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Programs By Location: Cross-Regional Projects
ICNL-Cordaid Civil Liberties Prize: In October, ICNL and Cordaid announced a $25,000 prize competition to encourage scholarship on the legal and political environment for civil society, with a focus on civil liberties. The contest was the first of its kind and drew a number of impressive manuscripts from around the world. A distinguished evaluation committee comprised of Kumi Naidoo, Clare Doube, Richard Fries, and Grace Rebollos reviewed each submission on an anonymous basis. A list of award-winning manuscripts is available here.
Global Forum on Civil Society Law: The first-ever Global Forum on Civil Society Law was held November 17-19, 2005 in Istanbul, Turkey. The conference drew together 150 leading experts from over 60 countries. Participants represented a cross-section of stakeholders, including civil society organizations, the government, the legislative branch, academia, and the donor community.
The Forum provided participants the opportunity to benefit from cutting-edge learning on civil society law reform issues, to develop strategies for promoting effective law reform, and to engage with a worldwide network of experts in the field. After careful analysis of the needs and interests of the participants, five thematic tracks were chosen for the conference; (1) Reform and Advocacy, (2) Contemporary Issues and CSO Law, (3) CSO Sustainability and the Law, (4) CSO Accountability, Transparency, and Regulation, and (5) CSO-Government Relations. For more information about the Global Forum, please see the Global Forum web page.
CEE-NIS Linkages: ICNL actively works to promote CEE/NIS information sharing through cross-border information sharing, joint research projects, and the sharing of progressive legislation. In Russia, ICNL used its CEE experience to prepare comments on regressive draft NGO legislation now pending before the Russian Duma. Similar technical assistance provided to Kazakh partners helped defeat regressive draft NGO Laws in Kazakhstan. ECNL hosted a study tour for three ICNL lawyers from Central Asia. Through a series of meetings with ICNL/ECNL staff in Budapest, as well as Hungarian government and civil society representatives, the study tour increased ICNL’s capacity to address law reform in Central Asia. ICNL continues to assist with the integration of NGO legal issues into law school curricula in Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Currently, over 30 universities offer courses on NGO law. During the past year, four new NGO law courses were established at universities in Central Asia.
United States International Grantmaking Project: The USIG project facilitates effective and responsible international grantmaking by U.S. foundations. USIG specializes in explaining complex legal requirements in understandable terms; working toward revision of burdensome or ambiguous IRS regulations governing giving abroad; compiling a database of legal information for several foreign countries; and providing “model” materials for foundations to use with their overseas grantees, access to best practices in the field, and links to other resources relevant to USIG’s mission. ICNL works in collaboration with the Council on Foundations to provide 34 countries reports detailing the legal provisions affecting NGO grantmaking in each country. Click here to view our USIG author Spotlight, or visit USIG's website at http://www.usig.org.