The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is an international, non-government organisation. According to ICJ, it is a group of up to 60 senior lawyers, from around the world and representing all the legal professions, and uses its legal expertise to protect and promote human rights. Due to its focus and emphasis on promoting human rights, ICJ, despite its name, is therefore not an impartial, unbiased arbiter or interpreter of international law but an advocate organization similar to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The International Commission of Jurists uses the same initials as the International Court of Justice and sometimes they are confused with one another. However, the two entities are completely unrelated.

Born at the ideological frontline of a divided post-war Berlin, the ICJ was established in memory of a West German lawyer, Dr. Walter Linse, who, along with Dr. Theo Friedlander, was active in exposing human rights violations committed in the Soviet zone. On 8 July 1952, East German intelligence agents abducted and delivered Linse to the KGB and Dr Linse was executed in Moscow one year later for "espionage". This event led to the decision by a group of lawyers to found an organisation dedicated to the defence of human rights through the rule of law and its inaugural conference was convened in 1952. Their agenda was largely shaped by cold war concerns including the denunciation of human rights abuses in the Soviet zone.

The credibility of the ICJ was undermined when, in 1967, Ramparts magazine revealed that the United States's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funded the ICJ as part of its Cold War strategy. Prior to this revelation, the ICJ funding by the CIA was kept secret from the public. As a result, the objectivity of its reports were called into question and critics and even ICJ participants claimed that some of the investigations were not serious efforts to present an unbiased perspective into the various situations covered in its reports.

Today the ICJ maintains that although it is funded through contributions by governments, private foundations, individual donations, and corporations, all funds are accepted on the understanding that they in no way influence or effect the independence or objectivity of the ICJ's work.

External links

• Official site