ABA Rule of Law Initiative Program Book 2012

Introduction

A hallmark of the ABA Rule of Law Initiative’s (ABA ROLI) work has always been our partners. Since 1990, we have built strong relationships with a broad array of host country partners, including judiciaries, ministries of justice, professional legal associations and law schools. From the outset, we have been committed to engaging with our partners in a neutral and apolitical manner and by responding to their specific needs, all with the goal of advancing the rule of law and promoting international standards for justice, equality and human rights. The legal frameworks in which these and other institutions operate include systems based on civil law, common law and Islamic law, with some having inquisitorial justice systems, others having accusatorial justice systems, and still others transitioning between those systems. 

At the same time, we lend our legal technical assistance expertise to grassroots and local-level reform efforts, complementing the changes we work to advance through governmental channels. Thus, through our work with women’s groups, legal aid offices, human rights advocates and other non-governmental organizations and members of civil society, we seek to educate and empower citizens and their communities. By increasing people’s awareness of their rights, and facilitating their ability to access and to enforce them, ABA ROLI bolsters respect for and adherence to the rule of law.

To advance these goals, we continue to develop and implement new research tools, including the Detention Procedure Assessment Tool and the Access to Justice Assessment Tool (AJAT). We will soon release AJAT reports for Guinea, Indonesia, Mali and the Philippines. Through all our programmatic and analytical work, we seek to foster long-term development of the rule of law, and capacity to enhance it.

Our recent work in Africa includes a wider focus on access to justice and human rights. In Mali, we are working with civil society and the government to end the practice of hereditary slavery, and in Liberia our program addresses excessive pre-trial detention. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, our largest program, we employ a multi-disciplinary approach to combat the horrific rape crisis. 

While we continue to work closely with judiciaries and bar associations in China, the Philippines and Vietnam on a range of initiatives, our work in Asia now includes several anti-human trafficking programs, including in Mongolia, Nepal and the Solomon Islands, where we collaborate with stakeholders to improve services for survivors and to hold perpetrators accountable.

In Europe and Eurasia, our work is truly representative of our thematic expertise. For example, we work on access to justice issues for Roma throughout the Balkans, encourage businesses to operate ethically in Turkmenistan, and train lawyers and judges on Georgia’s new Criminal Procedure Code. We work with law students to combat xenophobia in Russia and Ukraine, support the bar association in Armenia and advance women’s rights in Tajikistan. 

In Latin America and the Caribbean, we continue to work closely with judges, lawyers and police as several countries, including Ecuador and Panama, transition to adversarial legal systems. Also, our work has focused recently on increasing the capacity of institutions, such as in Guatemala and Belize, to address transnational organized crimes, including drug trafficking, money laundering and human trafficking.

And, in the Middle East and North Africa, ABA ROLI’s efforts in support of the historic transitions there include supporting the Tunisian elections for the constituent assembly that will draft a new constitution, and helping women lawyers and judges in their advocacy for women’s voices and interests in that constitution. We also are engaged with the Libyan legal community in support of that country’s transition. 

As you read this year’s program book, I hope you share my constant amazement of the reforms we are supporting. Colleagues in our Washington, DC, office, those working overseas and all our partners around the world—whether in bustling capital cities or in remote villages—commit themselves daily, and not without personal risk, to improving the lives of everyday people. I thank and congratulate each of them.