International

Alex Glassbrook reports on the Advocacy Training Council’s work in Zimbabwe and finds encouraging signs of judicial independence, an active Law Society and a reinvigorated Bar.  

“Our quest for the rule of law has nothing to do with politics as all we want is the same legal system, the same standards, for whoever appears before the courts, regardless of their political affiliation.” 

Beatrice Mtetwa  

Charlotte Proudman reviews her recent legal placement in Israel and demonstrates how litigation is being used strategically to bring about change.  

Last summer I took a sabbatical from practice to work for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), specialising in strategic litigation. I was awarded an International Legal and Professional Development Grant from the Family Law Bar Association and the Bar Council. The purpose of my placement was to gain expertise in strategic litigation at an international level. 

The atrocities committed during the Rwandan genocide left lasting psychological scars on the majority of its survivors, making the drafting of its mental health legislation all the more poignant, says Laura Davidson.  

In 2013 I was asked by the Rwandan government to draft the country’s first mental health legislation and to advise on its mental health policy. Consequently I took a sabbatical from my practice at the Bar and set off for East Africa. 

Illari Aragón Noriega and Daniel Carey on the trial’s significance and the challenges faced by those seeking justice in Guatemala.  

The trial and conviction of Efrain Rios Montt, ex de facto  president of Guatemala, is unprecedented. Never before has a former head of state been tried and convicted for genocide in a domestic court. On 10 May 2013, he was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 80 years in prison. 

Dexter Dias QC examines the lessons the UK can learn from US mass incarceration and prison education.  

The cull, when it finally came, was brutal. With a single stroke of his pen, Bill Clinton both signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act 1994 and eviscerated US prison education, cutting off the $200 million “Pell Grants” that funded it. Within a year, from there being 350 educational programmes in America’s penal institutions, there were less than a dozen. 

John Cammegh examines how the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal failed a nation  

There is a sense of foreboding in Bangladesh: in January the country will go to the polls amidst rising civil disorder. The government is nervous: a series of crackdowns on opposition groups, crippling strikes and industrial tragedies, epitomizing the traditional disregard of workers’ rights and safety, mean the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) is likely to regain power. In fact no incumbent government has ever been returned to power in Bangladesh, where short term score settling has always triumphed over consensual change. 

Bill Bowring explains the work and history of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre and encourages a new generation  of barristers to get involved  

The European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC) is celebrating its tenth anniversary, with recent events in Moscow and in London. EHRAC was founded in 2003 by a partnership of London Metropolitan University, the Bar Human Rights Committee, and the Russian NGO “Memorial”. Memorial was founded in 1989 in the USSR as the All-Union Voluntary Historical and Educational Society “Memorial”, as the result of an initiative in 1987 to establish a monument in Moscow to the victims of Stalinist repression. Memorial’s main focus has been (and remains) the accurate documentation and remembrance of victims of repression in the USSR and in today’s Russia. 

James Potts looks at the growing opportunities for barristers in the Far East and reports on the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators’ International Arbitration Conference, held earlier this year in Malaysia  

For me, the skyscraper cities of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur feel like gateways to the future. Since first coming to South East Asia when my chambers set up an international office in Singapore in early 2013, I have loved the sense of ambition, entrepreneurship and enthusiasm that propels this booming region. 

Joy Adeniran on how she was able both to help and to learn during her internship at the Women’s Legal Centre in Cape Town  

Last June, I was selected to undertake the City Law School human rights internship to the Women’s Legal Centre (WLC) in Cape Town, South Africa. As an aspiring public law barrister and recent BPTC graduate, this placement provided an opportunity to build on the skills learnt on the course. I spent three months at the centre. 

Libyan law student, Aya Rida Luheshi gives an eye witness account of events leading up to the revolution in 2012, the subsequent overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and the emergence of the new Libyan State.  

My name is Aya Rida Luheshi. I am from Libya and I live in Tripoli, the capital. I study at the faculty of law and I am in my third year. My ambition is to be an ambassador for Libya in a European or Asian country. The main subject that I am going to write about in this  article, is how the Revolution affected life and my legal studies at that time.