ABA joins Clooney Foundation for Justice and Columbia Law School to launch TrialWatch initiative

The American Bar Association recently launched TrialWatch along with its partners, the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), Microsoft Corporation, Columbia Law School, and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

TrialWatch is an initiative to monitor and respond to trials around the world that pose a high risk of human rights violations. It aims to be the first comprehensive global program scrutinizing criminal trials of journalists, human rights defenders, and members of marginalized communities, including LGBTQ persons, women and girls, and religious minorities. The official rollout event Thursday at Columbia Law School featured CFJ Co-Presidents George and Amal Clooney, ABA President Bob Carlson, Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University, and Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for a panel discussion introducing TrialWatch.

The ABA Center for Human Rights (CHR) received a grant from CFJ to help implement the TrialWatch program because it has an established track record of successful trial monitoring and fair trial expertise.

“The American Bar Association Center for Human Rights has observed trials and provided pro bono assistance to vulnerable human rights defenders in 65 countries,’ Carlson said. “As threats against civil society and justice sector personnel are on the rise, the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s impressive commitment to increasing transparency and accountability in courtrooms around the world could not be more timely.”

As part of its Justice Defenders Program, CHR has monitored dozens of trials against human rights defenders, in countries in every region of the world, including Angola, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Colombia, Guatemala, Iraq, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, Turkey, and Venezuela.

TrialWatch will significantly expand the scope and level of monitoring CHR undertakes and bring new cutting-edge technology methods to trial monitoring. We will be able to track cases around the globe that present a significant risk of injustice, including cases against journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents, and marginalized communities. Accessible online training and an app will democratize who monitors proceedings by standardizing trial monitoring data to allow meaningful comparison and advocacy as well as placing the tools for observation in the hands of affected communities.

“Courts around the world are increasingly being used to silence dissidents and target the vulnerable. But so far there has been no systematic response to this” said Amal Clooney.  “The Clooney Foundation for Justice’s TrialWatch program is a global initiative to monitor trials, expose abuses, and advocate for victims, so that injustice can be addressed, one case at a time.”

The ABA welcomes applications and references from all individuals over 18 with high character and an interest in monitoring. You can be a lawyer, a journalist, a human rights defender, a student, a translator, or any other profession as long as you are committed to the rigorous process of trial monitoring.

Anyone interested in becoming a trial monitor with TrialWatch should contact TrialWatch@americanbar.org.