International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists

Pursuing human rights

The International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists strives to advance human rights everywhere, including the prevention of war crimes, the punishment of war criminals, the prohibition of weapons of mass destruction, and international co-operation based on the rule of law and the fair implementation of international covenants and conventions.

The Association is especially committed to issues that are on the agenda of the Jewish people, and works to combat racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and negation of the State of Israel.

IAJLJ was founded in 1969. Among its founders were Supreme Court Justices Haim Cohn of Israel, Arthur Goldberg of the United States and Nobel Prize laureate René Cassin of France. Our membership comprises lawyers, judges, judicial officers and academic jurists in more than 50 countries who are active locally and internationally as the need arises. Membership is open to lawyers and jurists of all creeds who share our aims.

The Association has Category II Status as a non-governmental organization (NGO) at the United Nations, enabling it to participate in the deliberations of various UN bodies. In this capacity, the representative of the Association has been actively involved in the work of the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and of related bodies, and will now be engaged with the work of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which has replaced the Commission on Human Rights.

The Association also publishes Justice (http://www.intjewishlawyers.org/html/justice.asp) which examines a variety of relevant issues and current topics and is mailed to thousands of lawyers and jurists throughout the world.

In 2006, the Association held its inaugural Justice Haim H. Cohn Lectureship in The College of Management at Rishon Letzion. The lecture, on “Human Rights in a Constitutional Framework”, was delivered by William M. Treanor, Dean of the School of Law at New York’s Fordham University. In 2007, a lecture about “Pursuing Justice and confronting Injustice – A Critical Perspective on the Rights Agenda”, was given by the former minister of Justice of Canada, Hon. Irwin Cotler.

Conferences

The Association holds its triennial international congress in Jerusalem, as well as conferences and seminars in many other countries. It holds international conferences in European cities to commemorate Jewish lawyers and jurists who perished in the Holocaust and to mark their contribution to the legal systems of their countries. Conferences have been held in Salonika (Thessaloniki), Berlin, Warsaw and Budapest.

In January 2000 the Association held a conference in Strasbourg under the auspices of the Council of Europe and with the participation of high ranking officials of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights. Discussions were held on cooperation between IAJLJ and the Council of Europe on ways to combat racism, anti-Semitism and denial of the Holocaust.

In August 2000, the Association convened its first conference in North America. “Pursuing Justice in the Global Village” was the theme of this conference, held in Toronto, Canada. Among the participants were several Canadian judges and federal and provincial government ministers, and also Jerome Shestack, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and former President of the American Bar Association; Neal M. Sher, Chief of Staff, International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims and Immediate Past President of the American Section of IAJLJ; and Irwin Cotler, then an Member of the Canadian Parliament and later Minister of Justice of Canada.

In December 2001 a conference was held in Jerusalem on the theme “Standing by Israel in Time of Emergency.”

On October 2003 a conference on “International Terrorism, Racism, Anti-Semitism: What Response to Evil?” was held at the Palais de Justice in Paris, France. This conference attracted delegates from 14 countries and was held under the auspices of high ranking legal personalities.

“Israel 2004: Dilemmas and Solutions” was the theme of our twelfth International Congress, held in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in March 2004. Guests of honor included Joseph (Tommy) Lapid, then Israel’s minister of Justice, and Prof. Irwin Cotler, then Canadian minister of justice, and United States Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer.

The Swiss Section of the Association held its 2004/2005 General Assembly in May of 2005 in Berlin, which included a lecture and discussion led by Israel ambassador to Switzerland Aviv Shir-On on “New developments in the relationship between Switzerland and Israel” and by Prof. Dr. iur. Marcel Alexander Niggli, University of Fribourg, on “The prosecution in racism and anti-Semitism cases in Switzerland.”

IAJLJ convened a special meeting at the Knesset in March 2005 to discuss severe anti-Semitic incidents that occurred in Russia and in other former Soviet Union countries. Alexander Brod of the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights briefed participants as to why the Russian law against Incitement of Ethnic, Racial and Religious Enmity is not being enforced. The meeting was attended by then-Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, Natan Sharansky.

