OÑATI COMMUNITY

I am from Jordan and I did my Master of Sociology in 1993.

I came to Onati on their second year of offering Sociology of Law simply because it was offering a unique master in law whereby each semester will have professors coming from different parts of the world to provide the students with their insights. It gave us an opportunity to mix with students from different parts of the European Union that was an amazing experience from a social, cultural and learning point of view.

The courses offered by Onati were useful and supplementing and complimenting each other.   Although I do not remember any of the courses that I took 29 years ago, I am still in touch with some of the colleagues who studied with me and I still remember our social gatherings and the fun that we have had during weekends more than the courses.

I have been working with Al Tamimi & Company law firm for the past 26 years. I started as an associate, then senior associate, then partner, then head of banking and finance department, then deputy managing partner, then managing partner and now working as a senior partner. Al Tamimi and Company is a Middle Eastern law firm based in Dubai and when I started, we were 9 lawyers and now we are the largest non-affiliated law firm in the Middle East with 17 offices and 450 lawyers.

My advice to the students:

• Communication skills should be your number one priority and no matter how smart or intelligent or good you are at your specialty, if you do not know how to communicate the knowledge and how to share the experience then you will achieve very little in your life. 
• One of the important things that students studying law or thinking of becoming a lawyer should know is to focus on how a business is run and not just focus on studying the law, courts, arbitration, system, process, etc. The universities should also teach students on how to run a law firm from a business perspective and not just from a legal perspective. 
• If you want to become a lawyer, have an aim from day 1 to be the managing partner of the firm that you are going to join and have a road map in your mind of how you are going to achieve that.  

 

Hi Friends. My name is Ambrose T. Wreh from Liberia in West Africa. I was a Masters student at Onati during the 2013/2014 academic year. My experience at Onati was an amazing one; the staff, professors and my course mates made my stay exciting and memorable. I made some remarkable friends who I still keep in touch with and dearly wish to get reunited with someday. But most of all, the professors (the best I’ve ever had) and the nature of the courses taught, have left indelible imprints on my mind.

After my study I returned to my country, during the heat of the ebola pandemic. Liberia’s governance system being overly centralized and affected by patronage politics could not provide for effective and sustainable service delivery at the local level, hence this resulted in the virus spreading from remote forest communities to the capital city and causing more than four thousand deaths.

I currently work as the Human Resource Planning and Policy Coordinator at Liberia’s Ministry of Health, where I support the review and analysis of Healthcare policies and plans that aim to provide a safe working environment which fosters efficient healthcare delivery, productivity and job satisfaction.

My combined experiences from my time in Onati and my current position at the Ministry of Health have given me a new desire to pursue another Masters in “Labor Law and Employment Relations”.  Liberia’s health workforce is currently contending with a number of demanding labor and employment related issues, including rising wage demand actions, negligent hiring and discrimination claims. It is my aspiration to gain better understanding of key concepts regarding Labor Law and Employment Relations in order to develop ideas that will help alleviate the challenges in Liberia’s health sector. I hope I can get the opportunity to pursue this study in Europe and indeed also visit Onati again.

Onati and the IISL will forever live in my heart.

Gracias!

Hi everone

I am Awaludin Marwan from Indonesia. After I obtained my PhD at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, I back to my country and teach at Bhayangkara University and specialised on cyberlaw, data privacy, philosophy of law, legal theory and technology. While teaching, I also established a legal tech company which concern on big data of legal document, artificial intelligence and law as well as enhancing legal education through learning management system. Perhaps one of you may collaborate with me in the near future. Here is my platform domain: https://heylawedu.id/, 

Unfortunately, it is still in Indonesian Language, and I am preparing to make in English. Thank you very much for everyone.  

Oñati will be forever in my heart. What an experience! Living abroad in 1994/1995... no internet, no whatsapp, no videocalls... Communication with my family was by letter from my mother – once a week, fax from my father – every 15 days and one (yes, only one) phone call – once a month! And how exciting it was to wait for the news...

About the course. It was amazing the interaction with people from so many different countries, with professors from so many different countries. The wonderful staff of IISL made it easy for us to enjoy the course by helping with all our needs - Susana in special.

