Kapusta waits for law school letters

Pablo Kapusta '05 sat quietly behind the bulletproof glass at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague as former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic defended himself against charges of human rights abuses.

It was the summer of 2002, and Kapusta was interning across the street at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

He watched the Milosevic testimony as it was simultaneously translated into English, French and Serbo-Croatian and transmitted to the audience through an internal radio system.

"The fact that a former head of state could be held responsible for crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity is a huge step in progress," Kapusta said, noting the explosion of international law in the past 15 years.

He hopes to soon contribute to that field.

Kapusta, a Wilson School major, has applied to law schools at Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania and University of Texas. The applications were due three months ago, and he is now checking his mail for thick envelopes.

"I'm kind of anxious, but I try not to think about it on a daily basis," Kapusta said. "It's kind of intimidating not knowing where I'm going to be living or what I'm going to be doing."

According to Career Services, about 75 percent of Princeton students take time off between graduation and law school. Kapusta's various internships abroad, though, have given him confidence that law school is where he wants to go.

Since he was a boy, Kapusta has been interested in law for various reasons.

"I like to argue, I like the power of ideas, I like using very precise language in order to help people," he said. All of these concepts contribute to "how you codify morality into law," he added.

Kapusta, former president of the Global Issues Forum, will be the first lawyer in his family. His father is a chemical engineer and his mother studied computer science.

Both parents are second-generation Argentineans. They were living in Houston when Kapusta was born, and then moved to the Netherlands, where they lived from 1995 until 2001.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Kapusta's international background has been a defining force behind his desire to pursue international law. He has interned at The Hague, the United Nations in Geneva and the office of the Argentine Secretary of Culture in Buenos Aires.

His global experiences will not end at graduation. As an international lawyer, Kapusta hopes to live in London, Paris, Amsterdam or The Hague.

There, his language skills will be put to use: he grew up speaking English and Spanish, later learned Dutch, German and Hebrew, and began studying French when he came to Princeton.