27/12/2024
From 2007 to December 2024, the Legal Reform for Economic Development in the Western Balkans has supported the Western Balkans' alignment with the EU standards. With a focus on women's empowerment, modernized investment protection, and cross-border collaboration, this initiative has delivered impactful results that resonate across borders, as following:
🌟 Empowering Women, Empowering Economies 🌟
A stronger economy begins with empowered women. Here’s how we made a difference together with our partners:
💪 Breaking Barriers: We’ve developed gender-sensitive guidelines to address gender-based violence and promote equal land ownership. Through this initiative, we’ve trained 170 notaries to implement these transformative changes.
🌾 Advancing Women’s Property Rights in Agriculture: Conducted policy analysis and developed recommendations for measuring SDG indicators 5.a.1 and 5.a.2, supporting gender equality in the ownership and control of agricultural land across the Western Balkans.
🌱 Inspiring Change: We launched the “Empowered Women, Empowered Economy” campaign, raising awareness and driving action on property rights for women in rural areas.
🌟 Pioneering New Paths in Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) 🌟
The Western Balkans faced significant challenges in investment protection frameworks regarding dispute prevention and resolution. Here's how we contributed to addressing these challenges:
⚖️ Modernized frameworks: We supported the modernization of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, and Kosovo’s Law on Sustainable Investment featuring mediation clauses.
🔍 Innovative solutions: We helped to design ISDS mediation strategies and dispute prevention mechanisms, including BiH’s pilot tracking system, poised for regional adoption.
📚 Strengthening capacity: We delivered 30+ targeted training sessions for government officials, producing essential tools like the Standardized ISDS Training Handbook, Communication Roadmaps between investors and states and state institutions, Elements of ISDS Mediation Strategies and a Mapping Report of ISDS frameworks.
🌍 Shaping global dialogue: Positioned Western Balkan voices in international discussions through contributions to UNCITRAL Working Group III.
🌟 Cross-Border Collaboration: Strengthening Regional Ties 🌟
International judicial cooperation plays a crucial role in facilitating the free movement of people, capital and services. Here is how our efforts made an impact:
🤝 Bridging borders: Facilitated training for 600+ judges and notaries on private international law (PIL), and helped to create a regional institute on PIL, ensuring smoother cross-border civil and commercial interactions.
🎥 Expanding Cooperation: Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia signed the 2019 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matter. Kosovo also joined the Choice of Court convention, all in creating stronger pathways for recognizing and enforcing foreign judgments.
This initiative isn’t just about legal reform; it’s about redefining possibilities, empowering communities, and positioning the Western Balkans as a hub of progress and innovation. The journey from 2007 to 2024 tells a story of transformation—one where law becomes a tool for building a brighter, more inclusive future.
