Lots of Work Amidst the Play

Looking over the past 20 entries or so, I realize it must look like all I do is eat, drink, and dance. While I enjoy all of these things greatly, my week actually revolves around my work at the Legal Assistance Center. I feel a tad awkward blogging about work (I'm pretty sure CEB had us sign a non-disclosure agreement explicitly saying we would never blog about work?), but since it’s just friends and family who read this, I’m past due for an update on how my internship is progressing. Also, the final product will be publicly available, and there's no client confidentiality to worry about.

I am incredibly lucky to have the amount of responsibility I do. Up to this point, I’ve been doing the majority of work for the legal portion of the strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Since the scope of a SEA is extremely broad, the relevant legal areas we need to cover in our report run the gamut from worker health and safety regulations to water law to land use regulation to corporate governance. Our report needs to summarize all current legislation and relevant case law, and then analyze how well this current case law protects the people and environment in the Erongo region. To me, it seems a solid knowledge in just one area of law (water law, for example) could take an entire summer. Namibia is a young democracy but was administered by South Africa before independence. Since they adopted all law in force at the time of independence, many of the laws in force are unwieldy regulations adopted in South Africa and applied to Namibia half a century ago.

For this report to be a good one, we need to do more than understand what laws are technically in force, we should also understand how the law is actually applied. For example, many Namibian laws vest various Ministers with a great deal of power, but do they actually inspect mining operations at will, demand operating documents, and impose fines for non-compliance? Are the fines drafted in 1956 South Africa an effective deterrent for a subsidiary of RioTinto in 2009?

My work for the past few weeks has been looking at previous environmental assessments and legal reports to determine what laws might have applicability to our report. Since the scope of our report is so broad, you can imagine how long the list of relevant legislation is, and one single law might be several hundred pages along. It is slow but steady work.

While it is fascinating for me to get my hands dirty with actual rules, regulations, and case law after a year of abstract legal ideas, it’s also overwhelming. What’s more, my boss has been out of the office for nearly three weeks, on the road for work and more recently mourning the loss of his sister. I’m eager to get feedback on the work I’ve done so far (and hopefully get the okay for my travel plans) but his family duties obviously come first.