Last night in London the International Law Book Facility (ILBF) celebrated two successful decades of its charitable mission to support the rule of law and access to justice by sharing legal knowledge with vital organisations around the world.
It also announced Sean Xue of York University as the winner of its 20th anniversary law undergraduate essay competition, on the topic of ‘What will be the challenges to the rule of law in the next 20 years?’. Sean, who is Editor in Chief of the Ebor Lex Journal and a Student Counsel at Baroness Hale Legal Clinic, wins a week’s internship this summer with international law firm Brown Rudnick, an IBLF partner.
Since 2005, the ILBF has bolstered the rule of law and empowered new generations of legal professionals by supplying nearly 100,000 donated legal texts to more than 280 non-profits in 62 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe.
“Their unwavering commitment to advancing legal education in Ethiopia - through the donation of vital law books - is making a tangible difference across the country,” said librarian Mulugeta Woldetsadik of Hawassa University recently, ahead of the ILBF’s anniversary celebrations. During the early height of the COVID pandemic in June 2020, the LBF sea freighted more than 50 boxes of key legal texts to Ethiopia.
“By equipping institutions like Hawassa University, Dilla University, Mattu University, and many other universities in Ethiopia with much-needed legal resources, the ILBF is helping to empower the next generation of legal professionals and advocates for justice. Their support is contributing to the creation of a well-informed legal community grounded in access to knowledge and the rule of law.”
Recent shipments of legal texts have gone to organisations including the Judicial Services Commission of Zimbabwe, Africa University and Zimbabwe Ezekiel Guti University, Victoria University in Uganda, Mattu University in Ethiopia, the Malta Law Students Society, a new European Law Library at the West Ukrainian National University in Ternopil, and the Supreme Court of Judicature library in Jamaica.