Argentine commission to train African judges

Argentine human rights commission, CIDPH, has kicked off a programme designed to promote justice delivery in select African countries.

The judiciary and other justice operators in Angola, Congo, Morocco and Cameroon will be the first set of beneficiaries of a capacity-building programme aimed at expanding ‘Access to Justice’ across Africa.

In March 2016, an international meeting on Access to Justice opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with participants including different cadres of officials and authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Cameroon and the Kingdom of Morocco.

Tagged “Access to Justice: Different Approaches to Public Policy and Institutional Devices,” the meeting was an exchange programme co-organized by CIPDH, UNESCO and the Public Defense Office of the Argentine Republic, MPD.

According to the CIPDH director, Adriana Arce, the meeting focused on promoting the creation of a space that allows the exchange of experiences on Access to Justice in different countries, analyzing success or failures in each case and establishing good practices. She added that the goal of expanding the justice frontier in Africa was “in line with our South-South cooperation work.”

The South-South cooperation is a broad framework for collaboration among countries of Latin America and Africa. The cooperation centers on political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical development.

Participants from the two continents shared experiences from their various countries with the resounding themes being crimes against humanity, institutional violence, protection to refugees, violence against women and alternative settlement of conflicts.

The exchange programme ended after setting a cooperation agenda between the organizing institutions and the participant countries.