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- Published: 16th September 2026
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Personal statement example
My interest in international law began with a fairly ordinary question I could not answer. Sailing with a small club on the Solent, I noticed how much of what we did was governed by rules nobody at the slipway could name: collision regulations, buoyage, charted limits that stop somewhere out at sea. Looking into where those limits came from led me to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and then to the odd realisation that a document negotiated over nine years by states with almost nothing in common still shapes whether I can legally anchor in a particular bay. That combination of high politics and practical consequence is what I want to study properly.
My LLB gave me the foundations, and my dissertation gave me the first taste of doing international legal research rather than reading about it. I wrote on how coastal states articulate maritime boundary claims, comparing the reasoning in the Black Sea delimitation case with arguments advanced in the South China Sea arbitration. The most useful thing I learned was how much work is done by apparently technical choices: which baselines are asserted, whether a feature is a rock or an island, what counts as relevant coast. I also learned the limits of my own method. I had assumed I could treat state practice as a tidy evidence base, and instead spent weeks deciding whether statements in press releases and diplomatic notes could be weighed against each other at all. Supervision helped me narrow the question, and I finished with a clearer sense of why sources doctrine matters so much in this field.
Alongside my degree and since graduating I have read fairly widely, mostly on my commute. Crawford's Brownlie's Principles of Public International Law has been my reference point, and I found Koskenniemi's writing on fragmentation genuinely unsettling in a productive way: it made me stop assuming that international law is a single coherent system with a hierarchy waiting to be discovered. I follow the ICJ's list of pending cases and try to read at least the summaries of judgments, and I have been working through separate and dissenting opinions because they show disagreement about method more openly than majority reasoning does.
For the past two years I have worked as a paralegal in the immigration team of a small firm. The work is not international law, but it is not unconnected. I draft chronologies, gather country evidence, and prepare bundles for appeals where the Refugee Convention definition and Article 3 arguments sit behind everything, however briefly they are addressed in practice. I have learned to read guidance and case law quickly for the point that matters, to keep accurate records, and to explain a poor outcome to someone who has waited a long time for it. I also help at a weekend advice drop-in, mainly translating and helping people fill in forms, and I manage correspondence and appointments for my grandmother, which has taught me more about patience and administrative detail than any module.
I am applying now because I have reached the edge of what I can teach myself. I want structured study of state responsibility, treaty interpretation and dispute settlement, and the chance to write a longer piece on how tribunals handle scientific and technical evidence in maritime and environmental disputes. In the longer term I hope to qualify and work in public international law or in government legal practice, but I would be satisfied to leave a master's degree simply reading the field with more confidence and less credulity than I do at present.
Why this example works — strengths and ways to improve
Your statement has a clear intellectual thread, moving from a sailing question to research on maritime claims and an interest in technical evidence. The dissertation discussion gives the strongest evidence of readiness for postgraduate study. Some connections could be more precise, particularly the opening's legal example and the relationship between your paralegal work and the research you want to undertake.
Subject motivation
That combination of high politics and practical consequence is what I want to study properly.
Your opening connects a familiar activity to an academic question rather than simply announcing enthusiasm. Check the factual connections carefully, including which rules govern the practical example you give, so that an engaging anecdote does not carry more of the legal explanation than it can support.
Academic preparation
comparing the reasoning in the Black Sea delimitation case
The dissertation gives a concrete account of your preparation: cases, source choices and a question narrowed through supervision. Explain the basis of the comparison briefly, since naming two disputes alone does not establish that they address the same legal issue or can be compared in the same way.
Evidence and reflection
whether statements in press releases and diplomatic notes could be weighed against each other at all
This is useful reflection because you identify a methodological difficulty and explain how it changed your approach. It shows more than successful completion of a dissertation. One brief example of how you ultimately treated the different sources would make the account of your judgement even clearer.
Relevant experience
I draft chronologies, gather country evidence, and prepare bundles for appeals
You describe the scale of your paralegal role clearly and identify relevant habits of accurate research and record-keeping. The advice drop-in and family administration are less closely connected to the academic purpose. Keep them proportionate and use the space to explain one research skill transferred from work.
Credibility and voice
I also learned the limits of my own method.
Acknowledging the difficulty of comparing sources makes the statement more credible than a claim of expertise. Your account distinguishes employment from independent reading and research. Keep that precision throughout, and make clear what you personally contributed wherever a task involved supervision or a wider team.
Structure and format
how tribunals handle scientific and technical evidence in maritime and environmental disputes
The sequence from motivation through degree, reading and employment to proposed study works for a postgraduate statement. Your final research interest is specific and connects back to the dissertation. When adapting this example, explain why the actual programme supports that interest, using its published course information rather than assumed provision.
What you’ve done well
- The dissertation paragraph shows how source selection and supervision changed your method, giving concrete evidence of academic development.
- The interest in scientific and technical evidence provides a clear connection between previous research and proposed postgraduate study.
How this draft could improve
- Explain the purpose and limits of the comparison between the two disputes, rather than relying on their names.
- Condense the least relevant experience so that you can show how one workplace research task prepared you for further academic work.
- Check the opening's legal example and tailor the proposed study to the actual programme.