The 2015 Geneva Forum of Judges & Lawyers, which opened today, will focus on holding judges accountable for involvement in human rights violations, judicial corruption, and other breaches of legal or ethical standards, while respecting judicial independence.
The Geneva Forum is organized annually by the ICJ’s Centre for Independence of Judges & Lawyers (CIJL) and brings together judges, lawyers and prosecutors from around the world, together with UN officials and representatives from international professional associations of legal professionals, as well as academics and other experts.
This year’s Geneva Forum forms part of a larger CIJL project on judicial accountability, aimed at encouraging sharing of knowledge about relevant international standards and international and national good practices, between the judiciary, other legal actors, and governments and civil society around the world.
The Forum follows a smaller expert consultation meeting convened in Tunisia in October focussing on judicial accountability in developing countries where, it is widely recognized, the negative impacts of corruption on human rights are deepest and most widespread. A report of the Tunis consultation is currently in preparation.
The Geneva Forum and Tunisia consultation are an opportunity for direct sharing of experience and expertise between practitioners, strengthening their capacity to carry out effective judicial accountability work in their own regional and national contexts, and to further disseminate this knowledge to others.
It is also an opportunity to discuss possible global strategies for promoting more effective and fair judicial accountability mechanisms and procedures.
The ICJ also intends to draw on the discussions at the Geneva Forum and the Tunis consultation, to help inform an ICJ Practitioners Guide on Judicial Accountability, with global legal, policy and practical guidance, to be published in 2016.
The Practitioners Guide will be printed, published electronically, and distributed as a foundation for subsequent work by the ICJ and others at the national and regional level, from 2016 onwards, including in development-assistance recipient countries. It will join a series of Practitioners Guides published by the ICJ (nine to date, no. 10 and 11 to be published very soon), which have proved to be leading reference guides and training materials in the field of legal protection of human rights and the rule of law.
The developing countries consultation in Tunisia, and participation of practitioners from developing countries in the global Geneva Forum, will help to ensure that the Practitioners Guide is relevant to and has impact in ODA recipient countries.
The ultimate aim of the work of the CIJL, including the 2015 Geneva Forum on judicial accountability and the eventual Practitioners Guide, is to improve access to independent and impartial justice for victims of human rights violations, corruption and similar abuses, including when the judiciary itself has been involved in the wrongdoing.
The 2015 Geneva Forum, and the earlier Tunisia consultation, have been made possible with the support of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland.
The 2015 Forum is the sixth annual Geneva Forum of Judges & Lawyers.
Information about previous years’ events and publications is available here: Geneva Forum Homepage
The draft programme for the Forum, which is convened by invitation only, is available here: Geneva Forum Programme (30-11-2015)
A 2000 CIJL Yearbook focussing on Judicial Corruption is available here: 2000 CIJL Yearbook Judicial Corruption