By MAGGIE JARUZEL POTTER
Not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Edwin Rekosh suggested that residents of Central/Eastern Europe (CEE) could use their countries’ new legal systems as tools to advance and protect human rights. Previously, they often had served as instruments of state control.
Today, Rekosh’s vision of public interest law is practiced in several countries in CEE and is being shared worldwide.
The key to its success is simple, he says: “We listen to our
local partners. We work to build the
local capacity of
local institutions and
local leaders — using
local tools and
local organizing.”
As founder and executive director of the multinational
Public Interest Law Institute (PILI), Rekosh works as both a lawyer and an educator, increasing and strengthening the global community of public interest legal experts and activists, while also carving out time to teach law classes at Columbia Law School.
In 2008, the Mott Foundation’s Civil Society program made a two-year,
$90,000 general purpose grant to PILI, whose staff and volunteers share the concept of public interest law in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Ukraine, and elsewhere.
Rekosh, a New York lawyer, didn’t set out to build an international human rights advocacy organization. Rather, while working in CEE in the early 1990s, he identified the need to shape the newly established legal systems to better serve the public good.
He linked with human-rights groups working in Romania, Hungary and other emerging democracies in the region and was pleased with the results. That success prompted Rekosh to create PILI at his alma mater, Columbia University, in 1997.
From 2000 to 2006, Mott made three grants totaling
$280,000 to Columbia University for PILI’s not-for-profit law clinics, peer-to-peer trainings and information exchanges in CEE and Russia.
Edwin Rekosh (seated left) and Columbia University Law Professor Philip Genty conducting course on Teaching Law, Human Rights and Ethics at Central European University, Budapest. |
In 2007, PILI became an independent nonprofit organization and today Rekosh is recognized as a global leader in public interest law. He has written a book and several articles on the topic. In July, he was awarded the
2009 International Human Rights Award by the American Bar Association, a national organization with more than 500,000 members.
The award, Rekosh says, spotlighted PILI’s work and has the potential to expand its base of global law firms willing to do pro bono work in Europe, Russia, China and elsewhere.
He says volunteer legal expertise is needed to address local and national issues such as discrimination, domestic violence, school desegregation, environmental impact and others.
Interestingly, Rekosh says, pro bono programs didn’t start springing up in Western Europe until after the successful programs in CEE. He says it’s easier to embrace new ideas when there’s “a culture of change” like there was in the former Iron Curtain countries in the 1990s.
In November, PILI’s Budapest office hosted the third annual European Pro Bono Forum, which was attended by more than 150 participants from 32 countries.
Rekosh’s passion is obvious when he discusses how lawyers around the globe are volunteering their time and expertise to help non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promote and protect human rights.
“What motivates me the most is inspiring and helping young lawyers,” he said. “I like to see their idealism and sense of justice turn into practical impact.”
By helping create pro bono programs, PILI promotes access to justice for the vulnerable, poor and disadvantaged while also developing a new generation of public interest lawyers.
As PILI’s leader, Rekosh has vast responsibilities. These include overseeing:
- offices in Beijing, Budapest, Moscow and New York;
- a network of more than 75 university-based legal assistance clinics in CEE and Russia;
- projects that promote and uphold human rights in almost a dozen countries; and
- fellowships for public interest lawyers working to improve access to justice in their home countries, including nations as diverse as Albania, Nepal, Nigeria and Tajikistan.
Additionally, Rekosh and PILI’s staff and volunteers coordinate peer-to-peer learning and informational exchanges among people in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. PILI works closely with NGOs, providing them with expert legal advice and helping build their knowledge and skills in the areas of freedom of expression, access to public information, anti-discrimination and other relevant issues.
“Civil society has a very important role to play in the development of laws and other guarantees of human rights,” said Rekosh, 47.
After spending two decades in the field of public interest law and traveling the globe, he has noticed a serious void when it comes to implementing laws that are already on the books.
“You often have a well-drafted law
— one that has been cut and pasted from another country — but it doesn’t fit the local culture. It’s easy to assess the law, but much harder to implement it.”
Someone needs to address that gap, Rekosh says, adding that civil society leaders are the logical choice, partly because they understand the importance of cultural context.
For example, specific aspects of public interest law programs in China look different from those in Russia, where PILI is regarded as a valued member of the Ministry of Justice’s working group that is drafting a new legal aid law. Still, the overall concept of public interest law remains the same in both countries, he says.
“One of the things we are most proud of is our ability to have an impact in very different environments.”