Also in March 2005, and in conjunction with the Israel Democracy Institute, the Assocation held a conference in Jerusalem on Preparing a Constitution by Consensus for Israel. Addresses were given by Profs. Aviezer Ravitzky and Mordechai Kremnitzer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Prof. Yedidia Stern of Bar-Ilan University, Dan Meridor, a lawyer and former Israeli cabinet minister, Michael Eitan, Chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee of the Knesset, and Justice Meir Shamgar, President Emeritus of Israel’s Supreme Court.

Our International Conference, on “Legal Issues: International Aspects,” was held in Eilat, Israel in November 2005. Participants included then Israeli Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni (now Minister of Foreign Affairs), Justice Elyakim Rubinstein of the Israeli Supreme Court, French Ambassador to Israel Gérard Araud, British Ambassador to Israel Simon MacDonald, and Efraim Halevy, former head of the Mossad.

The Association participated in a special event in Sofia in January 2006, the launch of the book Jewish Names in the Bulgarian Judicial Science. The event was attended by Bulgarian Minister of Justice Georgy Petkanov, Vladislav Slavov, President of the Union of Bulgarian Lawyers, UBL Vice President and President of the Bulgarian Section of IAJLJ Yosif Geron and Emil Kalo, President of Shalom, the association of Bulgarian Jews.

A discussion of Jewish ethics and end-of-life decisions was held in February 2006 in Zurich by the Swiss Section of IAJLJ, open to all members.

In Buenos Aires, in March 2006, the Association held a conference on the international protection of human rights with the participation of Daniel Sabsay, President of Argentina’s Environment and Natural Resources Foundation. The event was held in conjunction with the inaugural Annual Conference of the Association of Jewish Lawyers of the Argentine Republic.

In March 2007, the IAJLJ co-sponsored a conference in Washington, D.C. with the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ) under the title, “Protecting Human Rights and Democratic Values in an Age of Terrorism.” Participants enjoyed thought-provoking panels on such topics as balancing civil liberties and security; the ethics and law of war; development of an Israeli constitution; Jewish Law and American jurisprudence; and battling terrorism with lawsuits. The keynote address was delivered by former Solicitor General of the United States Seth Waxman, and the conference featured a reception hosted at the U.S. Supreme Court by Justice Antonin Scalia in honor of former Israeli Supreme Justice Aharon Barak.

Haim Cohn Memorial Lecture - held at the Law Faculty at the College of Management on June 2007 - Prof. Irwin Cotler, a leading scholar in the field of human rights law, a former Canadian Minister of Justice, and an outstanding legal champion of human rights in many parts of the world, gave this year’s lecture which was co-sponsored by the College of Management Law School and the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. His major theme was the need to be constantly and actively engaged in the pursuit of human rights, following the Biblical dictum: “Justice, justice shall you pursue”. During his tenure as Minister of Justice, Prof. Cotler strove to entrench such rights in the areas of the appointment of Supreme Court judges; the Canadian Charter of Human Rights; the rights of the indigenous peoples and same-sex unions. He concluded by calling for concerted legal action against the genocidal threat against Israel by the Iranian President and the plight of the people of Darfur.

In November: the 13^th Congress of the IAJLJ was held in both Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, under the headline “Coping with Changing Realities”. Honored guests present at the Congress included Prof. Daniel Friedman and the President of the Supreme Court, Justice Dorit Beinisch. In addition to the various discussions and lectures, the 13^th Congress was also the venue for the annual General Meeting of the IAJLJ. Items on the agenda at such meeting included:

a. elections for the appointment of new members to the IAJLJ’s administrative bodies; b.the adoption by the IAJLJ of new Articles of Association.

The Latin American Jewish Lawyers Association in Buenos Aires hosted its first Conference, where the main topic for discussion centred on referred “The Jewish People’s Agenda in the Subcontinent”. Honourable Justice Grabivker, the newly-appointed Vice-President of the IAJLJ, attended this Conference, together with Argentinean Supreme Court Justice, Enrique Petracchi, Dr. Alberto Nisman, Argentina’s State Public Prosecutor and Mrs. Patricia Vaca Narvaja, Vice-President of the House of Representatives in Argentina.

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