OSCE organizes international rule of law conference in Ukraine

KYIV - Strengthening the rule of law in national legislative, executive and judicial affairs was the focus of a recent international conference hosted by the OSCE project coordinator in Ukraine.

Judges from the Supreme, Constitutional and Higher Administrative courts of Ukraine and their peers from the European Court of Human Rights, the United States and Germany, as well as national parliamentarians, state officials, scholars and students took part in Ukraine's first ever conference on the rule of law.

The two-day event, held in early December under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), allowed participants to reach a common understanding of the principle of the rule of law and its implications for executive, legislative and judicial bodies.

"Ukraine has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment toward building and sustaining effective mechanisms for the rule of law," said Ambassador James Schumaker, OSCE project coordinator. "We are pleased to support their efforts by hosting this conference as part of a comprehensive project to strengthen the rule of law in close cooperation with our Ukrainian partners."

Ukraine's Justice Minister Serhii Holovatyi, added that, "Ukrainian legal doctrine must evolve by taking our traditional legal understanding and embracing the concept of natural law. One of the most effective ways of moving closer to liberalism is to reform legal education in our universities based on these principles."

The event was part of a United States-funded comprehensive rule of law project, currently being implemented by the OSCE project coordinator, which helped introduce the first ever rule of law curriculum to the country's universities, and to publish a compendium of key rule of law texts, some of them translated into Ukrainian for the first time.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 25, 2005, No. 52, Vol. LXXIII

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