Founders
“Legal Analysis and Research” Public Union (LAR) is established in 28/08/2012 in Baku and registered by the Ministry of Justice . LAR is a think-tank and uniting the legal experts from different organziations and institutions. The founders of the LAR are Ramil Iskandarli and Elmari Mamishov.
Mission
The mission of LAR is the “Analyzing and researching for a building of a legal state in Azerbaijan”.
The main goal of LAR is to contribute to implementation of the legal reforms in Azerbaijan through learning, researching and analyzing the legal problems.
There are there main direction of activities of LAR, which are:
- To promote and support the legal reforms in Azerbaijan.
- Conducting research and analysis of different legal spheres.
- Support of legal awareness raising of population.
Projects
LAR is currently cooperates with the Georgian NGO “Democracy and Civic Integration” within the project related to the research activities in the field of human rights of minorities in Azerbaijan supported by the British Embassy in Baku. Two Round tables were conducted in Marneuli (Georgia) and Baku (Azerbaijan) for discussing current status of the rights to use a mother tongue by persons belonging to national minorities in Kvemo Kartly and Kakh-Zagatala regions.
The project on “Legal support of vulnerable groups of population” is launched from 1st of March, 2014 with the financial support from the State NGO Support Council under the auspice of the President of Azerbaijan Republic. As a part of the project, lawyers of LAR providing free legal advises to vulnerable strata of population.
During five years of its activity, the Legal Analysis and Research Public Union closely cooperated with Council of State Support to Non-Governmental Organizations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Thus, in 2014, the project on “Legal support to the vulnerable groups of population (women, children, and persons with disabilities)” had been implemented with financial assistance of the Council. The main direction of the project was provision of free legal service to the people from weak strata of population.
Within the “Youth in Action” program of the European Union LAR together with its Swedish partners held an event for the law students at the Viksjöfors (Sweden). Young people representing various countries participated at the event. With organization of LAR the group representing Azerbaijan was selected from the students of the Khazar University. Head of the project Helena Ehrstand and the chief organizer Matilda Norling Person stated that they were very much satisfied with Azerbaijani representatives. Helena Ehrstand said: “I manage this project already for several years, however, no representatives of any country demonstrated such great skills as representatives of Azerbaijan did. This is a great innovation for us. I hope that our cooperation will continue.”
The experts of our organization conducted legal researches and provided legal advices to such entities like the Global Legal Project of the School of Law at the University of New York, European Union and UNICEF. Members of the organization periodically publish their analytical and enlightening articles, legal opinions and essays in the local and international press, internet information portals (Azvision.az and Report.az). The members of the organization regularly participate at the international events in the foreign countries as well as at the international and national events conducted by the state bodies in Azerbaijan.
LAR experts do an independent reports on different issues of law and human rights. Chairman of LAR – Ramil Iskandarli – is an author of a number of legal researches. He is an author of the legal research, such as “Legal Dimensions of Gender Equality in Azerbaijan; The Enabling Environment for Promoting Women’s Rights in Azerbaijan” (funded by World Bank, http://siteresources.worldbank.org /INTGENDER/Resources/CaucusesreportOct10.pdf ), Author of the legal paper “The rule of ECHR in implementation of freedom of association in Azerbaijan” published by British EHRAC ( http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/londonmet/library/z39689_3.pdf), and author of the research “A Guide to the Republic of Azerbaijan Law”, published by the Hauser Global Law School Program, New York University School of Law (http://www.nyulawglobal.org /globalex/Azerbaijan.htm).
LAR is a member of the UN Global Compact Initiative and Civil Society Forum of the Asian Development Bank.
Memorandum of Understanding was signed in February 27, 2019 at the International Press Center in Baku for establishment of the Azerbaijani Think Tanks and Civil Society Network.
