News & Events at the
Center for Democracy and Development
Fullbright Voluntary Rule of Law Speaker Program in China (November 2008)
US Journalists Visit Liberia (October 2008)
Liberia Workforce Visits Boston and Worcester (June 2008)
CDD receives USAID Grant to Enhance Judicial Education in China
Adria Warren and Honorable R. Peter Anderson Co-Direct USAID grant
Michael Keating appointed as consultant to World bank project in Liberia.
Fulbright Voluntary Rule of Law Speaker Program Yields Direct Results
As a direct result of his fruitful visit to Hubei High Court, and strong interaction with Hubei senior judges in his May 2008 voluntary speaker program organized by [American Consul General] Wuhan, retired Justice of Massachusetts State Court and Fulbright Specialist Peter Anderson formally invited Hubei High Court to participate in developing a project in the fields of evidence and court management of pre-trial discovery in civil cases funded by USAID. The project would start with a four to five day seminar in Wuhan in the spring of 2009. Participants would be Hubei civil judges and judicial training college judges, and Massachusetts judges and law professors with expertise in evidence and discovery. Following the seminar, there would also be an opportunity for five to eight Hubei judges who participate in the seminar to spend up to two months in Boston. This study tour would include course work, internships in the Massachusetts courts, and exchanges of views with Massachusetts colleagues and other experts. Both sides met on October 30 to solidify the arrangement.
Article from Wuhan US Consular District Newsletter (美国驻武汉总领馆区) November 17, 2008
Retired Justice Anderson at Hubei High Court with CG Lyle.
Mr. Anderson at a university law school in Wuhan.
The US Consular District consists of four provinces in Central China (Hubei, Henan, Hunan and Jiangxi) with a combined population of 268.42 million and an area of 731,600 sq km. In December 2007, Wuhan, the capitol city of Hubei and the site of the Consulate General, along with its eight neighboring cities in Hubei, were designated the newest Special Economic Zone in China with a special task for sustainable development. Changsha and its seven neighboring cities in Hunan were also named a second test site for sustainable development in Central China. Zhengzhou, Henan is the site of a U.S. virtual presence post. Other major cities in the Consular District are Changsha, Nanchang, Yichang, Xiangtan, Jiujiang, Kaifeng and Luoyang.
U.S. Journalists Visit Liberia, October 2008
The Center for Democracy and Development brought six American media specialists and journalists to Liberia as part of a ten-day media exchange program sponsored by the U.S. State Department. The group, led by Michael Keating, Associate Director of the Center, interacted 'on-the-job' with their Liberian counterparts providing practical guidance in reporting and photojournalism skills as well as providing hands-on-training in web development and blogging. The six media specialists were multi-media specialist Bill Glucroft, human rights reporter Jessica Graham, new media specialist David Sasaki, photojournalists Kathleen Flynn and Gregory Stemn, and Washington Post free-lance reporter Vanessa Gezari.
Read the story by Kathleen Flynn and Jessica Graham on the Public Radio International (PRI) web site.
Liberia Workforce Visit.
Boston, Massachusetts, June 2-14, 2008
The Center for Democracy and Development has completed a very successful Workforce Development for Liberia Program in Boston and Worcester. During their two week visit, the Liberian delegation, which included representatives from government, women’s groups, educational institutions, and NGOs, visited the Massachusetts State House and met with Reps. Daniel Bosley and Byron Rushing, House Speaker DiMasi, Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Bump, and representatives from labor and community groups.
At UMass Boston, they visited the Labor Resources Center, the Urban Scholars program and GoKids Boston. Labor Resources Center staff then arranged meetings at the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation, Women in the Building Trades, the Building Materials Resource Center, and the IBEW Local 103 Training Center. The delegation attended the Women, Wages and Work Conference, organized by the MGS Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy. They visited the Women at Work Program and St. Margaret’s House within St.Mary’s Women and Children's Center in Dorchester. They enjoyed a very well attended and substantive welcoming ceremony and panel discussion at Worcester State College. In Worcester they also visited the YMCA of Central Massachusetts, Worcester Technical High School, New England Regional Council of Carpenters Training Center and local enterprises. F
The Liberian Workforce Development project is sponsored by the US Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Delegation with friends at the University of Massachusetts' President's Office.
