Rule of Law and Justice Development in Post-Conflict with Jasteena Dhillon

15 Years after Dayton, 10 years after the Invasion, 9 years after Bonn, 5 years after the CPA, what have we achieved in terms of establishing Rule of Law and Judicial Institutional Building in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan.

In this talk, based on field experience and academic reflection, Dhillon will shed some light on some of the lessons learned from the international community's intervention in Rule of Law and Justice Sector Development in these states.

It is believed that the billions of dollars in aid money and the thousands of international personnel that have been sent to these countries to implement development programs may not have achieved enough to balance the cost and time that has been spent.

If so, what lessons can we glean from these experiences and how can we move forward to contributing positively to development of justice and security in these countries and regions.

More about the Speaker:
Currently, Jasteena is a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School and an Affiliate Fellow with Harvard's South Asia Initiative, previously she was an Associate Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. At Harvard, Jasteena does research, teaching and writing on justice and rule of law, informal and formal justice systems in conflict, post-conflict and transitional countries and regions.

Jasteena Dhillon is a graduate of University of Toronto in Sociology in 1990 and of University of Windsor Law School and holds a Masters of Law in International law from Leiden University in the Netherlands. From 1989 -- 1992, she worked in Toronto on community development and advocacy in the violence against women movement and on issues facing immigrants and refugees.

She started as a Student Activist in the South Asian student movement in Toronto and continued after graduation as a Community Advocate and Counsellor at Toronto area women's shelters, including Emily Stowe, North York, East York, Homeward, Ernestine's and at crisis centres for women and girls Stop 86 and Windsor Sexual Assault Centre and also worked on a project for the Ministry of the Solicitor General on training police on appropriate intervention techniques for domestic violence.

In 1997, after graduation from law school and her call to the Bar in Ontario, she worked at the Office of the children's lawyer representing children in child abuse, custody and access and civil litigation cases and have been concerned with the rights and protection of children and immigrants in Canada.

Since 1999, she has been working internationally in conflict, post-conflict and transitional countries and regions on justice and human rights issues. She went first to work on the South African constitutional drafting process, she has continued to work internationally on legal and development and human rights issue in conflict, post-conflict and transitional crisis areas around the world, including in Afghanistan, Southern Sudan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bosnia, Croatia, Occupied Palestinian Territory and South Africa in international non-governmental organizations, the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

She has worked all over the world on human rights and development issues for women, children, refugees, IDPs in conflict and post-conflict settings, with a special emphasis on issues ranging from development of rule of law institutions and governance, the role of customary and sharia legal systems, human rights and humanitarian law , duties and responsibilities of national and international actors in building judicial and political institutions and civil-military interaction strategy and tools in the evolution of states and regions from crises to stability.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• 2010
• 06
• 28
• Jasteena
• Dhillon