Argentina Rule of Law Project
This major international rule of law project is assisting the Argentine judiciary, legal profession & law schools, achieving the transition from an inquisitorial legal system to an adversarial system
As Director of the UCL Judicial Institute, Professor Thomas leads the project working with Her Excellency Judge Joanna Korner of the International Criminal Court and a group of internationally‐recognised advocacy trainers from Inner Temple. It is a major capacity‐building project to train lawyers, judges and law professors to be advocacy and ethics trainers so that these skills can be cascaded throughout all law schools in Argentina and throughout the legal profession.
The project involves the UCL JI working jointly with the University of Buenos Aires School of Law, Di Tella University School of Law, UK Embassy in Argentina, Inner Temple, the FCOD through ROLE UK and A4ID, as well as UCL Public Policy and UCLC. Phase 2 of the Project was completed in May 2024.
The 2024 programme included the extension of advocacy, ethics and judicial case management training to the Argentine Provinces at the request of the President of the Supreme Court of Salta. The May 2024 programme also included a high level training session on judicial case management with the Argentine federal judiciary hosted by the Argentine Minister of Justice and Foreign Secretary.
The project is developing new avenues of research on ﴾a﴿ the introduction of jury trials in Argentina, ﴾b﴿ assessment of the effectiveness of training, and ﴾c﴿ evaluation of the new adversarial system.
This project has received recognition for its impact and importance at College level, including being the subject of a UCL‐wide Case Study on achieving international impact.
UCL supports Argentinian lawyers and judges to adapt to the country's legal reform
In 2024 the project received support from UCL Public Policy, which provided a Strategic Investment Award ‐ part of Research England’s QR Policy Support Fund ﴾PSF﴿.