Dear Colleagues,

Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, Brazil, has been selected as the site of the 2015 7th International Conference on the Training of the Judiciary. The conference is being held November 7-12, 2015. The Academic Committee of the IOJT has been authorized to prepare the proposal for the conference's scientific program. The proposal will be presented to the Local Organizing Committee, and finally be formed in good cooperation between both of them.
We appreciate if you would to provide us within the next two weeks about your preliminary ideas with regard to the following three items:

1. The structure of the conference(lectures, workshops, panels, posters, tours, exhibition, etc.)
   2. The topics and sub-topics of the conference
   3. Potential senior invited lecturers

Sincerely yours,
Prof. Amnon Carmi – //../undefined/compose?to=amnoncarmi@gmail.com" data-mce-href="http://../undefined/compose?to=amnoncarmi@gmail.com">amnoncarmi@gmail.com
NCSC President Mary McQueen – //../undefined/compose?to=mmcqueen@ncsc.org" data-mce-href="http://../undefined/compose?to=mmcqueen@ncsc.org">mmcqueen@ncsc.org

Message from the President

Dear Members,

I am happy to address you in the first IOJT newsletter, the fruitful result of the efforts of IOJT Secretary General, NCSC President Mary McQueen and of the head of the IOJT Academic Committee, Prof. Amnon Carmi. To this date the organization has 118 members from 72 countries worldwide. There is an additional membership request in front of the IOJT Executive Committee as well as two additional organizations that have shown interest and are formulating their membership requests. Thus the IOJT which joins together judicial training institutes from around the world is becoming one of the largest international organizations in the world.

It has been 17 years since the 1997 declaration in Sao Paulo Brazil was signed, stating the importance of international cooperation between institutes for judicial training worldwide. This declaration brought the establishment of IOJT, an international organization of judicial training institutes that has grown over the years to become the organization of which we are proud. IOJT aims at providing its members with the opportunity to learn from one another, to share innovative approaches to the education of the judiciary and to build a strong network of people involved in judicial education. The sharing of knowledge and experience regarding the methods and technology of judicial training is at the basis of what we pride ourselves in achieving.

The nature of IOJT that joins experts in judicial training from countries around the world is what makes us such a unique organization. We have received several requests from developing countries to assist them in either establishing a judicial training institute or in developing an existing one by the sharing of knowledge and experience of our experts. A recent example of this matter is the request of the Executive Directorate of United Nations Counter Terrorism Committee, founded by UN resolution 1376, headed by Jean-Paul Laborde, Judge of the French Cour de Cassation, which has approached us to assist in the development of worldwide judicial education in the field of application of rule of law in matters related to the ways judicial systems contend with terror related matters. The Executive Directorate of the UN Counter Terrorism Committee has approached us requesting collaboration in the form of joint seminars on the topic as well as the formulation of a guideline book for judges worldwide - as suggested by Prof. Carmi. An additional body in the UN has requested assistance from the IOJT with a project in Nigeria. After we receive further information regarding this suggested collaboration and the approval of the Executive Committee I will update you and request your assistance and cooperation.

I returned recently from Tashkent, Uzbekistan where I was invited to take part in an International roundtable discussion on the issues of training of judges and lawyers organized by the Lawyers' Training Centre under the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan in co-operation with the OSCE Project Coordinator in Uzbekistan and the EU Project "Support to Criminal Judicial Reforms in Uzbekistan". Dozens of legal professionals from around the world took part in the roundtable discussions. In the wake of these discussions we already have seen increased interest of institutes in becoming members in IOJT.

I would also like to update you that we are improving and developing the IOJT website to include judicial education materials in various languages. We want the website to serve as a platform for the exchange of knowledge and experience between member institutes. We are developing the website with the kind assistance of Jim Buchanan of the Federal Judicial Center. We are hopeful that you will soon be able to benefit from the website development.

Since the last IOJT conference held in Washington D.C. the members of the IOJT Executive Committee have held intensive discussions on the issue of implementation of membership fees as agreed upon in the last General Assembly. The proposed draft will be distributed to the IOJT Board of Governors for their input.

Last but not least, IOJT Treasurer, B. Paul Cotter and I recently signed the certificate of incorporation in the State of New York which will turn the IOJT to a non profit organization. Non profit status will allow recognition of the organization as well as allow for donations and contributions to the organization.

Eliezer Rivlin 
IOJT President