Congratulations to the winners
PILnet’s Global Awards celebrate and honor the extraordinary efforts made by individuals, law firms, and NGOs to strengthen civil society, advance social justice, and protect the public interest around the world. On October 20th, PILnet announced the recipients of two awards, the Local Impact Award and the PILnet Global Partnership Award, and bestowed the PILnet Publico Award at the 2021 PILnet Global Forum.
Nominations were submitted via short videos from around the world for projects that included sharing guidance on remote work during the pandemic, providing legal tech for refugees, and advocating for victims of domestic violence. Voting for both categories of the PILnet Global Awards was open to all 2021 Forum attendees.
Publico Award
ATLAS Women: Acting Together: Law, Advice, Support
The PILnet Pro Bono Publico Award recognizes legal professionals with an extraordinary, passionate, and long-standing commitment to service for the public good. For 2021, PILnet is thrilled to honor ATLAS Women in recognition of the collective efforts of its members in response to the crisis in Afghanistan.
Established in 2012, ATLAS Women is an active global community of more than 8,000 female-identifying lawyers, activists, and jurists with expertise in various facets of public international law. While their core work mainly focuses on supporting the careers of women in international law, ATLAS Women moved quickly to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. They created an Afghanistan subgroup of 455 women to share information and consolidate resources a to better understand legal pathways available for evacuation and resettlement. They also mobilize regional advocacy groups to petition for border and immigration justice, and are calling for the international community to establish a humanitarian corridor to ensure the protection of those most in danger.
PILnet Local Impact Award
Pro Bono Against Online Gender-Based Violence, by Fernando Pombo Foundation, Gómez-Acebo & Pombo, Luz Casanova Foundation & Carlos III University
This award recognizes the best, innovative pro bono legal project with an impact felt at the local or national level. In the winning project, pro bono lawyers developed a practical guide for lawyers, other experts such as social workers, and young people on online gender-based violence. This guide and brochure discusses the legal implications of this online harassment, how to prove those situations, and what the complaint process would entail.
PILnet Global Partnership Award
Accountability for Yazidi Survivors of Atrocities by Da’esh, by Hogan Lovells, Lotus Flower Charity, and Global Survivors Fund
This award recognizes the best, innovative pro bono legal project undertaken as a cross-sectoral collaboration with an impact felt in more than one country. In the winning project, the partners have been working at the domestic and international level to obtain reparations for Yazidi survivors of sexual violence. Having identified the captor of five women as a foreign fighter who was an Australian national, Hogan Lovells took the case through the courts in Australia and are now advocating for reparations at the international level. The massive effort has involved 100 Hogan Lovells lawyers from five different countries, and if it succeeds would have the potential to change the way victims of sexual violence are compensated around the world.
