Authored by Liangqing Yang –
Below is the english translation of this article featuring IBJ in the Chinese press.

To Karen Tse, a lawyer and the Founder and President of International Bridges to Justice (IBJ), this week in China is “very hectic and instrumental.” Smiling, she told reporters, “I came to China to seek effective cooperation with the government, various civil society organizations and media like China Youth Daily, in order to contribute to legal aid and public awareness in rural areas in China.”

Karen is a graduate of Harvard University Divinity School and UCLA Law School. In 2000, she founded IBJ in the United States as a non-profit organization dedicated to address the legal aid needs of Asian citizens and cooperate with the governments of China, Vietnam and other countries in implementing their existing laws and promote public awareness of legal rights in these countries.

IBJ will conduct programs to support legal aid in Shanxxi, Ningxia, Tibet, and other areas, mainly through partnering with local organizations to conduct trainings for Chinese lawyers.

Upon reflection, she said that from an objective point of view, over the past ten years, legal reform has strengthened in China tremendously. A decade ago, there was not even a single legal aid center in China-compare that with today’s figure of more than 3,000 legal aid offices throughout the country. And the legal aid program has only been enhanced by the establishment of an official Legal Publicity Day. However, given the vast size of the country and rather significant economic imbalances, many people in poor rural areas are ignorant of the law, even if they occasionally learn about recent legal developments from television. Many of the poor are still unable to find help when they are really in need of legal resources and legal aid. At the same time, some lawyers’ professional capacity leaves something to be desired, and the lack of essential equipment such as tape recorders, cameras, and computers for interviews and investigations can hamper lawyers’ abilities to effectively represent their clients.

“When I came here, I realized there is significant support here for me to work on legal aid, because of the significant changes in China’s current legal system, and also because the Chinese government plans to establish more legal aid centers to show its strong commitment to legal reform,” Karen confidently said.

“I realize that although China has its own resources, its vast size and large population means that the need for legal aid is increasing every day, and thus international support would indeed make a difference. Increasing interdependence has been a major trend in the world, which also supports one of IBJ’s core concepts of building bridges.” By way of example, Karen noted that National Legal Aid of China (NLAC) is one of IBJ’s major partners and praised the organization for their spirit of dedication and hard work to providing representation for the poor.

She further explained, “We specifically didn’t select the big cities like Beijing, Shanghai or Guangdong as pilot centers. Instead, we focused on a grassroots approach with smaller regional sites like Anhui, in Hefei province. We hope to make these sites into working model legal aid centers through our projects and training. Anhui is IBJ’s primary legal aid model center in the country, and has already set a tremendous example.”

Karen continued, “Of course, we are also very proud of our national training program. During the past three national training conferences in Hefei, Nanchang and Lanzhou, over 350 lawyers from 31 provinces have been trained. These trainings focus on a “train-the-trainer” approach, so that the participants can train their peers when going back to their hometown and inform locals how to protect their own rights through the law.”