Sam Pegram Human Rights Placement Award

News | Posted on Monday 26 July 2021

The Sam Pegram Human Rights Placement Award celebrates the life and honours the memory of Sam Pegram, our LLM in International Human Rights Law and Practice alumnus, who died tragically in the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash.

The Human Rights Placements are flagship modules on the LLM in International Human Rights Law and Practice and the MA in Applied Human Rights. They offer our students hands-on experience of working together with inter-, non-, or governmental partners over two terms on a practice-oriented human rights project. Drawing on extensive desk-based research and fieldwork, the 2020/21 students have produced exceptional projects with impact on the project partners’ activities and their stakeholders.

The Sam Pegram Human Rights Placement Award celebrates the life and honours the memory of Sam Pegram, our LLM in International Human Rights Law and Practice alumnus, who died tragically in the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash. The award recognises project outputs that shine through their commitment to reflexive human rights practice, seeking to centre the needs and voices of those involved in the struggle for human rights.

On 1 July 2021, LLM students Eleanor Davies, Emily Forbes, Johanna Lasi, and Martin Roberts received the Sam Pegram Award. They worked in partnership with the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to develop strategies aimed at countering the stigmatisation of human rights defenders. On the MA, the Sam Pegram Award recognised the important work on the York Human Rights City indicator report on Covid-19 and Human Rights conducted by Mollie Bonnamy, Amy Darch, Juliana Leal and Laurren March.

We wish to congratulate all our students for their hard work and impactful projects outputs, and for succeeding to create a supportive, inspiring community during a challenging year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read what our LLM and MA students have to say about their experiences conducting fieldwork and working with project partners.

MA student Juliana Leal with Ioana Cismas and Paul Gready

LLM students Eleanor Davies and Emily Forbes with Ioana Cismas and Martin Jones