The USAID Legal Reform Program (LRP) supports Uzbekistan’s efforts to ensure further development of rule of law principles, build the capacity of legal professionals and training institutions, enhance citizens’ access to justice, improve the legal operating environment for civil society, promote gender equality, and create a healthier investment climate. USAID partners with the Ministry of Justice, Academy of the General Prosecutor’s Office, Ombudsperson’s Office, Chamber of Advocates, Uzbekistan’s Higher Education Institutions, and key actors in civil society to meet these objectives.

PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

●     Development of the rule of law in Uzbekistan

●     Development of the legal profession

●     Development of the legal enabling environment for civil society and non-governmental organizations

KEY RESULTS

 Rule of Law Development

• Supported the development and public hearing of the country’s first-ever Gender Law “Guarantees of Equal Rights and Opportunities for Women and Men”, adopted in 2019.
• Provided expert input to prepare a draft Model Investment Agreement for the Ministry of Justice. This agreement was used by the Government of Uzbekistan to negotiate 22 investment agreements that leveraged approximately $2 billion in investments from the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Turkey, UAE, and other countries.
• Supported the development of recommendations to incorporate international best practices into more than 20 legislative acts, including ombudsperson law, civil legislation, competition, intellectual property, licensing and permits, international arbitration, and the establishment of an Ombudsperson for children.
• Supported administrative justice reforms in Uzbekistan by analyzing best international practices, and developing draft regulations and submitting them to the government.
• Supported the review of 1,800 regulations to eliminate the risk that their form or content might allow corruption and conflicts of interest to occur. As a result, it is expected that 207 regulations will be amended and 108 will be repealed.
• Supported the first-of-its-kind handbook on legal-gender review of draft regulations, which will support national drafters to ensure that legislation is free of gender discrimination.
• Trained 12,000 specialists, government officials, mahalla activists, journalists, and representatives of NGOs on implementation of gender legislation; trained over 200 members of Parliament on gender approaches to law-making and budgeting.
• Provided international expert recommendations on the new Law on Ombudsperson and submitted it to the government.  
• Supported the first-ever International Forum of Central Asian Ombudspersons, which served as the platform for signing bilateral Memorandums of Cooperation between Central Asia Ombudspersons and the Tashkent Declaration on Human Rights to jointly protect human rights in the region.

Legal Education

• Through study visits and training, more than 6,000 legal professionals improved their skills and knowledge of international best practices in the following legal subjects: trial skills, judicial ethics, enforcement of arbitration decisions and foreign court judgments, provision of free legal services, mediation, legislative drafting, intellectual property rights, and others.
• Developed 44 new educational courses and incorporated them into the permanent curriculum of leading legal education institutions in Uzbekistan; over 10,000 students have already taken these courses.
• Presented almost 450 legal textbooks from the U.S. to libraries of Law Schools, enabling Uzbekistan’s students to access knowledge from international sources.
• Equipped distance learning rooms for students in five Technical Law Schools in Samarkand,   Surkhandarya, Andijan, Tashkent regions, and the Republic of Karakalpakstan.

Enabling Environment for Civil Society

• Over 2,000,000 citizens benefited from the program-supported free legal website advice.uz, which hosts information on basic legal issues covering all areas of public life.
• With LRP’s support, NGOs provided free legal advice to over 450,000 citizens and increased the awareness of over 130,000 citizens about their rights and opportunities to access justice.

CONTACT:

Mamed Askerov

USAID/Uzbekistan

USAID Contracting Officer’s Representative

maskerov@usaid.gov

Original source can be found here.