From the Research Field to the Football Field

UC San Diego law student, Brian Israel spent a year as a post-graduate at the University of Bristol studying Public International Law, and playing football for the Bristol Bullets. He followed up his school year by interning at a summer Peace Camp in Austria for Serbian and Croation youth.

by Brian Israel

Peace Camp - Youthbridge Initiative

I just got in the door from Austria, where I was working with the Youthbridge Initiative. This program takes Serbian and Croatian youth from Vukovar, Croatia (probably the worst hit city of the civil war), and brings them to camp in the mountains of Austria, where they learn peaceful means of conflict resolution and leadership skills. You can read more about this program at their website.

Year in Bristol

I had a wonderful year in Bristol. I played football for the Bristol Bullets American Football Team, which was a blast. I formed very close relationships with my very international teammates, and traveled all over the UK for games. I won an Most Valuable Player award, and was an assistant coach for a youth team for a while.

Probably the most valuable aspect of my year in Bristol was the course work and research I completed in Public International Law. This is the field that I am presently pursuing. The University of Bristol provided an unparalleled opportunity to get my feet (very) wet in the field, which really helped to affirm that it is the field for me.

I took classes in Public International Law, European Union and British Constitutional Law from the University's Ll.B and Ll.M program, which has provided a sound basis for research I am presently conducting. I seized upon the opportunities provided by London, as a (relatively) nearby hub for nearly everything, to attend international law conferences/ roundtables where I met some of the most eminent academics and practitioners in the field.

The most recent development to come out of my experience at Bristol is that International Legal Review, a Bristol based journal of international law, will publish an article I wrote about the Law of State Responsibility in their Fall issue.

I suppose that the sum total of the above is: My EAP experience, beside allowing for loads of fun (football, etc) and a lot of insight into a culture whose subtle differences are far greater than I had previously appreciated, I was able to achieve more focus and direction toward my career path than I had previously.