Manasa is a legal consultant specialising in Public International Law and International Human Rights. She presently works as a consultant in Amsterdam, running an independent legal practice – ‘MSV Consultancy NL.’ From July 2023 to August 2025, she worked with Blue Ocean Law as external counsel to the Republic of Vanuatu at the International Court of Justice. Her primary focus was Vanuatu’s representation in the proceedings on Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change.
Adithi: Thank you so much for joining in today! You chose to start your own consultancy as opposed to the traditional route of joining a firm or a chamber practice. As an early-career international lawyer, this is extremely rare. Was this always the plan when you realised that you wanted to do international law? Could you walk us through your journey from law school all the way to MSV Consultancy NL?
Manasa: (Smiles) It was never the plan to start off as a consultant. It just sort of happened, for two main reasons. The first was the visa situation: I’m not a European passport holder, and it’s quite hard to find work that sponsors you as a non-European. There’s of course, some work in the Netherlands and Europe, but most of it, especially for fresh graduates, tends to be unpaid. Even if it’s unpaid, if it’s a UN role, you can still secure some sponsorship, but internships are finite opportunities with finite sponsorship periods. I needed a way to have a foot in the door, and I didn’t have an external sponsor. So, I did a bit of digging and thought maybe I could try this myself.
The second reason was that one of the first big projects I worked on was with Blue Ocean Law, as an external consultant on the Republic of Vanuatu’s legal team at the ICJ, mainly on the climate change advisory opinion. That was an incredible opportunity to actually apply international law and do exactly what I wanted to do, and it was also a great place to build a network. I had great mentors who helped me make those connections, and that set me up nicely for subsequent work. So, it was never the plan, but it turned out to be a pretty interesting way to get started.
I went to Gujarat National Law University for my B.A. LL.B (Hons.), then moved to Leiden for my master’s in public international law. There I chose the Peace, Justice and Sustainable Development route because I knew I didn’t want to go down the International Criminal Law route, and interestingly, that became one of my bigger exposures to climate and environment, which I hadn’t really been focused on before, but it worked out well. After my master’s, I really wanted to practise international law, with the ICJ being the pinnacle. I applied for the fellowship but didn’t make it through, and around that time I was working with Professor Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, who was lead counsel for Vanuatu. A spot opened up on the team, and she kindly offered it to me, which is how I got into international law practice, and I’ve been mostly in the climate and environment space ever since.
Shefali: You mentioned that you found this opportunity through your professor. One of the hardest things for students looking to work in public international law is figuring out how to land that first opportunity. Could you tell us a little about how that happened, and if there was anything you think made a real difference?
Manasa: I would say, just starting a little ahead. I knew opportunities weren’t plentiful, and there was stiff competition, so I started applying to internships well before I graduated. At the end of the day, it’s just a numbers game. Especially at the entry level, most people have similar credentials. Everyone’s roughly the same age, everyone’s just graduated from a master’s programme, usually from a great university. I’m not saying no one is talented — everyone comes out with their own set of achievements — but I don’t think there’s much that objectively distinguishes one candidate from another for entry-level roles. So, you apply to as many jobs as you can, and something will crack.
Another thing I did was a lot of cold emailing. For instance, with the professor I mentioned, I just sent an email, and messaged people on LinkedIn. It’s a weird thing to do, and often not very fruitful. Honestly, I don’t think most people respond to a 19 or 21-year-old emailing them about a job. But some do. And even if they don’t, at least they’ve got your name in their inbox.
Adithi: In our last interview with Pratyusha and Yongmi, they spoke about this contract-to-contract uncertainty and a ‘delusional optimism’ almost as a prerequisite for staying in international law. Looking at your own path, from GNLU to Leiden to Blue Ocean Law to now your own independent consultancy, it looks enviably linear from the outside. Would you say that’s actually the case, or was there a similar precarity in how you’ve built your own practice?
Manasa: I’d definitely agree with that framing. I’ve had lean periods between contracts and that’s true for international law generally, but especially so as a consultant, since I’m not employed by one person full-time. You have to secure your own projects, find your own clients, constantly look for people to collaborate with. Even when you have work, you’re looking for the next thing, because your current project could end anytime. It’s not easy, especially in the first few years.
