International Law Weekend Panel Examines Access to Justice in the Middle East and North Africa Before and After the Arab Spring: Reforms to Date, Reforms to Come?
by Norman L. Greene1
terms of the Arab Spring, who is likely to benefit? These are some of the key questions addressed by an expert New York panel, ranging from discussions of women’s rights to religious courts to emerging claims of marginalized majorities. This ar- ticle, which provides some highlights of the discussion, is intended to record the event for those who attended and did not attend alike and ultimately to spark further research and inquiry.
W 22
Many Roads to Justice: Prospects for Strengthening Access to Justice in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region was a panel discussion held on October 21, 2011, featuring Yasmeen Hassan, Global Director for Equality Now, an organization working for the protection and promotion of the hu- man rights of women and girls worldwide2
hat does access to justice mean? What are the barriers to access? For whom are they greatest? What has been done to remove them? What remains to be accomplished? In
Mr. Greene began the panel by defining the elements of access
to justice, including possession of rights; knowledge of one’s rights; and having the ability to enforce such rights before an impartial
decision maker, at a reasonable cost, within a reasonable time and with a just outcome.
; Yüksel
Sezgin, professor at the City University of New York; Adnan Zulfiqar, Law & Public Policy Fellow at the Center for Global Communication Studies in Philadelphia; and Norman L. Greene, a New York attorney and author, among other things, on Mo- roccan affairs. The panelists’ collective experience included legal, gender, religious and cultural issues. The panel was one of many during “International Law Weekend 2011,” which was sponsored by the American Branch of the International Law Asso- ciation (ABILA) and the International Law Students Association (ILSA), at Fordham Law School.
The discussion included an overview of selected
issues in Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Yemen, and the Middle East-North Africa region overall. The panel was intended to provide a basic understanding about some of the relevant events, introduce the attendees to and increase awareness of the issues and trends in the region, and interest the attendees, many of whom were students, in inquiring further and becoming oth- erwise involved. This article will provide an overview of the panel and conclude with some observa- tions on the larger questions un- derlying it.3
Mr. Greene began the panel by defining the elements of access to justice, including possession of rights; knowledge of one’s rights; and having the ability to enforce such rights before an impartial decision maker, at a reasonable cost, within a reasonable time
and with a just outcome. The meaning of access to justice, Mr. Greene observed, is far broader than the concept of right to counsel for the indigent, a major focus in the United States.4
Using Morocco as a case study, Mr. Greene pre- sented a selective overview of recent Moroccan history and its regional and global importance, touching on the recent progressive legal reforms bearing on access to justice in Morocco: e.g., the 2004 revision of the Moroccan Personal Status Code or “Moudawana”; the 2004-5 Equity and Reconciliation Commission (otherwise known as “IER,” its French abbreviation), addressing human rights abuses during the 1961-1999 reign of King
ILSA Quarterly » volume 20 » issue 2 » December 2011
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