Bar associations and law societies must use their influence to usher in reforms to the United Nations' Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR), the incoming president of the UIA told delegates in Fez.

Delos Lutton, a partner in Milwaukee-based US firm Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, said the challenge is to reform the UNHCR so that it becomes forceful and effective.


'Non-governmental organisations worldwide have a consensus on the most important reforms to be made, but the reforms risk being lost or watered down at the governmental level as regular violators attempt to protect themselves from bad publicity.'


Mr Lutton also called on UIA members to 'get down into the trenches to do something real about human rights'.


He told delegates: 'It is easy to adopt a resolution once a year denouncing some human rights violation. But how many of us have actually picked up our own pen to make our protest heard directly?'