Blue Ocean Law worked out really well, but it’s worth noting how much unpaid work goes into landing an opportunity like that. I was working as a research assistant for my master’s supervisor at Leiden while I was studying. I did a lot of internships and research assistantships throughout my education: during my bachelor’s, I interned with the UN in Latin America; I was a research assistant for Aniruddha Rajput, who was then the ILC member from India; I worked with Project Aristotle at the Institute for Internet and the Just Society. A lot of unpaid work — which is fine when you’re a student, and I think that’s the time to do it. I’d like to think that’s what paid off, but there’s also a lot of luck involved, and I had luck on my side with the Blue Ocean Law job.
Adithi: Can we push on this a little more and ask what advice would you give a law student in the Global South who wants to do the kind of work you do but doesn’t have a clear map for how to get from a domestic law degree to the ICJ?
Manasa: It’s a tricky question, though, isn’t it? Unfortunately, institutions based in the Global North tend to look for a European or Global North higher-education degree. That’s an immense barrier to entry for students from India, South Asia, or the global majority, not just because of the degree itself, but because of cost. A master’s like this isn’t cheap, and that’s something that goes a little unnoticed.
Another barrier is language. I did my entire education in English, but I never learned a European language or any of the other UN languages growing up. Students from countries where those languages are spoken natively have a bit of an edge. So even though it feels a little unfair to have to say this, I’d tell students in India to invest in acquiring language skills — ideally French, maybe Spanish. Speaking B1-level French, for instance, will set you apart from other Indian candidates and open doors.
Apart from that (and sorry for the slightly negative start there), when you’re a student, the advantage is that you can take on more unpaid work. So, my advice would be: take on research assistantships and internships during semesters or breaks. I know that’s hard given how demanding Indian law school already is, but it’s a way to build a CV with international law experience that can be done remotely. Even something as simple as working as a student editor for an international law blog — which I did for the Groningen Journal of International Law. Moot courts are another good option. Honestly, doing the Manfred Lachs Moot in my second year was one of my first real experiences of international law, well before we even got to our public international law course in third year.
The last thing I’d say is: Try to write, try to publish. It doesn’t have to be a 25-page paper in a big-name journal; it can be a short piece for one of the excellent international law blogs run by Indian universities or elsewhere. Start thinking, writing, analysing, and reading early. It may not pay off immediately, but it sets you up well for a future in international law.
Adithi: Thanks so much for that, Manasa! I am sure it would be really helpful for our readers. Coming back to what you’re doing right now, would you say there’s such a thing as a ‘right amount’ of experience to have before going independent, or freelance, within international law? Or would you say doing this straight out of a master’s is a career route you’d actually encourage? Speaking as someone who just finished my own master’s and is looking for opportunities, I worry about not knowing enough, or not having enough experience, before diving into something like this.
Manasa: I don’t know if I can answer that in a very black-and-white way, but I’ll say this: if you do decide to go independent or freelance, like I did, know that there are no projects you should turn your nose up at. I’ve done work that wasn’t strictly international law as a freelancer, and it’s opened doors in ways I wouldn’t have anticipated. For example, I did work on a maternity leave cover for Avaaz, a human rights campaigning NGO. It was mostly contracts, employment, IPR etc., but it meant I got to work within a big human rights NGO, build contacts there, and eventually they were kind enough to help open doors and expand my network. So, I think it’s important to think strategically and go after opportunities even when they’re not exactly what you want, knowing you can build them into something closer to your vision.
I also think the freelance market is a bit under-tapped by younger professionals, for good reason — a lot of freelance work and consultancy contracts come through contacts and knowing people. That can be hard if you’re starting out without a network. But I don’t see why you can’t build those contacts. You can always suggest getting coffee with people, asking people on LinkedIn for 20 minutes of their time. You never know where the opportunity will come from.
Another tip: having work experience before your master’s tends to help in securing these kinds of projects. One thing that doesn’t get discussed enough is that the UN also offers consultancy contracts, and these are becoming a more viable way in, especially with the UN facing budget cuts and being less inclined to hire full-time. That’s another route into the UN — a consultancy contract doesn’t have to be with the Secretariat; it can be with UNFPA, UN Women, any of the many subdivisions people don’t always realise exist. So, my advice is: keep your mind open, look at the nonprofit and freelance worlds — you never know.