The “saga” to arrive in Oñati was quite an experience too. Plane from São Paulo to Madrid, train from Madrid to Zumarraga (Bilbao airport was not ready at that time) and a taxi from Zumarraga to Antia Jauregian, where Luis Gonzales Placencia - my dear friend- opened the main door (I will never forget that) and gave me the welcome to wonderful days of study, friendship, knowledge and fun!

So many wonderful memories (I could write a book to tell). So many wonderful friends – some of them I had the pleasure to meet again in Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, Italy, France, Canada.

After finishing the master I went back to Brazil to take the opposition exams and in march of 1997 I became a judge. I worked in small cities at the beginning of the carrer and nowadays I’m working at the 28th criminal court in São Paulo, capital. I’ve worked at the magistrate’s school as the coordinator of an International Law course and also teaching for the news judges. In 2002/2004 I won a scholarship and took a comparative Law’s master in the United States (summer course at Samford University, Alabama).

I love traveling as a hobby and also to go to legal events. I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Parmentier in a UN legal event in São Paulo some years ago.

Hello everyone!

I'm a former Master student from the 2015-2016 program.

Since returning to Venezuela from Oñati, I have been working as a professor in the Department of International Studies of the Metropolitan University (Unimet, Caracas, Venezuela) and as Deputy Director of its Human Rights Center.

I'm also pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science, specializing in International Studies and Political Theory and focusing on the Venezuelan migration and refugee crisis.

I have experience in strategic litigation and advocacy in international instances of the inter-American and universal human rights system, and I'm licensed to practice law in both Venezuela and Mexico.

Hurrengora arte!

vcapriles@unimet.edu.ve

Hi everyone!

I'm currently an Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After my time in Oñati (2007-2008), I went to complete my PhDs at Coimbra and the UPV in 2014. From there  I went back to Puerto Rico, where I taught for 4 years, then to UMass Amherst, and finally Illinois. It has been a journey, and I am thankful for the Oñati experience and all the good friends I made there. As always, thanks to Susana and to all the people at the IISL for making this community possible. 

It has been 12 years since I graduated from Onati, but I still remember so many things from this wonderful place/campus :)

After graduating from Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin for my PhD, I moved back to Jakarta with my family. I am currently teaching at the law faculty Universitas Indonesia and managing the Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies. I must say that my experiences in Onati have contributed a lot in developing my academic interest and field of research: socio-legal studies. I am forever grateful for the opportunities I had during my Master in Onati and friendships across the globe that were built ever since! 

Hello Everyone!

My name is Narith NON, from Cambodia. I was a master student in 2017-2018. My thesis was about observing the making of Cambodian Environmental code which is still ongoing. After I submitted my thesis and graduated, I got a chance to participate in helping to draft some provisions in the code as well.

Now, I am working for and Airport Company in Cambodia affiliate to VINCI in France.

Hi everyone!

I'm Amanda Kovalczuk from Porto Alegre, Brazil, and I was a master's student in the 2018-2019 promotion. For my master's thesis I have investigated how gender and law interacted in the activities of women trained as social agents in a community justice center placed in a marginalized neighborhood of Canoas, Brazil.

I'm currently a PhD candidate in the Sociology Graduate Program of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul with a grant by the Brazilian National Committee for Research (in Portuguese, CAPES). I'm now working with gender and social policies, specially those oriented to families and childcare.

It was great reading you all and getting to know more about the Oñati Community!

Best,
Amanda
amandakovalczuk@gmail.com

I completed the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law (IISL) in 2013. I am currently a lecturer and the Coordinator of the Centre for Legal Research at the Faculty of Law, University of Cape Coast, Ghana. I teach jurisprudence, philosophical foundations of law, critical thinking in law, etc. My research interests span across sociology of law, criminology and criminal law, religion-penology, and human rights. This is the link to my current articles https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2021.2004673 and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590291121001364

I thank the IISL for the opportunity it offered me. I hope to visit the institute sometime soon.

The very best.

Elijah Tukwariba Yin – elijah.yin@ucc.edu.gh