ABA celebrates eight decades of work with the U.N.
For 80 years, the United Nations has worked to maintain global peace and security, provide humanitarian assistance to those in need, protect human rights and uphold international law—and the ABA has played a meaningful role in its development.
As World War II was raging, a leading figure in the ABA, Reginald Heber Smith, brought together international lawyers and law professors at a series of conferences beginning in 1942. Two years later, the participants produced a report, The International Law of the Future, which sketched out principles and proposals for “a community of states.”
When representatives from 51 countries formally established the United Nations after World War II ended, many of those provisions were adopted in the U.N. charter. It came into force on Oct. 24, 1945, and the U.N. now comprises 193 member states.
“The essence of the U.N. is to invoke in sovereign nations, member states, a shared sense of responsibility to function in a manner that elevates humanity and protects future generations from the consequences of war,” says Laverne Lewis Gaskins, a member of the ABA Representatives and Observers to the United Nations. “This was the case in 1945 and remains the case today.”
Advancing international law and partnering with bar associations and organizations in other countries remains important to the ABA, which will highlight these efforts at the ABA Annual Meeting in Toronto in August. The ABA is an accredited nongovernmental organization with the U.N. and contributes to its work through several entities, including the ABA Representatives and Observers to the United Nations. The ABA Board of Governors created this committee in 1999, and it is now part of the ABA Center for Global Programs. Its 17 members are appointed by the ABA president, and its mission includes supporting ABA policy relating to the U.N.; fostering communication between the U.N. and the ABA; advancing the rule of law within the U.N.; and enhancing the ABA’s partnership with the U.N. globally.
“What I have tried to do, along with others on this committee, is restore the importance and the primacy of engagement at the international level as part of the ABA mission and goals,” says Steven Richman, the chair of the committee and a member of Clark Hill in Princeton, New Jersey. “We are the American Bar Association, but we also need to have leadership throughout the world.”
ABA representatives at the U.N. headquarters in 2017. (Photo courtesy of Renee Dopplick)
“The role of the ABA is to help inform the global discussion—particularly as it relates to international legal frameworks, the role of the legal profession and promoting a fair, impartial and independent judiciary,” says Renee Dopplick, deputy chair of the committee. “We serve as an authoritative voice for those core concepts as well as to promote Goal IV.”
Members of the ABA Representatives and Observers to the United Nations regularly attend U.N. sessions. They also support and help facilitate the participation of other ABA entities, including the Center for Human Rights, the International Law Section and the Section of Environment, Energy and Resources.
Bringing the ABA to the UN
The ABA has special consultative status with the U.N. Economic and Social Council, which promotes international cooperation on economic, social and environmental issues. This status allows the association to participate in the work of the council and other U.N. bodies. It grants the association access to U.N. meetings, conferences and other activities, including the opportunity to make statements and organize side events.
A major area of cooperation is sustainability. The ABA is a member of the U.N. Global Compact, which encourages businesses to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and it is active with the U.N. Commission on International Trade Law.
The ABA helps assess the United Nations’ progress on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which address poverty, inequality and other global challenges. In 2019, the association led nongovernmental organizations in reviewing Sustainable Development Goal 16, which promotes just, peaceful and inclusive societies.
“It was a long process, because you are trying to get thousands of NGOs to agree, but we were able to significantly influence the position paper for the NGOs on SDG 16,” says Dopplick, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who is also the liaisons officer for the International Law Section. “We saw the influence of it as well in how language shifted in the suggested talking points for the NGO community.”
A side event the ABA organized during the high-level meeting was standing room only, Dopplick says.
The ABA’s Goal IV is to advance the rule of law, including through its Rule of Law Initiative. So unsurprisingly, that is also a major area of cooperation. In 2012, the ABA contributed to a U.N. General Assembly declaration establishing an agenda for strengthening the rule of law.
It was one of the first exercises in recent times in which the ABA was engaged “in the inner workings” of the U.N. General Assembly, says Bruce Rashkow, a special advisor to the ABA Representatives and Observers to the United Nations.
