Year In Review

38. ABA ASSERTS LEADERSHIP BY HOSTING FIRST INTERNATIONAL RULE OF LAW SYMPOSIUM

Representing its boldest assertion of leadership in the growing field of rule of law promotion, the ABA’s international rule of law initiatives hosted the first International Rule of Law Symposium in Washington, D.C., in November 2005. The Symposium brought together 400 representatives from all over the world to discuss how advancing the rule of law can help address some of the most pernicious and vexing problems of our day, including poverty, terrorism, economic stagnation and corruption. Symposium participants from the U.S. included Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Senator Hilary Clinton, Supreme Court Justices O’Connor, Breyer and Kennedy, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Representatives Jim Kolbe and Nita Lowey. Overseas participants included ministers of justice, high level judges, NGO activists, etc. The success of the Symposium inspired the follow-on Rule of Law Symposium in Chicago in September 2006, co-sponsored by the ABA and the International Bar Association.

Also this year, the association's various rule of law programs – which had focused individually on Central Europe and Eurasia, Afria, Asia and Latin America – were rolled into a centralized Center on Rule of Law Initiatives. Some of the groups' accomplishments this year included:

CEELI's office in Bulgaria – its first office, opened in 1991 – is closing its doors in fall 2006. Working closely with Bulgarian reformers, a new Bulgarian legacy organization, the Bulgarian Institute for Legal Initiatives (BILI), has been created in anticipation of CEELI’s departure. BILI will receive seed funding through the ABA, be managed by former ABA/CEELI-Bulgaria staff, and continue as an ABA partner in the region. BILI is the first instance of a CEELI country program being transferred to local management, and provides one good model for future transfers of programming responsibility to local reformers.

The ABA’s International Rule of Law Programs have added three new legal assessment tools. The Human Trafficking Assessment Tool (HTAT) provides an objective assessment of a state’s compliance with the U.N. Trafficking Protocol. The HTAT was piloted in Moldova in 2005, and the ABA hopes to run it in countries in Asia, Latin America and Eurasia over the next year. A second tool, the Prosecutorial Reform Index (PRI), relies on international standards to assess a country’s prosecutors in order to increase their effectiveness and independence. And the ABA’s newest tool, the Legal Education Reform Index (LERI), evaluates a country’s system of legal education based on international standards, including the ABA’s own criteria for evaluating law schools. The addition of the HTAT, PRI, and LERI brings the number of ABA assessment tools to seven, firmly establishing it as an international leader in assessing the state of legal reform throughout the world.

ABA-Asia has been working since late 2003 with a Cambodian NGO, the Community Legal Education Center, to develop and implement the Public Interest Legal Advocacy Program (PILAP). PILAP’s “class action” and public interest approach to human rights violations is relatively novel in Cambodia, and its involvement in time-sensitive and high-profile cases and legal consultations has earned significant attention from the international legal development community. In a case that was widely covered by the Cambodian media, PILAP represented 78 families who live on the island of Koh Pich in their effort to receive fair and just compensation under the Cambodian Constitution and the Land Law of 2001 in connection with a proposed redevelopment of their land. Koh Pich is directly offshore from downtown Phnom Penh, where there is substantial development potential. Following extensive negotiations with City Hall, the development companies, and its client base, PILAP settled the case for all but a few families in November 2005. The highly publicized, high-impact approach is one of the first collective legal actions in Cambodia to help a community assert its legal rights to land.

For two years, the ABA/Latin America and Caribbean Law Initiative Council has been carrying out a project to combat human trafficking in Ecuador with funds from the State Department. The project made the first comprehensive assessment of trafficking in Ecuador, and then created an Advisory Council to build awareness. Project staff provided technical assistance to Ecuadorian legislators, who wrote legislation to update the country’s anti-trafficking laws. The project has also trained judges, prosecutors, and police about trafficking, which has already resulted in trafficking victims being identified when charged with other crimes. The project now is undertaking a full-scale awareness campaign with anti-trafficking billboards, posters, and stickers in taxis being displayed throughout the country. The last part of the project will continue to emphasize judicial training as well as the handling of victims with Ecuadorian social workers being trained in victim intake and rehabilitation. Existing victims’ shelters will be improved and new shelters will open.

< ADVANCE JUSTICE | TABLE OF CONTENTS

Year in Reivew is published by the
American Bar Association • 321 N. Clark Street • Chicago, IL 60610