Postgraduate Fellow Spotlight: Milagros (Millie) Mutsios Ramsay ’22 LLM

The Schell Center’s Robina and Bernstein fellowships are an opportunity for Yale Law School alumni to fund one to two years of postgraduate work in international human rights. Schell Center postgraduate fellows engage in a range of work at advocacy organizations, courts, international agencies, and other host organizations. In this interview, Mutsios Ramsay, a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School and former Schell Center Robina Fellow, discusses her fellowship experience and the impact it had on her career in human rights law. 

Mutsios Ramsay joined the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as a Robina Fellow, working alongside legal officers on contentious cases — particularly those involving Indigenous Peoples, extractive industries, and environmental matters. During this period, she also had the opportunity to serve as a law clerk to Judge Ricardo Pérez Manrique during the final part of his presidency.

Following the fellowship, she was appointed to the Presidency team, as the Legal Advisor, supporting Judge Nancy Hernández López throughout her term as President (2024–2025). She now serves as a lawyer and legal advisor of Judge Rodrigo Mudrovitsch at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In this capacity, she contributes to legal analysis of draft judgments and separate opinions, undertakes targeted legal research, and supports institutional and managerial work of the presidency. The role also places her at the interface between the court and key international counterparts, including other regional courts and systems, the Inter-American Commission, and relevant U.N. mechanisms and treaty bodies. She is pursuing her doctoral work while her continuing responsibilities at the court, as her project goes hand in hand with the operation of the Inter-American System.

Describe a project you worked on as a Robina Fellow.

One of the most meaningful projects I worked on as a Robina Fellow involved supporting the court’s legal analysis in contentious proceedings addressing the intersection of Indigenous territorial rights, environmental protection, and state oversight of extractive activities. The work required synthesizing a complex evidentiary record and developing the legal framework governing consultation, due diligence, and the state’s duty to regulate and supervise activities capable of generating serious environmental and social impacts.

I contributed research and drafting support aimed at ensuring that the court’s reasoning was both doctrinally rigorous and operational — capable of guiding state institutions in implementation, while remaining faithful to the court’s case-law on collective property, cultural survival, and effective remedies.

How did your experience as a Robina Fellow prepare you for your work following your fellowship?

The fellowship provided a rare combination of deep legal immersion and institutional exposure. On the legal side, it strengthened my ability to work within the court’s jurisprudential method —identifying the controlling principles, situating a case within the broader line of precedent, and translating complex factual records into clear legal questions. On the institutional side, it helped me understand how a regional court functions as both an adjudicative body and a public institution: how internal workflows operate, how cases move through different stages, and how the court coordinates externally with States, the sommission, and other stakeholders.

Importantly, the experience also consolidated my understanding of the Inter-American System as a whole — its normative architecture, its institutional design, and the practical pathways through which regional standards shape domestic change. That foundation has been central not only to my current work advising the Presidency, but also to my academic trajectory as a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, which I pursue in parallel with my role at the court.

Has the Robina fellowship furthered and/or informed your career plans? How so?

Yes, decisively. The Robina fellowship confirmed my commitment to a career that bridges rigorous legal work with institution-building in international human rights. Working inside the court clarified the kind of contribution I hope to make over the long term: strengthening the quality and coherence of jurisprudence, enhancing implementation pathways, and building durable channels of dialogue between regional and global mechanisms. It also sharpened my academic agenda by grounding it in the realities of adjudication and compliance.

The fellowship further enabled me to consolidate a systematic understanding of the Inter-American System — an intellectual and professional foundation that has directly supported my progression as a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School, pursued alongside my continuing responsibilities at the court. In short, the fellowship aligned my career plans with a more integrated vision — one that combines high-level legal analysis, strategic institutional work, and sustained comparative engagement across human rights systems.

What advice would you give current students?

First, treat the fellowship as both a legal apprenticeship and an institutional education: learn the jurisprudence, but also learn how the institution works — because implementation and impact depend on both. Second, develop a habit of writing with discipline and clarity. In an international court, the ability to translate complexity into precise legal reasoning is indispensable.
Third, be intellectually curious and genuinely collaborative: your best learning will often come from working across teams, seeking feedback, and being generous with credit. Finally, if you are passionate about a thematic area — such as Indigenous rights, environmental justice, or business and human rights — bring that expertise but remain open to learning adjacent fields. The court’s work is interconnected, and your effectiveness will grow with your ability to see those connections.

For more information on the Schell Center’s postgraduate and summer fellowships and application instructions, visit the Schell Center website.