“It was difficult because there are so many NGOs of all stripes and colors who want to become engaged,” Rashkow says. “But the rule of law, of course, is a principal fundamental goal of the ABA, so we thought we ought to be a substantial participant in shaping the declaration.”
International presence
ABA members participate in other high-profile meetings and events, including the U.N. Forum on Business and Human Rights, the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Conference of the States Parties to the U.N. Convention against Corruption.
“It’s important for the ABA to have a presence, particularly when developing areas of the law are in play—including private law issues, such as arbitration—and for our voice to be heard,” says Richman, who also is past chair of the International Law Section, which has its own U.N. and International Organizations Committee.
“Governments, to the extent they want to know what lawyers think, regularly look to the organized bar. We help set not only an example, but often the standard on such issues,” Richman adds.
The ABA Representatives and Observers to the United Nations helps plan events that occur alongside U.N. sessions.
For example, in March, the ABA led a virtual panel discussion on advancing women’s legal rights 30 years after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This global agreement seeks to achieve gender equality and provide better opportunities for women and girls.
Lewis Gaskins attended the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, which met this year for its 69th session.
“It was an eye-opening experience to have so many nations offer their perspective on how we have moved forward as a global nation, as citizens of this Earth, in the interests of women,” says Lewis Gaskins, who practices arbitration in Augusta, Georgia. “It’s good to see that we’re making a lot of progress.”
Policy and partnerships
Educating the association about the work of the U.N. is another responsibility of the ABA Representatives and Observers to the United Nations. It shares developments at the U.N. with other ABA members through CLE programs, webinars and publications.
The committee assisted the International Law Section with ABA Day at the United Nations in April. As part of this annual event, a delegation of ABA leaders met with top legal officials at the U.N. and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
Rashkow, who worked at the U.S. Department of State and at both the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and the U.N. itself before retiring in 2012, has helped coordinate the event for at least 30 years. He describes its purpose as twofold.
“One is to brief the leadership of the ABA as to important developments happening in the United Nations, so the ABA is in a position to respond to these developments by encouraging the legal profession or the Department of State to take positions in support of, or in some cases opposed to, what the U.N. is doing,” Rashkow says. “The other purpose has always been to inspire the leadership of the ABA to be more engaged with and interested in what’s happening at the U.N.”
The committee also proposes ABA policies to call for changes in or actions by the U.N. and informs members about those policy goals. The ABA has adopted more than 100 U.N.-related policies since 1971, according to the ABA Representatives and Observers to the United Nations.
Its recent policies include a 2022 measure addressing issues that arise when permanent members of the U.N. Security Council use their veto power in connection with resolutions involving genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.
“We have urged certain restraint in that regard,” Richman says. “I think we were the first bar association, if not the only bar association, to address that.”
Among other recent policies, the ABA adopted a measure in 2023 that urges parties to the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime to adopt a “wildlife crime protocol” that would define wildlife crime and strengthen domestic laws around this crime.
Dopplick notes that ABA members are working to implement several of these policies by publishing model contracts or other documents that inform both the U.N. and the legal profession.
“We are hoping to make further impacts by contributing tangibly to resources at the U.N., resources for the legal community and resources for the judicial community,” Dopplick says.
Looking forward, Richman hopes to engage more members of the ABA—as well as state and local bars—in the work of the U.N. He points out that the International Law Section’s U.N. and International Organizations Committee is open to all members of the section.
“It is a way to achieve greater inclusiveness and expand our resources for mutual benefit,” Richman says.
Dopplick adds that the ABA’s deep legacy of engagement at the U.N. is built on decades of teamwork.
“It’s a reflection of the commitment of all the members—and really the long-standing leadership of and role that the ABA has played within the United States and the world,” Dopplick says. “It’s been truly incredible that the ABA has been able to be even just a small part of the work of the U.N.”
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