Love of libraries, law and international travel takes Emmaus High Grad Far

Sarah K. Hart smiles easily as she recalls spending countless hours at the Emmaus Public Library while growing up. “I was a huge reader,” said Hart, 24. “I never left the library. I was there all the time.”

Her first summertime job while in middle school was at the library, shelving books and helping with a children’s reading program.

She attributes her love for reading and her high scores in reading comprehension tests to those days at the library, and guidance from Martha Vines, the children’s librarian. Further, she said, “It definitely helps me in law school.”

Hart graduated from Emmaus High School in 2005 and from Gettysburg College in 2009. Now, as a student at The Dickinson School of Law, affiliated with Pennsylvania State University, she is ready to embark on yet another adventure where her reading comprehension will serve her well.

Hart leaves May 13 for a three-month internship with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. The ICTY, established in 1993, is a United Nations court of law dealing with war crimes that took place during the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s.

“I have always been interested in international affairs,” Hart said.

That’s an understatement.

Hart had a dual major at Gettysburg College in political science and globalization. Her international studies included time spent in Seville, Spain, the fall semester of 2007 and in Athens, Greece, the spring semester of 2008.

Her international and policy experience included the following internships: the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia the summer of 2007, including work on a report reviewing the progress of think tanks in Latin America; the office of U.S. Rep. Tim Holden the summer of 2008, researching issues and handling correspondence to constituents; and the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute in spring 2009, assisting with workshops for foreign service officers and their families.

Hart’s legal experience included work the summer of 2010 in the district attorney’s office in Lehigh County. More recently, beginning in January 2010, she did research for the Center of Immigrants’ Rights in State College.

Now Hart’s love for travel, and her interest in international and criminal law will take her to The Hague, the international seat of the United Nations. According to the ICTY’s Web site, “The Tribunal has laid the foundations for what is now the accepted norm for conflict resolution and post-conflict development across the globe, specifically that leaders suspected of mass crimes will face justice.

“The Tribunal has proved that efficient and transparent international justice is possible.”

All of her previous internships have led to this point, Hart said, adding, “I’m pretty good at multi-tasking.” Hart will be assisting the ICTY with its caseload. The ICTY will continue until its work is done and then cease to exist, Hart said, possibly by 2013.

Of course, Hart will only be with the ICTY until her return to Emmaus on Aug. 6. After that, she will return to The Dickinson School of Law for her third year and her role as editor of the Law Review.

She is aiming for a law school graduation in 2012 and hopes to initially get a position clerking for a judge.

Hart is the daughter of John Hart, vice president of Medical Staff Services at the Lehigh Valley Health Network, and Kathleen Hart, a reading specialist in the Brandywine Heights School District.

But Sarah Hart knows who to credit with her love for travel: her older sister, Kate Hart of Macungie. Kate Hart studied abroad in Spain, and that’s what got Sarah Hart interested in travel in the first place.