About the ILF
The ILF, an NGO based in New York, was established in 1997 to ensure that the reconstruction of post-conflict justice systems includes a focus on indigent defense, the true engine of such reconstruction. Indeed, without effective defense lawyers making sure that legislative changes are implemented and court practices change, there can be no rebuilding of justice and the rule of law. The ILF grew out of two privately funded projects: Legal Aid Rwanda and the International Law Project at the Afghan University Law School, in Peshawar, Pakistan. Legal Aid Rwanda, founded in 1997, sent volunteer North American lawyers to Rwanda to provide pre-trial representation to detainees who had been incarcerated – many without charges – for over three years. The three-month pilot project was deemed a success by the international community in Rwanda and praised in academic articles as well as in the book by Alison Des Forges about the Rwandan genocide, Leave None to Tell the Story. However, Legal Aid Rwanda had to suspend its operations after disagreements with the Rwandan government. The ILF also conducted its International Law Project at the law school of the Afghan University in Peshawar, Pakistan. This project was meant to educate the Afghan legal community in exile about developments in international law. The program, intended to prepare Afghan lawyers and judges in exile for the task of rebuilding the Afghan legal system when they could return, began in the summer of 2000 and ended in the fall of 2001 with the ouster of the Taliban regime and the return of Afghan refugees.
The ILF currently has projects in Afghanistan and Nepal.
ILF-Afghanistan (ILF-A) was originally funded through a $30,000 grant from the Open Society Institute. ILF-A opened its first public defender's office in Kabul in August 2003 with two Afghan lawyers. At that time, defense was virtually non-existent in Afghanistan. Defense was nothing more than a plea for mercy. Today, ILF-A has thirteen offices with a total of 45 qualified lawyers who were trained and mentored by expert criminal defense lawyers from North America and Western Europe on 2-to-6 month assignments until 2007 when the last volunteer lawyer finished their assignment. ILF-A has represented over 6000 clients in Afghanistan since 2003; it has commented on legislation and forced judges, prosecutors, police, and corrections officers to implement the changes adopted by the government to ensure the protection of human rights. Additionally, ILF-A runs two criminal defense clinics for law students in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat, strengthening and building future criminal defense lawyers in Afghansitan. Currently the entire project is implemented by Afghan staff and monitored by ILF management in New York.
ILF-Nepal began in partnership with a Nepali NGO, Advocacy Forum in July, 2007. During this first phase of the project, ILF lawyers mentored and trained local lawyers and saw the potential for major future changes in the criminal justice system in Nepal. ILF-Nepal is now a local and independent public defender office, in partnership with the Judges' Society Nepal. The office now has two international fellows and eight Nepali lawyers, two scheduled to open the first ILF-Nepal district office in June 2009 in Janakpur, in the region of the Terai. ILF-Nepal will continue to provide training to Nepali lawyers until the the project is capable of sustaining itself as a locally managed and operated NGO, as the ILF has done in Afghanistan.