Facilitating Judicial Exchanges: India
Program Description
The CEELI Institute continues a multi-year partnership with the National Judicial Academy (NJA) of India and the U.S. Federal Judicial Center (FJC), to promote exchanges between U.S. and Indian judges on issues related to the adjudication of complex cases involving terrorism and national security crimes. As with our work in MENA and the Balkans on this subject matter, the Institute based the curriculum and exchange around the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum’s Hague Memorandum on Good Practices for the Judiciary in Adjudicating Terrorism Offenses. The document is particularly useful in this context, as both India and the US are members of the GCTF, both participated in the drafting, and both approved the Hague Memorandum (the CEELI Institute is also proud to have participated in the drafting of The Hague Memorandum, which was approved in plenary by the GCTF in 2015).
In September 2018, the Institute facilitated a second international exchange between Indian high court justices and U.S. federal judges; with sessions held at the FJC in Washington, and at the U.S. District Court in Orange Country, California. The exchange built off earlier engagements which CEELI organized at the NJA in Bhopal, India, and addressed challenges facing the Indian judiciary in the context of high-profile terrorism cases. The assembled Indian justices will next undertake the task of creating the first India-specific counterterrorism curriculum to be used at the NJA. Using The Hague Memorandumas a framework for the effort, the new curriculum will be used to reach a much wider cross-section of Indian trial court judges on the frontline in handling terrorism cases. The Institute also helps the NJA launch its counterterrorism program with the curriculum currently in development.