On May 15th, 2014, the Academic Salon of the Institute of International Law of Wuhan University was held as scheduled in the 323 classroom. The visiting scholar at the International Law Institute and the United Nations Department for General Assembly and Conference Management reviser, Ms. Du Yan has made a wonderful report. The report is entitled My Experience in Working at the United Nations and Suggestions for Those Engaged in International Law Research”. The report is divided into three main sections: Ms. Du Yan’s work experience at the United Nations, presentations on the work of the United Nations and recommendations for researchers in international law.
Ms. Du Yan first introduced her work at the United Nations. Ms. Du Yan graduated from the Beijing Foreign Studies Institute (now Beijing Foreign Studies University) in the 1980s. After graduation, she entered into Department of Treaty and Law of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then performed an internship at the United Nations. Because of her excellent performance, she is accepted by the United Nations. With a solid foundation in English, Ms. Du Yan first worked in the United Nations on Chinese translation of English documents, and then went to work at the headquarters of the General Assembly in New York, mainly to translate documents. Ms. Du Yan then introduced the United Nations General Assembly Department, which has approximately 1,200 staff members at United Nations Headquarters in New York and 2,200 staff members around the world, including conference managers in Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi, is the largest department in the United Nations. Working in the Department is the secretaries and researchers of the committees, conference planners and protocol officers, translators and verbatim reporters, interpreters and editors, cartographers and printers, conference officers and administrators, and many other staff. The United Nations holds different sizes of meetings every day. Representatives of Member States work at the meeting to raise relevant issues and resolve them. The main objective of the Department is to provide a practical framework and a discussion framework for these meetings. Ms. Du Yan also talked about some interesting things about her first work in the Department of Treaty and Law, as well as some insights obtained when working with Mr. Liu Daqun and Ms.Xue Hanqin, the famous international law experts in China.
After that, Ms. Du Yan introduced her interview experience at the United Nations, reminding all students to avoid tension during the interview, and several factors that need attention in the interview, especially communication and integrity. Not only must we focus on the accumulation of professional knowledge, but also pay attention to personal qualities, such as honesty and modesty. Ms. Du Yan also mentioned that working in the United Nations, especially translation, is still very stressful. In the last part of the report, she advised international law researchers to focus on their personal health and to make greater contributions to the country's legal career in addition to devoted to academic work.
The academic salon was presided over by Professor Yu Minyou, and teachers such as Li Renzhen, Xiao Jun, Zhang Qinglin and other doctoral students and master students from the International Law Institute attended the salon. (Contributor: Zhan Chenpeng, graduate student of Wuhan university Institute of International Law )
Office of the Institute of International Law
May 16, 2014