Shefali: I wanted to zoom in a bit more on working in international law. What was it like to work as a consultant on the ICJ advisory opinion proceedings? What does the day-to-day work look like, and what kind of responsibilities does a member of the legal team have on an advisory opinion?
Manasa: I think I pinched myself every day working on this! It was such an incredible opportunity, one I hadn’t seen as a possibility right out of finishing my master’s. Everyone’s day-to-day on the team looked different. I was by far the junior-most member, so my day-to-day looked very different from lead counsel’s. A lot of research, a lot of preliminary drafting, which got heavily redrafted as it moved up the chain.
The workload really depended on the stage of proceedings. Things picked up once we submitted our first written submission and got access to the other parties’ submissions, which we then had to respond to in written comments. That may have been one of the busiest periods (apart from the two weeks of oral proceedings) because it meant reading through roughly 100 countries’ submissions, tracking what each party was arguing, and grouping them into different lines of argument to address in our comments. I can’t go into too much detail, but it was a huge, unglamorous tracking exercise, done by a very small team — about seven of us working across three submissions, representing the MSG, Vanuatu, and the OACPS.
The oral proceedings involved tracking what each party said in real time to prepare responses. Vanuatu went early, so we didn’t need to react too much; OACPS went near the end, so their submission needed to directly engage with and rebut what earlier parties had said. Transcripts don’t come out immediately, so you have to listen sharply and type fast.
Beyond the courtroom work, there was a lot of travel, public outreach, and behind-the-scenes coordination with NGOs and campaigners. I didn’t expect this but found it genuinely fascinating. I credit a lot of the advisory opinion’s success to the NGO campaigning around it, which drew public attention and pressure on countries to make strong submissions.
Adithi: It’s honestly surreal just hearing you talk about it. I remember one of your LinkedIn posts from around that time, a picture of you in the hallway of the Peace Palace. It was so inspiring to see. On the opinion itself– reading some of your past published work, there’s a certain TWAIL, or broader critical sensibility to it. What was it like engaging with that kind of critique inside a mainstream doctrinal institution like the Court, and in a judicial proceeding generally? Was there space for those arguments?
Manasa: I’d say so. I wouldn’t call it strictly TWAIL, but there was definitely more of that critique-based thinking in the OACPS submission specifically. Across all our submissions, there was a strong decolonial, anti-colonial thread — pointing to the impact of colonialism and empire on climate change, and how responsibility for both colonialism and climate change is deeply interconnected and rests largely on the Global North. There were real links drawn between historical injustice — which still shapes lived experience in these countries — and the obligation to prevent significant climate harm. For example, in the OACPS submission, one of our expert contributions was from Tendayi Achiume, the former special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, whose work looked at the interconnection between race and climate. That thinking featured heavily in the OACPS submission.
But the most surprising thing to me was what it meant for a small island state like Vanuatu to bring these proceedings, and what that did to the composition of the courtroom itself. It’s not something you think about while studying international law — what the room actually looks like during a proceeding. And this wasn’t a predominantly white courtroom. The majority of representatives were from the Global Majority, from outside the Global North — and many of them wore traditional dress as an ode to where they came from and what they represented. That, alongside the content itself, was one of the most inspiring parts of the whole proceeding — seeing what representation actually looks like in practice, not just on paper, and how it shifts the dynamic of the room.
I think what this advisory opinion will do for international law is expand who actually practices it — which countries go to court, but also which lawyers represent them. Traditionally, PIL practice at the ICJ has been dominated by a fairly narrow set of barristers from the UK and big firms from the US. This case had lawyers and academics from all over the world representing their countries’ positions, many of whom had never appeared before the ICJ. I’m hopeful it expands who gets to stand at that podium in future cases — that’s what I’d like to see.
