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Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists
Abbreviation	ICJ Kenya
Formation	1959
Type	NGO
Headquarters	Nairobi, Kenya
Website	www.icj-kenya.org

The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists, also known as ICJ Kenya, is a Kenyan non-governmental organisation, a National Section of the International Commission of Jurists. It is composed of lawyers and works to promote human rights and the rule of law.

Aims and values

ICJ Kenya states its vision as "to be a premier organisation promoting a just, free and equitable society".^[1] The organisation's mission is to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Kenya and across Africa through the application of legal expertise and international best practices.^[1] ICJ Kenya is guided by the following values: impartiality, equity, probity, professionalism and responsiveness.

Objectives

ICJ Kenya's objectives as guided by its constitution include; to develop, strengthen and protect the principles of the rule of law; to develop, maintain, strengthen the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession; to promote and protect the enjoyment of human rights as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 and all other subsequent international and regional covenants, treaties and protocols on the protection and promotion of human rights, by every person in Kenya; to keep under review all aspects of the rule of law and human rights with the republic of Kenya and to take such action as will be of assistance in promoting or ensuring their enjoyment; to promote the provision of legal services in rural areas, to cooperate with any national or international body, which pursues objects similar to or compatible with the aforesaid objects.

History

ICJ Kenya was founded in 1959 and registered as a society in Kenya in 1974. It has been involved in the move for constitutional change since the early 1990s. In 1994, together with the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) and the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), it drafted a model constitution for Kenya, which added to the pressure on the government of Daniel arap Moi to enact a new Constitution.^[2] In 2000, ICJ Kenya published a report on ‘The State of Freedom of Information in Kenya’, followed by a campaign for a Freedom of Information Bill.^[2] Long-term campaigning for reform of the Kenyan judiciary resulted in 2003 in the resignation of many judges and magistrates suspected of corruption and incompetence.^[2] Commentators state that the organisation has "influenced judicial reform"^[3] and describe it as a "key knowledge repository" on the subject of judicial integrity.^[4]

In 2010 the organisation sought an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir.^[5] The arrest warrant was issued by the Kenyan High Court in November 2011 and led to a breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two countries.^[6]

In partnership with other civil society groups in the region, ICJ Kenya published a report on "Counterterrorism and Human Rights Abuses in Kenya and Uganda: The World Cup Bombing and Beyond" (2012) on the response to the 2010 bombings in Kampala,^[7] and instigated a court action against the Kenyan government in 2013 on behalf of victims of sexual violence following the 2007 general elections, alleging failure to protect them or investigate the crimes committed against them.^[8]

Governance

ICJ Kenya is a National Section of the International Commission of Jurists whose headquarters is in Geneva.^[9] It is however autonomous from the ICJ in Geneva.

ICJ Kenya is a non-governmental, non-partisan, not for profit making, membership organisation registered in Kenya.^[10] ICJ Kenya operates within the general mandate for national sections defined by Article 4 of the ICJ Kenya Statute. ICJ Kenya is governed under a Constitution through an elected Council of seven members who serve for two-year fixed terms.

Members of ICJ Kenya are drawn from the various divisions of the legal profession and share the organisation's beliefs and values. The members pursue the body's work through a permanent secretariat where a professional team of full-time lawyers is in charge of programmatic activities under the oversight of the elected council.^[11]

Activities

ICJ Kenya works within four programmatic areas:

Access to Justice
Democratization
Human Rights Protection
International Cooperation

It is the only national section of the International Commission of Jurists on the African continent and works nationally in Kenya where, among other things, it continues to promote and protect freedom of information and judicial reforms, and also human rights awareness. Through its International Cooperation Programme, ICJ Kenya also works across Africa to support the development of effective institutions of governance and accountability.