On Friday 14 and Saturday 15 March six European sections of the International Commissions of Jurists (ICJ) - including the NJCM - and representatives from the ICJ met in Leiden, the Netherlands to explore the possibilities for closer cooperation to increase their influence at European level.

Colleagues from Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom met with each other for the first time on Friday at the Law Faculty in Leiden where the meeting was opened by thematic introductions. These showed that the consequences of counter-terrorism policy and laws for human rights have taken high priority on the agendas of the participating sections. Most sections are especially occupied with the influence of counter-terrorism on immigrants and the privacy of civilians. These common worries make good topics for cooperation between the sections and the ICJ. For example, by comparing situations in each others countries and sharing knowledge or by lobbying together at the relevant institutions of the European Union in Brussels.

On Saturday the day started with presentations on the different sections. With these presentations the participants informed each other about the founding of their sections, the way they are organised and operate and the topics on their agendas for 2008. The presentations showed that the sections differ substantially from one another. For example, JUSTICE from London was founded in 1957, it has 40 advisers, six paid employees and 1500 members, while the Swiss section was founded in 1991, it counts 10 active members, and 140 members in total. The composition of the boards differs as well. The board of the NJCM, for example, exists mostly of independent members, while the Austrian board is made up of high government officials and presidents of courts. Therefore some sections can express their opinions more freely than others on certain issues.

The Norwegian section is still under construction and used this opportunity to gain inspiration for its foundation and construction from the experiences of other sections. Like some other sections, for example the Danish, the Norwegian section is concurring with the National Human Rights Institute. For this reason they focus on the legal aspects of human rights issues and the impartiality and independence of the judiciary.

The meeting continued with a brainstorm session on the possibilities for better cooperation. The sections agreed, inter alia, to meet with each other more often. The next meeting will take place in the spring of 2009 in Denmark. Beforehand they will meet after the global meeting of the ICJ in November of this year in Geneva to evaluate the digital cooperation that will take place until then. The sections have already started with consultations through e-mail contact, but they also asked the ICJ to involve them in its work at an earlier stage. Although some sections, like the NJCM, have recently cooperated with the ICJ, normally the ICJ communicates its activities and research in the final faze of its work. This makes the results, like recommendations, often too general to be of use to the ICJ-sections at the national level. The sections and the ICJ agreed that the ICJ is going to involve them at an earlier stage from now on to enable them to take more focused action in their countries. The ICJ will also take on a Network Co-ordinator in order to obtain a better overview of the activities of the different sections and thus be able to link the sections which are working on the same topics.