Shefali: I was in awe listening to you talk about your experience at the Court! Changing gears a bit — as an independent consultant, how do you decide which area of international law to build your practice around? Going through your work, we saw you’d worked across IP, space law, and citizenship, and now it seems like you’ve narrowed in on questions of climate accountability, with the new litigation fellowship at the Sabin Center. For students still exploring different areas, how would you suggest figuring out what’s worth pursuing more seriously?
Manasa: I don’t know, honestly. I was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades in university. I really wanted to do public international law, but I also tried arbitration, did the Vis Moot, did space law, did the Manfred Lachs Moot, and was quite interested in IPR in a more domestic sense. I even worked on an international tax project — a USTR hearing on digital services taxes for big tech companies with a digital footprint but no physical presence. So, I got to work across some very different facets of public international law before going into my master’s without a very clear picture of what I wanted to do.
And I think that’s completely okay. In university, all you’ve really seen are the walls of your classroom, so it feels unfair to pressure yourself into a specialization. Honestly, given how scarce and unpredictable opportunities are in international law, I’d say be open to doing different things. You’d be surprised! I had nothing against environmental law or climate change, but I wasn’t particularly drawn to it during my bachelor’s. It was only once I saw the strong justice dimension within climate, something I hadn’t really registered before, that it really pulled me in.
And for better or worse, I’ve ended up in a fairly defined climate niche now. I try to keep it as broad as I can and stay connected to the international dispute-resolution side of things, but I find climate justice to be a genuinely necessary area of law right now. There’s a real potential for tangible outcomes in it, which is part of why I’ve stayed in the space.
So, my advice would just be to try different things. You never know — maybe in a few years I’ll circle back to space law. There’s probably some overlap between climate and space law anyway, thinking about space debris and similar concerns. But yes — stay open. You never know where or when something will click.
On a side note: you don’t have to leave India to practise international law. The international space is blooming in India, and I think it’s important that we also contribute to a future of international law within the country. There are a lot of nonprofits doing international law-adjacent work. I know Vidhi has an environmental law program. So, I’d say also look within India, especially if you’re in the climate and environment space. There are a lot of opportunities coming up which you could leverage into more internationally relevant positions. I’d advise Indian law students to also take a look at places like the Goa Foundation, for instance. I do work for them. They’re doing amazing work.
Adithi: Thank you, Manasa! And for our last question– we ask this to all our interviewees! You have touched on this a bit already, but what gives you hope to keep working in international law, particularly in the environment space, given the climate crisis and the growing apathy toward it from so many world leaders?
Manasa: It’s a rough time to be in international law generally, given how flagrantly countries are abusing due process and the rule of law, and undermining international institutions and courts. It’s an easy time to lose hope.
Honestly, being in climate litigation is probably why I still feel hopeful. If I worked in IHL or ICL, I think I’d feel a lot less optimistic — I can’t speak to those fields directly, but given the state of the ICC and the sheer scale of conflict and devastation across so much of the world, I imagine it’s much harder to hold onto hope there. As an international lawyer, that affects me too, even though it’s not my area.
But the climate space gives me real hope — how much is being invested in climate litigation and climate justice right now, and the fact that people are genuinely starting to care. I think a big part of that is that we’re now feeling the impacts directly. It’s sad, but a lot of us can look away from conflicts elsewhere in the world unless the price of oil goes up. We don’t hear bombs falling or see warfare day-to-day, but we do feel rising temperatures, water shortages, electricity shortages, and the health effects of air pollution. Because climate change is starting to have such a tangible impact on people’s daily lives, more people are sitting up and paying attention. It may be late, but there is real concern now and that gives me hope.
The other thing that gives me hope is how involved young people are. When I say young people, I mean children in school, young activists in the climate and environment space who are genuinely standing up for what they believe in. I’ve worked alongside some of them, and it’s remarkable how tirelessly they work toward a better world. Being surrounded by people working for something better gives me a lot of hope, and I like staying in that bubble sometimes.
Then I step out of the bubble and see the world is burning, and that takes some of the hope away. But I think it comes down to knowing that something positive is being done, that your work makes a difference — and it’s important to keep at it even without immediate results
Interviewed, transcribed and edited by Adithi Rajesh (Director) and Shefali Usha (Co-Editor-in-Chief).
PC: edited by Maanyaa Gupta
