Ukraine

The following Justice Initiative projects are underway in, or relevant to, Ukraine:

National Criminal Justice Reform

Ukraine: Reducing Pretrial Detention
The project aims to assist actors within the Ukrainian criminal justice system to reduce the number of people held in pretrial detention and shorten the average pretrial detention period.

Ukraine: Exploring Alternatives to Pretrial Detention
In Ukraine, as in many other eastern European and former Soviet Union countries, pretrial detainees still have to live in grossly overcrowded and unsanitary prison conditions. Mark Kelly examines the problems and discusses some of the alternative solutions being explored by the Open Society Justice Initiative.

Legal Capacity Development

Regional Focus: Clinics in Ukraine and Central Asia
There are twenty-five university-based legal clinics in Ukraine, of which fifteen have been started since 2000 by the local Soros foundation—the International Renaissance Foundation—with the assistance of COLPI. Clinical programs in Central Asia are at various different levels of development. Clinics in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan stand out as well-established high quality programs, whereas those in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan have yet to achieve institutional recognition within their respective law departments. The Justice Initiative organized an assessment of clinical developments in Central Asia at the end of 2002, and is currently in discussion with local Soros foundations about regional and national activities to address the quality and institutionalization of these programs.