International Bridges to Justice (IBJ) is a
non-governmental organization based in
Geneva, Switzerland. The organization's stated mission is "to protect the basic legal rights of ordinary citizens in developing countries by guaranteeing all citizens the right to competent legal representation, the right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to a fair trial".
IBJ has the additional stated goal "to end torture in this Century".
History
IBJ was founded in 2000 by former
public defender
A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Hungary and Singapore, ...
Karen I. Tse
Karen Irene Tse (born October 20, 1964) is an American human rights defender and social entrepreneur. She is an American of Chinese descent living in Geneva, running a global non-profit organization that fosters legal rights in developing countries ...
in response to her time spent working as a
Fellow for refugees in Southeast Asia in the 1980s and then as a trainer for Cambodia’s first core group of public defenders in 1994. After witnessing numerous violations of citizens' legal rights, Tse enrolled at the Harvard Divinity School in 1997, where she began devising the business plan for International Bridges to Justice.
Principles
IBJ only works in countries whose international
treaty obligations and national laws have already laid the legal framework for the protection of their citizens and where a
Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the relevant government and legal authorities, setting out the parameters under which IBJ will work.
Work
IBJ adopts a three pillar approach to accomplishing its aims:
* Providing technical support and training to criminal defense lawyers
* Organizing justice sector roundtable sessions to bring together all of the key stakeholders in the criminal justice system, including defenders, prosecutors, judges, police, detention center officials, local government representatives and legal academics
* Raising rights awareness amongst the populations in the countries where the organization is active
Programs
Criminal defense trainings and workshops
IBJ's main method of furthering its aim of criminal justice reform is through training public defenders, or legal aid lawyers, in countries throughout the developing world. IBJ has developed a range of interactive criminal defense trainings, which include international best practices, specific hypothetical situations and country-specific legal informational and case studies.
IBJ Fellows
IBJ recruits emerging lawyers in the field of
human rights to work in Defender Resource Centers in their respective countries, which serve as the basic infrastructure for programming, as well as the support and resource hub for local defenders and neutral meeting ground for dialogue between judicial stakeholders. IBJ provides training and support to the
Fellows, who go on to head the IBJ Country Programs and to provide legal aid to the local population.
JusticeMakers
JusticeMakers is an online community created by IBJ to share information and best practice models in different
criminal justice systems.
Community members are members of the global
criminal defense
In the field of criminal law, there are a variety of conditions that will tend to negate elements of a crime (particularly the ''intent'' element), known as defenses. The label may be apt in jurisdictions where the ''accused'' may be assigned some ...
community. The JusticeMakers program hosts an annual criminal justice innovation competition that awards project funding to
grassroots
A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...
legal rights projects in communities around the world.
Legal Training Resource Center
The IBJ Legal Training Resource Center is aimed at increasing public defender capacity worldwide through the creation of on-demand web-based eLearning courses.
The Criminal Defense Wiki
The Criminal Defense Wiki is an IBJ project that allows law students, professors, and experienced criminal defense practitioners from around the world to create an internet resource for criminal defense lawyers.
Country focus
International Bridges to Justice began its work in
Asia, but has since expanded and has programs running throughout the world.
;Asia
*
Afghanistan
*
Azerbaijan
*
Bangladesh
*
Cambodia
*
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
*
Georgia
*
India
*
Indonesia
*
Malaysia
*
Nepal
*
Pakistan
*
Philippines
*
Singapore
*
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
*
Vietnam
;Africa
*
Burundi
Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...
*
Cameroon
*
Democratic Republic of Congo
*
Kenya
*
Malawi
*
Nigeria
*
Rwanda
Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...
*
Swaziland
Eswatini ( ; ss, eSwatini ), officially the Kingdom of Eswatini and formerly named Swaziland ( ; officially renamed in 2018), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by Mozambique to its northeast and South Africa to its no ...
*
Uganda
*
Zimbabwe
;South America
*
Argentina
*
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
*
Brazil
*
Chile
*
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
*
Paraguay
External links
International Bridges to JusticeIBJ BlogLegal Training Resource CenterDefensewiki.ibj.orgJusticeMakers
References
1
"Karen Tse – On a Mission to End Torture in 93 Countries"
published o
99Faces.tv
2018-03-29
{{DEFAULTSORT:International Bridges To Justice
Organisations based in Geneva
Criminal justice reform