MENA Rights Group is looking for a Legal intern

Deadline: 1 November 2026

Starting date: January/February 2027 (to be agreed upon)

Location: MRG’s office in Geneva

About MENA Rights Group

MENA Rights Group is a Geneva-based legal advocacy NGO, focusing on the protection and promotion of fundamental rights and freedoms in the Middle East and North Africa. Adopting a holistic approach, we work at both the individual and structural level. We provide legal assistance to victims of human rights violations through recourse to international protection mechanisms. In addition, we assess the human rights situation on the ground and bring key issues to the attention of relevant stakeholders to call for legal and policy reform. We are a small and dynamic group of human rights practitioners sharing a passion for the MENA region.

About the internship

Key tasks will include assisting our team with documentation and case work, preparing communications to file with international protection mechanisms, contributing to the drafting of reports and legal briefs, and supporting other type of advocacy and communication actions undertaken by MENA Rights Group.

Interns are fully integrated into the team, and we ensure they work on a diversity of issues and cases. We provide guidance throughout the internship and interns are supervised by one or more experienced staff.

The internship is for a duration of six months with a trial period of one month, starting in January/February 2026. We provide our interns with a monthly stipend of CHF 800 (gross).

This is a full-time position, based in Geneva. We implement the 4-day workweek, Monday through Thursday.

Requirements

If you want to join our team, you must:

1. Be a Swiss/EU citizen or hold a valid work permit for Switzerland. NB: Candidates with a Swiss Student B Permit can only work full-time when they do not have classes;
2. Be enrolled in university during the internship, and be able to enter a three-way agreement between you, MENA Rights Group, and your university;
3. The internship must be intra-cursus, i.e., part of an academic training program, a professional training program or a socio-professional integration program, and must meet the conditions set by the Conseil de surveillance du marché de l’emploi (CSME). We can also welcome trainee lawyers.

Kindly ensure that you meet these mandatory requirements before applying. We will automatically reject applications which do not meet these criteria, established by the State of Geneva.

1. Have a law degree or social sciences with a strong international or human rights law component demonstrated through relevant university courses or relevant professional experience (NB: candidates with solely political sciences, policy, or related backgrounds will not be considered);
2. Have demonstrated interest in human rights in the MENA region;
3. Have excellent oral and written English proficiency; preferably with working knowledge of French and/or Arabic;
4. Have solid analytical and writing skills;
5. Have great attention to detail;
6. Be able to work in a fast-paced environment, i.e., be organised and able to work effectively and independently.

To apply

Send an email to internship-at-menarights.org with the subject line “Legal Internship – YOUR NAME”.

The application should be in English and contain, in PDF documents:

1. A curriculum vitae;
2. A letter of motivation (maximum 2 pages) explaining your interest in working with MRG and how this experience fits into your professional plans. This should not be a summary of your CV — please note that we read these letters closely, and we value writing that reflects your own voice and thinking. If you use AI tools as part of your drafting process, make sure the final letter is genuinely personal, well-considered, and specific to you; generic or clearly AI-generated letters will not stand out favourably;
3. A recent writing sample in English of at least 5 pages;
4. In your email, please confirm you meet each of the three above stated criteria established by the State of Geneva; specify your earliest starting date; confirm availability for six months and ability to work full time (i.e., 32 hours per week).

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