Our Work

Our main priorities and initiatives are:

• Strengthening judiciaries and judicial processes
• Supporting constitutional and legal reforms
• Training legislative drafters
• Combating transnational crime, counter terrorism and anti-corruption
• Promoting legal assistance and international cooperation
• Supporting national jurisdictions to implement international legal conventions through training and model legislation
• Providing easy access to legal information throughout the Commonwealth
• Helping Legal Ministries combat counterfeiting and piracy, human trafficking and seize crime proceeds
  
• Providing training and technical experts to address the shortage of specialist lawyers
• Ensuring gender equality is integrated with the development of legal policies.

Who this work affects:

Laws affect the whole population of a country. Part of our work focuses on the most vulnerable, such as those affected by human trafficking.

All those brought before courts are affected in some way by the justice system. By improving laws we are affecting the lives and liberty of all people involved in this system. In our work we try and involve the whole spectrum of players in the administration of justice – from prison custodians to financial institutions that are involved in law making.

Working with other organisations:

We work closely with a number of international and regional institutions and bodies. This includes our partner organisations such as the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association, the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and the Commonwealth Legal Education Association, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and other key organisations like the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, European Union and the US Department of Justice.

Further, we work with the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law and the Secretariat of Hague Conference on Private International Law. These organisations represent the melting pots of varied legal traditions and provide an opportunity to engage with countries with legal traditions which are not the same with Commonwealth countries.