ICNL-Cordaid Civil Liberties Awards

Letter from the Editor

The International Journal
of Not-for-Profit Law

Volume 10, Issue 3, June 2008

In this issue of the International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law, we proudly feature three seminal essays on civil society and civil liberties. The essays received the top awards in the ICNL-Cordaid Civil Liberties Competition, as Douglas Rutzen, President of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, explains in his introduction to the articles.

The winner of the ICNL-Cordaid Civil Liberties Prize is a comparative study of the often troubled relationship between civil society and “war on terror” statutes and regulations. The author, Mark Sidel, is Professor of Law, Faculty Scholar, and Lauridsen Faculty Fellow at the University of Iowa. A revised edition of his book More Secure, Less Free? Antiterrorism Policy and Civil Liberties After September 11, was published in 2007.

Oonagh Breen received a Distinguished Research Award in the ICNL-Cordaid Competition for her essay arguing that in EU states, judicial action may enable civil society more effectively than legislative action. Breen is a Professor in the School of Law at University College Dublin.

Adong Florence Odora also received a Distinguished Research Award. Odora’s essay analyzes the suppression of civil society in authoritarian environments and proposes some preconditions for civil society to rise again after years of suppression. Odora is a Ugandan attorney who has worked as a researcher with Equalinrights in the Netherlands.

In addition to the ICNL-Cordaid Civil Liberties articles, we offer a timely analysis of the Turkish Assembly’s recent reform of foundation law. Filiz Bikmen finds that the new law substantially improves the working environment for foundations in Turkey, but that more remains to be done. Bikmen is an Advisory Board Member of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law and Adviser to the Chairman and Board of TUSEV, the Third Sector Foundation of Turkey.

We gratefully acknowledge Cordaid, for joining ICNL in sponsoring the essay competition, as well as the authors of our incisive and provocative articles.

Stephen Bates
Editor
International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law

sbates@icnl.org