Ramil Iskandarli, chairman of the Legal Analysis and Research Public Union, initiator of the Azerbaijani Think Tanks and Civil Society Network (ATTCSN) stated in the opening speech that, the idea of establishing the ATTCSN came from the event organized for the civil society organizations on “Why Think Tanks Matter?” and held on January 31, 2019 that was held under the umbrella of the Global Think Tanks and Civil Society Program of the University of Pennsylvania.
He said that the main aim of ATTCSN is mobilizing capacity of organizations and individual professionals, researchers operating in various spheres of public-political relations in Azerbaijan to support implementation of public policy by means of analytical and research work focused on the country’s development in different areas.
Main speaker of the event, Ismail Karimov, research expert, member of ATTCSN, made a presentation on “The importance of think tanks in decision-making in Azerbaijan”. He shared his thoughts on the benefits of think tanks in public policy, the problems of research tradition in Azerbaijan and the main directions for the development of think tanks.
According to Ismayil Karimov, the following shortcomings are existing in research business in Azerbaijan:
- Many of the researches in Azerbaijan do not describe causes-results relations and has mainly descriptive character.
- The Causes-results relations in studied social problems has an intuitive character and has no strong qualitative researches behind.
- The institute of higher education gives only knowledge without skills and there are no almost serious research centers/institutes
- There is no diversity and effective approaches in researches and lack of training for young researchers/students on the issue of research methodologies.
Fakhraddin Hasanzadeh, executive director of the Youth Education Center, said that presently, there is uncertainty about trainers in the NGO sector and those who do not qualify as experts in the respective areas are acting as trainers and researchers. He also considered the importance of initiative to launch this network in this regard. He suggested to cooperate with the State Youth foundation on the issue of trainings for young researchers.
Avaz Hasanov, director of the Humanitarian Research Society, said that there is a need for increasing knowledge in this sphere and formation of new specialists and, the most important, there is need for the products of the professionals specialized in the sphere of think tanks in strategic planning of the government. Network can play a role of coordinating body for presenting the products of professional researchers to those in need.
Elmari Mammishov, lawyer, deputy chair the Legal Analysis and Research Public Union, spoke about importance of advocacy for expansion of the Network’s areas of activity. In his view, the Network should take the necessary steps for promotion of the works produced by the individuals specialized in this field.
Subhan Talibli, historian-scientist, noted that it is necessary for the Network to cooperate with academic institutions and foreign experts. He suggested to initiate and joint researches on different issues with the involvement of well-known foreign experts and produce a joint product to the present to the wider society.
Khamala Ashimova, director of the Reliable Future Youth Organization, said that the Network can play a key role in promotion of those who specialize in this fieldand their products, which will results in increase of the human resource potential in Azerbaijan in solving particular problems in practice.
Ramil Mammadov, a military-political analyst and member of the Network, expressed his confidence that the Network will play a platform for those who specialize in this field though launching the database of professional and their researches. According to him, the network will be able to cover a larger audience in upcoming future.
Then a memorandum on the establishment of the Think Tanks and Civil Society Network was signed by the founders of the ATTCSN. The memorandum was signed by more than 10 civil society members specialized in this field.
According to the memorandum, the Network will set its activity based on the analysis of the situation with law, defense, security, economy, education, energy, environment, foreign policy, international relations, health care, science and technology, society, media, transparency and management, humanitarian, youth, food and water security, analytic materials on conflict resolution, lobbying and diaspora, historical researches, and national statehood policy.
It was decided to periodically organize meetings between experts, create an online database of researchers and experts, support formation of young professionals through training, to organize events with Guest speakers – well known analytical experts, conduct thematic meetings of the Network members with relevant state institutions, to carry out joint analysis and forecasts on the issues of public interest.
In order to provide technical and organizational support to the Think Tanks and Civil Society Network, the Secretariat function will be implemented by the Legal Analysis and Research Public Union.
Contacts:
Ramil Iskandarli
Chairman
Legal Analysis and Research NGO.
email: ramil.iskandarli@gmail.com
"Hüquqi Təhlil və Araşdırmalar" İctimai Birliyi 