'Swallow PIL' plea

Public international law (PIL) is set to receive a boost from a initiative by the Law Society and the Bar Council, who have set up a joint committee and arranged a series of lectures to educate lawyers in the area.

The joint committee has so far received expressions of interest from 100 lawyers across private practice and in-house solicitors, barristers and government lawyers.

Christian Wisskirchen, Law Society international policy executive, said the initiative comes in response to practitioners' lack of knowledge of the sector.

He said: 'There have been examples of cases conducted in total ignorance of a PIL point.'

Mr Wisskirchen added that recent problems included judgments against sovereign states and the United Nations being ignored by lawyers in their preparation of cases.

The committee said PIL can often arise at a domestic level in areas as diverse as banking, family law and criminal law.

Its lecture series started this week with a talk by Professor Christopher Greenwood QC and barrister Kharwar Qureshi on international law before the English courts.

Subsequent lectures will include talks by Malcolm Foster and Tim Daniel, public international lawyers and partners with City firms Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and DJ Freeman respectively, and both members of the new committee.

Mr Daniel said: 'The aim is to raise awareness in an area of law that many lawyers tend not to know about, but which they will increasingly come into contact with.'

For details, e-mail: christian.wisskirchen@lawsociety.org.uk

Jeremy Fleming