‘I Never Went Back to Mexico’

On November 20th a meeting with Fernando Pelaez-Pier, the President of the International Bar Association, took place at the HSE. He answered numerous questions from the students with the help of his colleagues - Akira Kawamura, Vice President, and Tomasz Wardynski, PR Director.

The International Bar Association (IBA), founded in 1947, is the world's leading organization of international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. According to Mr. Pelaez-Pier, the association helps experts from different countries to maintain a constant dialogue about the bounds and criteria of law practice. Today more than 30 000 lawyers and more than 195 law societies and legal firms from 45 countries are IBA members.

The IBA consists of two divisions:the Legal Practice Division and the Public and Professional Interest Division. The divisions consist of committees, 50 in total, corresponding to certain branches of legal science. Each committee annually hosts a conference in its field. In addition to this, IBA has an active publishing business and runs several distance learning programmes.

How is the association funded? Firstly, through its membership fees - currently 165 pounds a year, as well as revenues from conferences and publications. The association's research branch - The Human Rights Institute - is sponsored by different international foundations.

How, in the IBA President's point of view, will lawmaking activity on the planet Earth develop in the nearest future? According to Fernando Pelaez-Pier, globalization is already influencing law making in different countries and will continue to do so. Legal systems will become more and more integrated in order to comply with world standards and each other.

Why did the current IBA President, who by the way specializes in business advocacy, decide to become a lawyer? ‘Because I wanted to do it from the very beginning, from when I was a child'. Can someone who received their law education in Russia practice in Europe? ‘I studied in Mexico. Then I moved to Paris, where I started practicing. And, as you see, I never went back to Mexico'. It seems that Fernando Pelaez-Pier has advertised his organization so effectively, that the students decided to go to the nearest IBA office immediately after the meeting to apply for membership. But the honoured guest had to disappoint them:there is no IBA office in Moscow. ‘But there are offices in Dubai and Sao-Paolo!'-Mr. Pelaez-Pier reassured them.

Sergey Stepanishev, HSE News Service

Photos by Viktoria Silayeva