City.

CMHT

International Human Rights Fellowship
Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, a DC public interest law firm that handles major complex plaintiff class-actions, offers a two-year fellowship in international human rights law. Fellows will participate in all facets of CMHT’s international human rights litigation practice, under the guidance of the firm’s litigators.

Columbia Law School

Henkin Stoffel Human Rights Fellowship
This fellowship will allow a Columbia Law School third-year law student, LL.M. student, or recent graduate to spend two years working in the field of human rights in two one-year placements: one located in the developing world and the other in the country in which the fellow intends to live permanently.

Leebron Human Rights Fellowship
The fellowship will enable one Columbia Law School third- year law student, LL.M. student or recent graduate to spend one year working in human rights law either in the United States or abroad.

Council on Foreign Relations

International Affairs Fellowship
The fellowship seeks to bridge the gap between thought and action in foreign policy by supporting a variety of policy studies and active experiences in policy-making and public service. Opportunities provide for systematic assessment of key substantive issues in foreign policy. Applicant must be between 27 and 35 years old.

Echoing Green Foundation
Fellowship provides seed money for social entrepreneurs to start a new public service organization or individual project. Fellows currently work all over North America and in twenty-eight additional countries.

European University Institute

Jean Monnet Law Fellowship
The Jean Monnet Fellowship Programme at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS) provides a framework for the pursuit of postdoctoral research without heavy teaching obligations by academics in the early stages of their professional career. The Law Department focuses on European Law, international and comparative law, legal theory and interdisciplinary approaches.

Max Weber Fellowship
The Max Weber Programme at the European University Institute (EUI) is Europe’s largest postdoctoral program in the social sciences and is funded by the European Commission. Max Weber Fellowships are for one or two years and are open to candidates who have received a doctorate in economics, social and political sciences, law or history within the last five years. These fellowships are intended for young researchers who want to consolidate their research and training in an active interdisciplinary environment before entering the increasingly internationalized academic job market, or young academics who are at the start of their careers in an academic institution and who wish to develop their skills in advanced research and academic practice.

Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson Fellowship
The fellow works as a litigation associate at the New York firm for two years. Then, the fellow serves as a staff attorney at the Mexican-American Legal Defense & Education Fund (MALDEF) in Los Angeles or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense Fund (NAACP LDF) in New York for two years. The fellow may, but is not required to, rejoin the firm at full seniority. In some cases, the fellow may continue on the MALDEF or LDF staff.

Human Rights First
Fellowships with Human Rights First offer recent law school graduates an opportunity to explore real world application of international human rights law in national settings, working closely with our highly qualified and experienced staff.

Human Rights Watch

Alan R. and Barbara D. Finberg Fellowship
Fellows work full time for one year at Human Rights Watch, based in New York City or Washington, DC. Fellows monitor human rights developments in various countries, conduct on-site investigations, draft reports on human rights conditions, and engage in advocacy aimed at publicizing and curtailing human rights violations.

Institute of Current World Affairs
The purpose of the Institute of Current World Affairs is to provide talented and promising individuals with an opportunity to develop a deep understanding of an issue, country or region outside the United States and to share that understanding with a wider public. The institute sponsors three fellowship programs for work and study in a country of the fellow’s choosing. Fellowships last up to two years. The fellow will spend two years in the fellowship site of his/her choice, exploring an appropriate fellowship topic of his or her design. Fellows must be less than thirty-six years of age.

Institute of International Education

Fulbright Grants for Graduate Study Abroad
Grants are provided to fund research by U.S. graduate students or recent post-graduates in over 100 countries. The fellow will plan a project that may include university coursework, independent library or field research, classes in a music conservatory or art school, special projects in the social or life sciences, or a combination. Fellowships are also available in specific countries for the study of business and law.

International Human Rights Law Institute–DePaul University

Public Interest Law Institute Summer Graduate Fellowship
This summer fellowship is available to recent law school graduates joining Chicago law firms. Fellows may expect to assist in research, advocacy, drafting amicus briefs, or working on potential or pending litigation, depending on the Institute’s current docket. PILI Fellows generally work five part-time weeks while studying for the bar exam (mornings at the agency and afternoons at the bar review) and five full-time weeks after the exam and before the firm’s starting date.

John J. Gibbons Fellowship in Public Interest and Constitutional Law
Gibbons, Del Deo, Griffinger & Vecchione hires one fellow each year for this program which is centered in Newark, New Jersey. As associates of the firm, fellows work on public interest and constitutional law projects and litigation. At the end of this two-year fellowship, fellows have the option to remain at the firm with full seniority and follow through on projects begun during the fellowship. There is no obligation to continue with the firm after the fellowship ends.

National Security Education Program

David L. Boren Graduate Fellowship
NSEP Boren Fellowships support students pursuing the study of languages, cultures, and world regions that are critical to U.S. interests (including Africa, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America & the Caribbean, and the Middle East). NSEP focuses on geographic areas, languages, and fields of study deemed critical to U.S. national security and draws on a broad definition of national security applied by the President in his annual National Security Strategy, recognizing that the scope of national security has expanded to include not only the traditional concerns of protecting and promoting American well-being, but also the challenges of global society, including: sustainable development, environmental degradation, global disease and hunger, population growth and migration, and economic competitiveness. The NSEP service requirement stipulates that an award recipient work in the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, State, or the Intelligence Community and that NSEP Boren Fellows will use the language or regional expertise acquired as a result of the award in their work for the U.S. government.

New Voices Fellowship Program
New Voices is a national leadership development program that helps nonprofit organizations recruit innovative, new talent. It awards salary-support grants to small nonprofits demonstrating a commitment to cultivating and strengthening the leadership potential of creative and diverse “new voices” in the field.

Open Society Institute International Policy Fellowships
The International Policy Fellowships Program (IPF) identifies and nurtures the next generation of open society leaders in the countries of the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe, and Mongolia. From 2005, IPF activities will diversify into two main program areas: an impact-oriented fellowships program designed for leaders with proven policymaking and advocacy experience, and a public policy capacity development program providing assistance to up-and-coming policy researchers at local and regional levels.

Organization of American States Fellowship
Every year, the Agency provides several hundred fellowships for undergraduate and graduate studies and research at universities throughout the region and awards for specialized, short-term training at educational institutions and training centers in OAS Member and Observer States.

Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship Program
To further this goal, and to strengthen the ties of friendship and understanding between the United States and Germany, the foundation sponsors a fellowship program that enables young American professionals to participate in an intensive work and study program in Germany.

Rotary Foundation of Rotary International

Ambassadorial Fellowship
The fellowship supports study or research in foreign country where Rotary clubs are located. Scholars are assigned to use the scholarship at a specific study institution based on their preferences.

Social Science Research Council

Abe Fellowship
The Abe Fellowship is designed to encourage multidisciplinary research on contemporary and policy relevant topics of pressing global concern to industrialized and industrializing societies around the globe. The Program administers an annual fellowship competition that provides scholars and non-academic research professionals in the social sciences and the humanities with support for research projects addressing any one or a combination of three themes: global issues, problems common to industrial and industrializing societies and issues relating to U.S.-Japan relations.