ILAC COUNCIL
Conference Call, 5 November 2008
Participants:
Paul Hoddinott
Christian Åhlund
Jean-Louis Collart AIJA
Sandy D’Alemberte ABA and American Judicature Society
Karen Mathis ABA
Giuseppe Bisconti FIDIAM
Juan Bennazar-Zegueira IABA
Shelby Quast ILAC USA
Rolf Ring Raoul Wallenberg Institute
Rodger Chongwe
Agneta Johansson
Annika Lindgren
1. Introduction and roll call
Paul opened the meeting and welcomed the participants, especially Karen Mathis as the new representative of ABA. Karen is replacing Sandy D´Alemberte and Paul expressed his warm gratitude to Sandy for his excellent contribution to the ILAC Council.
2. Ongoing Projects
a) Afghanistan
Paul reported from his participation at the Inaugural General Assembly Meeting in Kabul 30 July, when the Independent Afghan Bar Association was established. 400 lawyers from all parts of Afghanistan came together to set up and adopt bylaws and hold elections for the new Bar.
Around 20% of the participants were women. According to the adopted by-laws one of two vice presidents should always be female. The arrangements for elections were excellent and the elected president was very highly regarded by both national and international participants.
The next phase will be crucial as there are so much high expectations. The immediate work is to get premises for the Bar and produce a budget, set up the office and buy computers, furniture etc. The issue of registration has to be solved. According to the legislative department of the Ministry, the Bar has to register as an NGO. This has met with resistance from the Bar, which is of the opinion that a requirement for registration will mean that it will not be independent and the registration can be withdrawn by the authorities.
The establishment of the Bar was the culmination of five years hard work, led by IBA with generous support from the Swedish MFA, and is something which IBA and ILAC can be very proud of. As Christian commented, the Afghanistan project is a very good example of how ILAC should work. The project was initiated by ILAC, ILAC made the fundraising and it was implemented by a member organization.
The Afghanistan project has funding until December 2008. Funding will be needed for another year.
b) COTER- Algeria
Christian gave an update of the project. Training was held in June for 50 Algerian judges, lawyers and justice officials. The curriculum was roughly the same as in the Morocco project. The training was again implemented by ILACs member organization Magna Carta (formerly HRNI).
Issues concerning interrogation methods and torture were among the topics discussed and it was obvious that the Algerian participants had a less strict view on the definition of torture.
A follow-up workshop was held in Brussels during the first week of November. The work-shop, which brought together Algerian and European judges, focused on the practical aspects of terrorism cases and allowed the Algerian judges the opportunity to exchange experiences with their European colleagues.
The Algerians have expressed a wish of a continuation of similar seminars and workshops.
c) Gender Justice
Shelby informed about the conference on Gender Justice, which will take place in Ghana 19 -21 November. The conference is arranged with the support of Sweden, Chief Justice of Ghana, UNDP, Brandeis University, UNIFEM, IAWJ, Center for Court Innovation and African NGOs.
The conference will focus on the judiciary in post conflict African countries. There will be participants from around 20 African countries as well as experts from countries outside Africa. Agneta, Shelby, Rodger and Alastair will represent ILAC at the conference.
Paul informed about the background of Partners for Gender Justice (PGJ). PGJ in Post Conflict Countries was launched in 2004 and the work for the first years was led by ILAC and UNIFEM, with the Governments of Sweden and South Africa as co-chairs. When the two governments decided to step down in 2007, a grant from the Swedish Government enabled ILAC to take the lead, especially financing Shelby on a part-time basis and supporting the development of a website.
Swedish funding for PGJ runs out at the end of this year. So far, no other donor has come forward with funding and none of the partners in PGJ has offered to take responsibility for fundraising, program development and administration. It is possible – and much to be hoped- that, from discussions at the colloquium in Ghana, one or more partners will agree to take the leadership role for PGJ.
Paul asked the Council to note that ILAC´s leading role with PGJ will come to an end when Swedish funding runs out. If PGJ does cease its activities, ILAC will seek arrangements so that the investment in the PGJ website is preserved, by identifying a website host. ILAC would, of course, continue to be active in promoting gender aspects in its post conflict assessments and follow-up projects, in accordance with ILAC by-laws.
Karen said that she would look into the possibility of getting a space for a GJ-office at ABA.
d) Haiti
Christian gave an update of the project. In co-operation with the UN administration MINUSTAH and the Ministry of Justice in Haiti, legal aid offices have been established in nine different locations.
The government is very positive to this program and has decided to cover the costs for the offices within the government budget, starting 2009 with paying 20% of the costs and then a yearly increase of 20%. Consequently, by the year 2014 the offices shall be entirely funded by the government.
Swedish funding for Haiti officially ends December 2008, but Sida has approved to prolong the project until July 2009. ILAC member organization International Criminal Defense Attorneys Association (ICDAA) has expressed an interest to continue the implementation with funding from Canadian CIDA. Christian and ILAC Haiti Representative Francisco Diaz visited Canada in September to further discuss this with CIDA and ICDAA.
e) Iraq
Paul informed that ILAC has been engaged in different training projects in Iraq since 2002, with funding from a variety of sources. ILAC has now received funding from UNDEF for the project “Training for the Iraqi Bar”. The implementing partners are IBA and Japanese Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) and the training will be held at CEELI Institute in Prague in February or March 2009.