Bay State Banner, June 26, 2008 — vol. 43, no 46
YouthBuild Boston staff and students recently met three times with a delegation sent to Boston by the US Department of State for a visit coordinated by Dr. Edmund Beard of the University of Massachusetts. The delegation came to Boston charged with collecting information that will boost workforce development and education efforts in their country as it emerges from 14 years of civil war. (Back row, from left): James Bonds, Mulbah Jackollie, Ken Smith, Greg Mumford, state Rep. Byron Rushing, Francis Maweah, Beard. (Front row, from left): Charlotte Evangelynn Kaicora, Vida H. Bracewell, Musu Sharon Kardamie, Tomaa Davis, Francis N. Maweah. (Photo courtesy of YouthBuild Boston)
New $1.6M Grant to Enhance Judicial Education in China
The Center for Democracy and Development (CDD) has been awarded a $1.6 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for a three year project to improve the quality of justice in China through enhanced judicial education.
Edmund Beard, CDD Director and Senior Advisor in the UMass President's Office, is principal investigator. Erica White, Assistant Director of CDD, will serve as project manager. Adria Warren, a private attorney formerly with the American Bar Association, and retired Massachusetts Judge Peter Anderson (now a Visiting Fellow at CDD) will be project co-Directors. The Massachusetts Judges Conference, the private association of the State's judges, and the American Bar Association will play important roles in the project, which will focus on the three substantive areas of: (1) applying rules of evidence in Chinese court procedures and developing enhanced court management and utilization of pre-trial discovery; (2) improving capacity to implement mediation practices currently being discussed as China reforms the Administrative Litigation Law and Civil Procedure Law; and (3) improving access to Chinese courts through greater transparency of adjudication.
This large, new USAID project builds upon eight years of unique and highly successful U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs supported rule of law programming in China by the Center for Democracy and Development and the Massachusetts Judges Conference.
Visiting Fellows
Co-Direct
China's Judicial Reform Project
Ms. Adria Warren will serve as USAID co-Project Director and currently in private practice with Foley & Lardner LLP. She has seventeen years of experience living in and working with China. Most recently, she served as the Washington, D.C. based Project Manager for the ABA's China and Cambodia programs, where she oversaw 62% increase in secured funding with $1.15 million in total grants under management in 2005. She is currently a Vice-Chair for the China Committee of the ABA's Section of International Law.
Honorable R. Peter Anderson, (Ret.) will serve as co-Director of the USAID Enhanced Judicial Education in China project. He has as participated in CDD/Massachusetts Judges Conference (MJC) rule of law programs in China, Mongolia, and the Slovak Republic, and was co-leader of the CDD/MJC 2003 and 2005 Mock Trial Programs in China. He has traveled independently to China several times and was key in developing the 2006 Beijing-to-Boston Program, which brought six Chinese judges to Boston for a unique three-month judicial internship program. In spring 2008, Judge Anderson will travel to Kunming China as Fulbright scholar.
Michael Keating
Appointed to World Bank Mission
Michael Keating, Associate Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Development, has been named as a special consultant on a World Bank Mission in Liberia. Building on his previous work with the media sector in Liberia, Michael will assist the World Bank on a Development Communications strategy on behalf of the Ministry of Information as well as with other media related organizations. This project follows the successful CDD project in the Fall of 2007 which brought several leading Liberian journalists to Boston for a series of seminars and internships.
“The September 2003 Rule of Law exchange in China sponsored by the United States State Department, which I had the privilege of participating in with a number of my colleagues, was one of the most successful and stimulating educational programs I have ever been a part of -- an unparalleled learning experience both for the American judges who presented the program and for the literally thousands of Chinese students, professors and judges who attended. In every venue we were warmly received, and in several venues the reception was literally (almost physically) overwhelming. The unequivocal message from the students, professors and many judges was that they were eagerly looking to us for ideas to reform their judicial system.” —Hon. Timothy H. Gailey
September 2003