We are pleased to inform you that Boston University School of Law in collaboration with the International Consortium for Law and Development (see www.ICLAD-law.org)  have agreed to create 'APKN Legislative Drafting Clinic' designed to assist African parliaments to acquire the skills to draft and enact more effective legislation. 

ICLAD and the BU legislative drafting clinic staff and former clinic participants have worked with law-makers and civil society advocates to draft laws, justified by research reports, to resolve social problems identified in 40 countries around the world.

APKN Legislative Drafting Clinic will see APKN members, BU and ICLAD experts work together with law students to research social problems, carry out legal analysis on why the problem exists and propose legislative language to address the problem. APKN will host dedicated fora to make a very close and rich virtual collaboration and exchange of ideas very effective.

Participants will also be able to draw upon the wealth of African learning resources at Boston University.  These includes one of the largest African Studies Centers in the United States, extensive library holdings of African materials, and the African Presidential Archives and Research Center, which hosts former heads of African nations as scholars in residence, archives African public records, and provides a forum on political and economic developments in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

For APKN members it will be a unique opportunity to be exposed to the 'evidence based' approach to legislative drafting and its methodologies in stimulating practical case scenario.

The APKN Legislative Drafting Clinic will formally start during the Fall 2009 semester.

Drafting legislation means to deal effectively with the double challenge of communicating the policy clearly, precisely, unambiguously and at the same time write detailed substantive provisions of a bill to ensure its effective implementation to resolve a targeted social problem.

Guided by a legislative theory and methodology, the participants in the legislative drafting clinic will learn to deal with both challenges.