In addition, Chief Justice Madhat al-Mahmood has expressed an interest in a continuation of ILAC´s training program for Iraqi judges and invited ILAC to revisit the country.
f) Liberia
Agneta informed about the funding situation for the project. Sweden has not approved any new funding during 2008, while formulating a new country strategy for development work in Liberia. Efforts to raise funds from other sources have not been successful. In anticipation of the new Swedish country strategy for Liberia, ILAC has continued the project during the year with provisional bridge funding from Sweden and a small budget.
During the year, a number of training sessions have been held for county attorneys in co-operation with ABA, Carter Center and a US consultant firm. Training for judges will be held in November. ILACs representative in Liberia, Mike Enwall, has also played an important role in the steering committee, which was formed to facilitate the establishment of the Judicial Institute.
The country strategy work will soon be finalized and hopefully this will enable ILAC to apply for future funding. Rodger emphasised the need and importance of ILAC´s work in Liberia and hoped that new funding would make a continuation possible.
g) Palestine
Agneta informed about what has been achieved so far and the problems ILAC has faced in implementing the program in Gaza. The latest development in Palestine, with the political struggle between the two parties Fatah and Hamas, has resulted in a division of the judiciary between the West Bank and Gaza.
To focus on this problem, a seminar on the topic “The importance of the justice system in nation building” was discussed with IBA and Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) as implementing member organizations. The intention was that the seminar should take place simultaneously the West Bank and Gaza, with the two locations connected by video link. A number of judges, prosecutors and lawyers should be invited to participate in addition to international experts.
Agneta and Annika made a preparatory visit to Palestine in September. They met with the Chief Justice, Ministry of Justice, Institutes, NGOs and academics. During the visit it became obvious that the split between the two Palestinian political parties is too deep and precludes all activities with both parties involved, including the seminar which ILAC had planned.
There is a risk that the donor community is strengthening the split by giving support exclusively to one part. Therefore, Agneta concluded, ILAC has to be very careful in their decisions on supporting activities. For the time being there is nothing ILAC can contribute with in Palestine.
Karen reported that the Czech Foreign Ministry has received a request from Palestine regarding training for Palestinian judges. She will follow-up to get more specific information.
As Czechoslovakia will chair the EU presidency the first half of 2009, followed by Sweden, Christian said that ILAC should consider ways to engage these governments in the Palestinian issue.
3. Missions
a) DRC
Christian informed that the initiative to a DRC mission came from the Open Society Institute (OSI), which contacted IBA. Funding has now been received from the OSI and from the Swedish Government.
In order to prepare for a mission, Christian and Marie-Pierre Olivier from IBA visited DRC 27-31 October. They met with people at the UN, government, donor countries and NGOs in order to prepare the terms of reference and lay ground for a mission to take place in February.
Considering the latest development in DRC, Paul stressed the need of security thinking. He wondered if DRC has the capacity to receive training and said that the mission has to look at alternatives and peaceful parts of the country where projects could be developed.
Sandy asked about the possibilities to receive funding for projects in DRC, considering the security situation, and Christian replied that he thought ILAC would be able to get funding.
Council unanimously agreed to go ahead with planning of the mission to DRC. A letter will be sent to all member organisations, inviting them to nominate candidates for the mission team.
b) Rwanda
Christian was mandated by the ILAC Council in May to contact ICTR and have an informal conversation regarding the Rwanda report. In July, Christian met with ICTR Registrar Adama Dieng and Chief Prosecutor Hassan Jallow. Both expressed regret over the lack of action by the government of Rwanda on the ILAC report, but saw no possibility to exert any influence on the government.
Richard Goldstone met with the Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga in Kigali in August and Ngoga was interested in having a follow-up meeting with ILAC on the Rwanda report. Christian has tried to organize such a meeting, but Ngoga has not followed up with any suggestions of time and place to meet. It is therefore time for ILAC to close the file.
5. Membership issues
Three candidates for individual membership were presented:
· J.Ebow Quashie
J.Ebow Quashie is the treasurer and founding member of Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) and since 2004 a member of Ghana Law Reform Commission.
Among his former duties: he has served on IBA Council as representative of the Ghana Bar Association, as President of the Ghana Bar Association, as a member of the Judicial Council of Ghana and as a member of General Legal Council of Ghana.
· Karim Ahmad Khan
Karim Ahmad Khan is a member of the English and Pakistan Bars, specialized in all areas of international criminal and human rights law. He has worked in the Prosecution of ICTY and ICTR and also defended before the Special Panels of East Timor, the SCSL and ICTY. He is currently instructed Defence Counsel in the ICTY.
· Georgina Wood
Georgina Wood is, since June 2007, the Chief Justice of Ghana. She is the first woman in Ghana to head the Judiciary and this position has made her the highest ranked female in Ghana´s political history. Chief Justice Wood is the host of the Gender Justice conference, which will take place in Ghana in November.
Christian informed that the ILAC Executive Committee, at its meeting 15 September, decided to recommend to Council to admit these persons as individual members.
Council unanimously decided to admit J.Ebow Quashie, Karim Ahmad Khan and Georgina Wood as new members of ILAC.
6. Topics for a seminar at AGM 2009
Next AGM is to be held in Edinburgh 13-15 May. Council discussed possible topics for a seminar.
Following ideas were mentioned:
- Lockerbie trial (with the expertise of Alastair Cameron)
- “War on terror”
- Traditional justice in African countries compared to similar systems in other countries.
- Specific aspects on Gender Justice
- Renewed look at the Geneva Convention after the election of Barack Obama
- Ethical and humanitarian aspects of cease fire
- The issue of state-less people
Paul requested the members of Council to consider these topics and welcomed new ideas.
7. Membership of Executive Committee