By Peggy McInerny, Director of Communications
The UCLA travel study program in The Hague in July 2024 was a stellar experience for global studies student Maher Salha (UCLA 2025).
UCLA International Institute, December 6, 2024 — Maher Salha, a Bruin senior with a double major in global studies and political science, has long been deeply interested international politics, law and human rights.
Salha grew up in Pennsylvania, but regularly spent his summers in Jordan visiting family and doing volunteer work in a Syrian refugee camp. He also traveled widely in Europe with his parents. “What that really taught me is that there is a huge interdisciplinary approach to how you look at anything,” he said.
He chose UCLA, and the global studies program in particular, because of their emphasis on interdisciplinary learning. Said Salha of the program, “[W]e take an interdisciplinary approach — whether it’s anthropology, economics, political science or, especially, history — to everything that we look at. As an incoming freshman, that’s what I really valued.”
Travel study program brings intellectual challenges, forges close friendships
All global studies majors are required to complete a travel study program, with certain exceptions. The four-week program in The Hague, called The Global Governance of International Human Rights and led by International Institute Associate Vice Provost and Professor David Kim, was a natural choice for Salha, who had already done a global internship in London with a U.K. law firm after his freshman year.
The Hague program includes two five-credit courses: one covers the conceptual history of human rights from the Enlightenment until the adoption of the Rome Statute in 1998;* the other addresses the institutions and processes through which human rights are adjudicated internationally today.
“I’ve always been interested in human rights, partly because I am of Palestinian descent and because of the time I have spent in Jordan and the Middle East,” noted Salha.
The July 2024 program went beyond his expectations. “I didn’t want it to end,” he said. “I wanted it to be longer. I really enjoyed Professor Kim and liked that the program was very interactive… I honestly can’t think of a better time to have done the program, with all the international wars that are going on right now. It sort of put everything in perspective.
Left: International Court of Justice, located in the Peace Palace in The Hague, The Netherlands. Photo: Nikolai Karaneschev via Wikimedia Commons, 2012; CC BY 3.0. Right: International Criminal Court, The Hague, The Netherlands. Photo: Justflix via Wikimedia Commons, 2018; CC BY-SA 4.0.
“We took trips to the International Court of Justice, the ICJ [part of the UN], where we had a tour and went to the judges’ chambers and the courtroom where trials occur. A staff member there gave us a presentation, followed by a Q& A session,” he explained. Their visit to the courtroom, he added, came soon after the ICJ justices had announced an advisory opinion in that same room which concluded that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories is unlawful. (The opinion was issued in response to a request of the UN General Assembly.)
“We also visited the International Criminal Court, the ICC [an international tribunal separate from the UN], and heard a presentation about the court and its procedures by a prosecutor, who then showed us the facilities,” he said. There was an ongoing trial occurring at the time of their visit and after the presentation, UCLA students observed proceedings against Mahamat Said Abdel Kani of the Central African Republic, who was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“That was absolutely fascinating. It’s one of the favorite things I’ve ever done in my entire life. I feel like I had worked all of my high school and college paths to that point, learning about and being super passionate about international law and international affairs, and now I was finally there. It was surreal.”
Lectures, coursework and visiting international justice institutions alternated with tours of Amsterdam, including a tour led by a former Egyptian refugee on a boat that had transported hundreds of migrants to the Netherlands. Other trips included a visit to the office of the Promise Institute Europe in Amsterdam and a guided tour of Rotterdam. In the evenings, students regularly went out as a group to watch televised Euro2024 soccer matches.
Yet studying international human rights and justice institutions during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war challenged Salha’s prior faith in international justice. By the time he began the program, the ICJ had made several initial rulings in the controversial South Africa case against Israel on charges of genocide, all of which were unenforceable unilaterally.**
“When you hear the ‘International Court of Justice,’ ‘the International Criminal Court,’ ‘international law,’ it sounds like a very huge hierarchy that will enforce the rule of law. But nothing really happened,” said the UCLA senior.
“I was very confused because for essentially all of my life, I had put international law on a sort of pedestal,” he related. “I told Professor Kim and the prosecutor who gave us the ICC tour, ‘I’m struggling to appreciate all the work that these institutions do when, for lack of better words, I think it’s just all fluff. The court ruled and we’re supposed to respect it, [but it seems] the Rome Statute and all the history we’re learning, it doesn’t matter at all.’
“And they told me that just because it isn’t working perfectly doesn’t mean you should stop, it’s better to continue trying than not try at all. That hit me very deeply,” he said.
“That’s the other side of the light that I never really looked at: even if [the ICJ and ICC cannot enforce their rulings], there are other effects that these rulings have. It’s international credibility, it’s economic effects, rather than direct justice.
“That is saddening, but it’s better to have these institutions than to have nothing at all. That realization helped me tie together everything I have been studying,” remarked Salha, who still plans to go to law school in the future.
Asked what advice he would give to UCLA students considering a study abroad program, he replied, “Go in with an open mindset. When you go abroad, things will be different. Don’t look at things being different as a bad thing.
“Your time there is temporary, so your homesickness and sadness will be temporary, but all the amazing things that you’ll see and experience and learn will also be temporary. You don’t want to let that time go to waste!
“I went in not knowing a single person, and now some of my closest friends are from that program,” he concluded.
See article about the student-run UCLA Global Development Lab, where Salha is currently directing the year-long Project Incubator in his fourth and final year as a lab member.
* The Rome Statute of 1998 established the International Criminal Court and four categories of international crimes — genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression — and gives the court jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for those crimes. Major powers such as China, the U.S., and Russia, together with many other countries — including India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Libya and Saudi Arabia — are either not signatories to the statute or have not ratified it, or both, and do not recognize its authority. (See States Parties to the Rome Statute.)
** The ICJ has ordered Israel to take provisional measures to prevent acts of genocide (Jan 2024), ensure that food supplies reach Palestinians in Gaza (March 2024) and halt the military offensive on Rafah (May 2024). Separately, ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan filed applications in May for the arrest for war crimes for top Hamas and Israeli leaders, including Yahya Sinwar and Benjamin Netanyahu, which were issued by the ICC in late November.
Published: Friday, December 6, 2024