Views from 30,000 Feet

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  Friday, 04 May 2012

  Finding the Words for Pro Bono in China

  How do you translate pro bono in China? That simple question was the theme of a recent conference PILnet sponsored with one of our partners in China, the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV), in Hainan—the island province off the southern coast of mainland China. PILnet, with its Chinese partners, has been gradually building the field of public interest law in China over the past decade. More recently, we have been trying to engage commercial law firms as supporters of that effort.   Read more »
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  Thursday, 22 March 2012

  Putting the Law into People's Hands: Post-revolutionary Law in the MENA Region

  PILnet's Forum on Public Interest Law in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) ended last week in Tunis on an inspiring note. Participants all agreed that law in the MENA region needs to change in a simple but profound way: it needs the human touch. Creating opportunities for people to engage with the law has significant implications for legal institutions and political systems, a theme that bound together the work and experiences of the Forum’s diverse participants.   Read more »
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  Friday, 17 February 2012

  Keeping the Home Fires Burning in China

  “When it’s snowing, you should bring coal to the people.” That’s a well-worn expression in China and one I’ve heard many times in Beijing, even when it’s 90 degrees outside. I’ve been reflecting on that phrase and what it suggests about public interest lawyering since the call went out a few weeks ago for PILnet International Fellows. And I’ve been thinking as well about our closely related national fellowship program in China, which recently graduated its first class of highly promising young public interest advocates. The China Fellows are truly carrying coal through the snow, providing legal assistance to people and organizations in need in uncertain times.   Read more »
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  Monday, 19 December 2011

  The Unsung Heroes of the Tunisian Revolution

  A year ago last Saturday marks one year from the day Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia to express his desperate frustration with the arbitrary nature of daily live in Tunisia. But that anniversary was not on the minds of Tunisians I met with last week, who were far more absorbed by the formation of a new government on Friday. One young lawyer even told me that a joke has spread attributing the fruit-seller’s self-immolation to an accident with a cigarette. Behind the snarky, dark humor is a widespread conviction among Tunisians that the ouster of the hated autocratic president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, was not the result of an individual act or the voice of a particular leader; it was a spontaneous and broadly based movement running deeply in Tunisian society.   Read more »
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  Monday, 14 November 2011

  Fighting for a Common Cause at the Pro Bono Forum

  The 5th annual European Pro Bono Forum kicked off this morning in great and inspiring style.  It´s cold here in Berlin, but the Forum´s opening session generated enough energy to warm us all for a long time. One of the first speeches, by Viviane Reding of the European Commission, represents something of a watershed for pro bono in Europe. "Together we are on the same team," she said, "fighting for a common cause--equal access to justice is our driving force."   Read more »
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  Wednesday, 27 July 2011

  Going after the big fish in Montenegro

  What can a diminutive, young, chain-smoking woman with a big mouth do to fight endemic corruption and organized crime in a small, close-knit society with a proud history of smuggling contraband? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Vanja Ćalović is a household name in Montenegro -- not because of her singing talent or political skills or her family connections. Everyone in Montenegro knows her name because she can’t help but speak truth to power. It’s in her nature.   Read more »
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  Monday, 30 May 2011

  Reconstructing higher legal education in Georgia

  Workmen are reconstructing a ferris wheel overlooking the Black Sea beach in the resort town of Batumi, Georgia.  Standing next to the ferris wheel is the Shota Rustaveli State University, which is going through a similar reconstruction process, intent on reaching higher levels. President Mikheil Saakashvili, who nearly everyone in Georgia calls by the diminutive Misha, has promised that Batumi will be the Nice of Georgia. It’s certainly got the rocky beaches, though it’s a very long way from Provence.   Read more »
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  Tuesday, 15 March 2011

  This school teaches you to be lazy

  Mona Nicoara’s film Our School just played for its first public audiences at the One World Film Festival in Prague and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in Greece, and watching it with an audience makes me see it in a whole new way. [Full disclosure: the filmmaker is my wife.] The film provides some profound food for thought for anyone who has been the least bit curious about the realities of educational segregation, from the point of view of the children experiencing it.   Read more »
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  Tuesday, 08 February 2011

  This is what change looks like in Nepal

  “We don’t want the bars where our members work to be shut down,” said Niru, the head of Bishwas Nepal, an  association of women working in dance bars and restaurants. “We don’t want to earn ‘black money,’” said a bar owner. “And we don’t want our children to be ashamed of us because of how we earn a living.” That was the discussion at a training on women’s rights, organized in mid-January in Kathmandu, Nepal by PILnet International Fellow Sarmila Shrestha.  Read More | Comments (1) »
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  Friday, 28 January 2011

  PILnet's work and the "big picture"

  I  often find that I do my best thinking on airplanes, as I travel to different PILnet offices or countries where we otherwise work. There's a certain detachment from details that frees the mind to contemplate the big patterns and what's truly important.   Read more »