Scribd
Upload
123 views3 pages

Hlavkova Esej

This document is a motivation letter from Monika Hlávková applying to study for an LLM degree at the London School of Economics. She has studied law in her home country of Slovakia and now wants to gain expertise in international law to pursue a career working in legal affairs for an international organization like the UN. She has experience debating and competing in international moot court competitions that have furthered her interest in areas of international law.

Uploaded by

Nadhira Zahrani Widiafina
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
123 views3 pages

Hlavkova Esej

This document is a motivation letter from Monika Hlávková applying to study for an LLM degree at the London School of Economics. She has studied law in her home country of Slovakia and now wants to gain expertise in international law to pursue a career working in legal affairs for an international organization like the UN. She has experience debating and competing in international moot court competitions that have furthered her interest in areas of international law.

Uploaded by

Nadhira Zahrani Widiafina
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Monika Hlvkov

Motivation Letter
How will studying abroad contribute to my life and plans
I have chosen to pursue an LLM degree at London School of Economics
in order to gain further expertise in the field of international law.
I attained proficiency in Czech legal system by taking courses in all of
the major municipal and international law areas and now I feel that
I would like to devote my academic attention to more specialized
issues. I am strongly convinced that such an educational background
would help me achieve my future career goal, which is, ultimately, to
work in legal affairs division of an international organization, such as
the United Nations.
During the course of my studies, I have always been actively seeking
opportunities to develop my skills beyond what was strictly required by
the curriculum. I enjoyed British Parliamentary debating which helped
me further improve my critical thinking and public speaking abilities.
Not only did I participate as a debater in various domestic and
international events but I also remained active in the Slovak Debate
Association,
a non-governmental
organization
responsible
for
facilitating the debate programme in Slovakia. I regularly judged
tournaments for secondary school students, I led seminars as
a lecturer and I helped prepare young debaters for international
competitions while holding a position on the National Training Team.
I also taught a debating course at my University and through all this
valuable experience I learned how to effectively present academic
issues to audiences with diverse educational and social backgrounds. It
is academic debate that largely determined my professional
aspirations and interests. I gained insight into questions of public policy
and social issues which drives me towards legal areas on the edge of
law and politics, such as public international law or constitutional law.
Later on, it was only a natural step for me to make use of the debating
skills in more legal-focused arenas. As a result, I participated in Jessup
International Law Moot Court Competition and contributed to the first
ever advance of my university to the international rounds in
Washington, DC. The competition required me to engage in extensive
individual research of controversial legal issues as well as to put
forward advanced legal arguments. It was during my involvement with
the moot court team that I became fully fascinated by international
law. Precisely because it is a very dynamic field of law, changing
rapidly through state practice and leaving many issues without definite
black and white solution, it represents the art of legal reasoning at its
very best.

Monika Hlvkov

I have a particular interest in the interconnected areas of international


criminal law and the law of armed conflicts. Therefore, the respective
courses offered at LSE would help me gain a further insight into these
up-to-date areas of international law. Moreover, my diploma thesis was
concerned with prosecution of high-ranking state officials under the
principle of universal jurisdiction. During my studies at LSE, I would like
to continue the research started in my thesis and explore the issues of
universal jurisdiction and immunities from jurisdiction in more depth.
Secondly, I have worked extensively with human rights cases during
my year-long internship at the Czech Contitutional Court. I learned that
the real law only starts behind the black letter of the statute. For
example, simple day-to-day issues, such as tenancy conflicts, can raise
difficult questions of right to private and family life. This experience not
only enabled me to gain a whole different perspective on law, but also
made me understand the importance and appeal of studying
international human rights law. This years Jessup Moot Court topic also
aroused my interest in International Investment Law, especially the
issues of expropration and its relation to human rights protection. The
LLM program at LSE is the only one from the universities I have been
admitted to that offers specialized courses in all of the abovementioned areas of law and therefore is best suited to my personal
needs.
After I finish my postgraduate education, I would like to continue
working with international law, either at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
some other governmental body or directly in an international
organization. In the long term, I have a strong preference for the
United Nations since I perceive its work in the legal arena as extremely
important. I specially appreciate the efforts of the UN based
International Law Commission on codification of existing rules of
international law. It is the author of such important documents as Draft
Articles on State Responsibility or Draft Code of Crimes, which gained
world-wide respect and some rules already became part of customary
international law. The UN also adopted such groundbreaking
documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1948
Genocide Convention or contributed largely to the establishment of the
International Criminal Court. What I recenly see as the biggest problem
is the efficiency of international criminal justice and therefore I would
like to contribute through my work to the development of appropriate
enforcement mechanisms.
It is said that for a career in Public International Law, a top quality LLM
degree is almost a must, and in this respect, London School of
Economics is an obvious choice for me. It represents an essential stage
of my education which complements well my previous studies and

Monika Hlvkov

work, but it also opens a lot of new doors and provides opportunities
for me to develop profesionally and personally to achieve my career
goals.

You might also like