ILAC is delighted to welcome the International Legal Foundation and International Criminal Court Bar Association to our Consortium as organisational members. Both organisations were unanimously elected to join ILAC by our 2018 Annual General Meeting in Stockholm, Sweden.
ILAC’s added value is in our membership. Our Consortium is comprised of more than 50 legal organisations and experts representing over 3 million legal professionals worldwide – judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and court administrators – who routinely apply Rule of Law principles as part of their daily practice in a variety of contexts and cultures. Due to our broad and extensive membership, we can rapidly engage anywhere in the world and respond to requests for legal expertise or practitioners in all legal fields or subjects.
Represented at ILAC’s 2018 Annual General Meeting by their Executive Director, Jennifer Smith, the International Legal Foundation (ILF) will be a welcome addition to ILAC as an international leader on how to evaluate and establish effective public defender systems after conflict.
Founded in 2001, the International Legal Foundation is a non-profit organisation based in the United States with the ultimate goal to establish effective, sustainable, locally-run, government-supported public defender systems in post-conflict and transitional countries. Their mission is to “assist post-conflict and transitional countries to establish public defender systems that provide quality and effective criminal defense services to the poor.” In carrying out their mission, the ILF is “driven by the belief that defense lawyers – as guardians of due process – are indispensable to any fair system of justice, and every person accused of a crime should have access to one.”
Represented by Chief Charles Taku at this month’s Annual General Meeting, the International Criminal Court Bar Association (ICCBA) is also a highly welcomed addition to ILAC given their work and mission to “serve as a collective voice for independent Counsel and Support Staff who represent victims, defendants and other actors (such as witnesses) before the ICC, provides a range of support and services to its membership, and acts as a forum for discussion on all matters pertaining to the ICC.”
Established in 2016 as a non-profit organisation and recognized by the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statue, the ICCBA is comprised of legal practitioners “focused on matters relevant to the work of List Counsel and Support Staff before the International Criminal Court.”
The Annual General Meeting elected both members with resounding applause.
Welcome to ILAC!
