UNN student completes internship at EAEU Court of Justice

Ekaterina Ivashchenko, a student in the Law and Linguistics Bachelor's programme at the UNN Law Faculty, completed an academic internship at the Secretariat of the Court of Justice of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) from April 20 to May 15, 2023.

This is a pilot international project, which became possible thanks to the dynamically developing relations between the Centre for European and Eurasian Legal Studies (CEEALS) at the UNN Faculty of Law and the Court of Justice of the EAEU. It aims to expand the spectrum of interaction between Lobachevsky University and regional international organisations, and also to create professional and career prospects for successful law students who set ambitious goals on their way to becoming international lawyers. Thanks to the cooperation between the Faculty of Law and the Court of Justice of the EAEU, UNN students now have such opportunities.

"Being in the heart of Minsk and at the same time in the main body of justice in the Eurasian space, I realised how important it is now to study EAEU law. Having worked in the expert and analytical department of the Court's Secretariat, I got a tremendous experience and a lot of positive emotions.  Very few students can work in an international organisation during their studies, so I am very glad that I was able to be part of such an unprecedented undertaking", Ekaterina shared her impressions from the internship.

Ekaterina Ivashchenko worked as an intern in the Expert Analytical Department of the EAEU Court's Secretariat under the supervision of Kirill Entin, Head of the Department. This structural unit of the Court is responsible for information and legal support of the Court's activities, preparation of information and reference materials on legal issues considered by the Court, draft documents, preliminary examination of applications received by the Court, compilation and analysis of statistics on the Court's activities, analysis and generalisation of court practice.

During her internship, Ekaterina performed various types of analytical work: she translated and summarised judicial practice of international courts and courts of the member states, studied the practice of the EAEU Court on particular categories of disputes, helped prepare an opinion on the arguments, which plays a key role in resolving a case because it can be relied upon by judges when making a decision. Ekaterina was involved in drafting an opinion in a case involving unfair competition by misleading consumers through the use of trademarks.

"Today, law students have the opportunity to engage in research and analytical work on regional and Eurasian integration at the Centre for European and Eurasian Legal Studies at our Faculty of Law. We are delighted that, thanks to our cooperation with the Court of the EAEU, the best trainees of the Centre now have the opportunity to undertake internships in the EAEU, the main international organisation in post-Soviet Eurasia," said Andrey Leonov, Head of the CEEALS and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law for International Affairs.