An empirical study of legal aid in Istanbul jointly undertaken by the Open Society Justice Initiative and Istanbul Bilgi University found that only 10 percent of criminal defendants in Istanbul are represented by a lawyer.

The Moldovan parliament voted unanimously to approve a new legal aid law developed by a working group which benefited from extensive consultations with the Open Society Justice Initiative.

A new legal aid law adopted in Georgia introduces a full-fledged model of public defenders as legal aid providers, a development praised by the Open Society Justice Initiative.

Ukraine's second pilot public defender office was launched last week in Bila Tsirkva, an initiative that is part of a project on legal aid reform in Ukraine operated by the Open Society Justice Initiative and the International Renaissance Foundation.

A newly opened public defender office—a joint project of the Open Society Justice Initiative and two other civil society groups—recorded a major success last week when it was assured by Regional Director of Kharkiv Police that local police will...

Mexican officials gathered in Chihuahua to plan the country's first pretrial services agency at a meeting organized and led by the Open Society Justice Initiative and its Mexican partner organization, Renace.

Timap for Justice, a nongovernmental organization cofounded by the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Sierra Leonean National Forum for Human Rights, received an $879,000 grant today from the World Bank to provide justice services in Sierra Leone.

Lawyers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan join international human rights law experts this week for a practical seminar on strategic litigation to combat torture and ill-treatment organized by the Open Society Justice Initiative.