March 2015
I am just back from Ukraine and the Balkans, where the ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) is working closely with justice sector actors on criminal procedure reform, in particular on strengthening the capacity of defense lawyers to ensure equality of arms under new adversarial criminal procedures. With a trend toward adversarial processes sweeping the globe, criminal defense capacity building has become a major focus of ABA ROLI programming in recent years, especially in Latin America and in Europe and Eurasia, but also in parts of Africa and Asia. In all, ABA ROLI works on criminal justice issues in more than 20 countries worldwide. This focus makes sense. The criminal justice system is a bellwether for rule of law in any society, and a strong criminal justice system requires effectiveness and capacity in all of the actors in that system.