Singapore is a common-law country in Southeast Asia known for its impressive economic development, the presence of government in many aspects of daily life, and its no-nonsense approach to crime and criminal procedure. Lawyers, referred to as advocates and solicitors, are not self-regulated, although they carry out most stages of the disciplinary process. The Law Society advocates for lawyers’ interests, and it has statutory duties such as maintaining and improving standards of conduct and learning, and assisting the public in matters related to law. Admission of domestic lawyers to the Singapore bar is overseen by the Supreme Court, and the main subsidiary legislation for professional conduct, the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015, is overseen by a multistakeholder body known as the Professional Conduct Council (PCC). In Singapore, the government is prominent in the law landscape, and it plays a major role in access to justice by funding legal aid, and together with Singapore organizations such as the Law Society Pro Bono Services and the Community Justice Centre, promoting and encouraging pro bono.

The projection of India as the fastest growing large economy in the world from 2018–21 stands in stark juxtaposition with the fact that it also houses the largest number of the world’s poor. The primary approach being favored by international development organizations as well as the Indian state to address the issue of large-scale poverty in general and legal poverty in particular has been to facilitate legal empowerment of the poor through the promotion of access to justice and rule of law among the underprivileged sections of the population. Following the widespread dissemination of the rights discourse, providing free legal assistance to the poor has emerged as the cornerstone of access-to-justice efforts globally.

The absence of explicit lawmaking authority has not prevented international organizations from producing ‘standards’ that deviate from the ways the traditional sources of international law – treaties, custom, general principles – are usually understood. Despite the fact the UN was not given plenary authority to conclude treaties,1 a functionalist ‘principle of speciality’ imposes subject matter limits on UN system organizations,2 and entities charged with progressively developing or codifying the law (such as the International Law Commission (ILC)) can only make recommendations, the extent of standard-setting by international organizations vastly exceeds what might be expected from such limitations.3

Located at the southernmost tip of Africa, South Africa is characterized by a history of racial discrimination and racialized inequality that goes back centuries. It was in 1948, however, that the all-white National Party came into power and the policy of “apartheid” – from the Afrikaans language meaning “apartness” – was systemically and rigidly institutionalized throughout the legal system. Apartheid mandated the separate development of different racial groups, and various pieces of legislation were enacted in furtherance of this mission including, among others, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act in 1949, the Population Registration Act of 1950, the Group Areas Act of 1950, and the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a strange creature within the constellation of international organizations involved in migration matters. It is both a leader and an outsider, within the system and outside it. The reasons for its ambiguous stance are numerous, be they political, legal, institutional or cultural. The agility of the IOM and its perpetual adaptation to its changing environment are a legacy of its turbulent history. Still today, its hybrid nature represents a key marker of its elusive mandate and its ambivalent relations with the United Nations (UN).

Chapter 7 considers how the framework proposed in Chapter 6 potentially contradicts international lawyers’ professional responsibilities. The chapter first considers different approaches to such questions in different countries and professional contexts. It then examines lawyers’ professional responsibilities when dealing with difficult jus ad bellum cases, reporting interviewees’ views of such responsibilities and of risk management techniques. By identifying and reducing risks of legal challenge to use of force, the framework potentially focuses lawyers only on their role as ‘counsellor’, helping governments do whatever they want, rather than their normative role of ‘conscience’, urging governments to change their behaviour to abide by law. Such a framework might even advise decision-makers to accept clearly unlawful force if there is little risk of an action facing legal challenge. The chapter nevertheless argues lawyers could use the framework developed in Chapter 6 while fulfilling their professional responsibilities, by seeking a form of Rawlsian ‘reflective equilibrium’ with their own personal professional judgement to address legal and factual uncertainty and extra-legal intuitions in hard cases engaging the jus ad bellum.

In this chapter, we examine the historical growth of pro bono legal services in Canada and contemporary patterns of pro bono engagement within the bar. We employ mixed methods, incorporating in-depth interviews with lawyers, legal educators, and leaders in the Canadian bar and a large-scale social survey of attorneys. We begin by tracing the historical development of government-funded legal aid in Canada – through the roles of local bar associations and government-led legislation – and the rise of pro bono service in response to declining resources for legal aid. Next, we outline structural factors connected to the diffusion of pro bono service, especially the spread of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Canada, and we identify several distinguishing characteristics associated with pro bono culture in the country. Our discussion leads us to consider professional-based interests associated with the expansion of pro bono and residual areas of contestation between legal aid and private pro bono legal service providers in the quest to improve access to justice.

International organizations engage in a vast range of activities that can be classified as ‘operational’. The United Nations’ administration of East Timor and Kosovo; inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); election observation by institutions such as the Commonwealth and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE); the deployment of troops on peacekeeping operations by the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); the assessment of refugee status and the management of refugee camps by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); the distribution of food aid by the World Food Programme (WFP); the deployment of experts by the World Health Organization (WHO) during a disease outbreak; and the conduct of Environmental Impact Assessments for development projects by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) all fall within this description.