As I take the last step of the fascinating journey of being the International Bar Association (IBA) President during 2023-2024, I look with pride at the path we have walked together.
When I took office, my motto was not to lead a revolution, but an ambitious evolution, bringing this impressive Association to the next level. We have been successful in making the motto come true.
We have moved from being 'the best of the class' among associations of legal practitioners, to building a 'better class'. We have given the IBA a greater ambition to continue growing as the most influential association of legal practitioners. We have innovated, internally and externally. We have improved, even more, our offering to our members - issuing the first IBA Legal Agenda 2023-2028 . We have strengthened our role as the global voice of the legal profession.
This has been a choral accomplishment of the entire IBA Management Board, the Legal Practice Division, the Section on Public and Professional Interest, the Bar Issues Commission, the Human Rights Institute, the indispensable IBA Staff and, most importantly, all our members - individual members, law firms, legal departments, bars and law societies - across the world. Thank you all.
The planned specific route to achieve our goal has proved to be good. The wind has not often been mild nor has it blown in the expected direction. Yet, those challenges were a reminder of the confidence vested upon us which has been our true motivation.
We identified five areas as IBA priorities during these two years, all of which originate from the IBA Strategic Plan:
We have analysed the effect of our work in society through the IBA report on the social and economic impact of the legal profession (Impact Report) launched in June 2024. This landmark report measures for the first time ever the quantitative and qualitative contributions of the legal profession and of the rule of law. At a time when 80 per cent of the world's population is living in jurisdictions where the rule of law is being eroded and where the role of lawyers is not sufficiently appreciated, the IBA has provided evidence of their positive impact. Since there is no other assessment of the legal profession of this kind available, many people will learn about the IBA through the Impact Report. The Association will become increasingly linked to this body of work.
We have studied the legal angles of artificial intelligence (AI) under a coordinated approach. We could not disregard the technology that will change everything once more. This resulted in the report The Future is Now: Artificial Intelligence and the Legal Profession , co-authored with the Centre for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP), where all parts of the Association worked together. It was launched in September 2024. This shows again, the IBA being at the forefront of key global developments affecting society and our legal profession and taking a lead on their legal aspects. Following in that wake, we were the first legal association to endorse the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law in October 2024.
We have clarified the role of the legal profession on the ESG agenda. We held two successful conferences on this matter: in New York, US in 2023 and 2024. The next one will take place in Paris in 2025 . We created the ESG Hub and launched the ESG Accelerator Training Programme with more than 500 delegates. We have been able to bring together the great initiatives of many of our Committees in this field, whilst also looking at the IBA's internal ESG policies.
We have focused on gender equality in the legal profession. We launched the first IBA Women's Day in 2023, a success repeated in 2024 when we also issued the Ten Directives to Break the Glass Ceiling in the Legal Profession . The progress report of the ambitious award-winning 50:50 by 2030 project , directed by the IBA Legal Policy & Research Unit (LPRU) jointly with the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation , was launched on 3 December 2024. The IBA's extra attention to gender equality in our profession is relevant, because of equality being a matter of law and because of the glass ceiling remaining powerful within our sector. Further efforts are needed to ensure progress.
We have increased IBA actions to prepare the legal profession for the future. Bearing in mind the cross-border element of matters of international business practitioners which clash with local legal academic boundaries, we launched the IBA International Legal Practice Program . It successfully started in October 2024 with preferential conditions applicable to our IBA members.
In addition to completing the work under the five above priorities, our annual conferences have kept their status as flagship events for the IBA and the entire legal community. These last two years have been no exception. Paris 2023 and Mexico City 2024 , so different from each other, yet both excelled in programmatic and social terms. We increased the number of leading international personalities joining us at those events, with Michel Barnier , Lech Wałęsa , Zack Kass , Helle Thorning Schmidt , Christopher Stephens , Ernesto Zedillo , Norma Lucía Piña , Nando Parrado , Dr Rigoberta Menchú Tum and Marc Rotenberg in attendance, amongst others. They have undoubtedly enriched our views and we have increased awareness of our Association on different fronts. Their sessions were, for the first time, open to guests of registered delegates at the Mexico City conference.
We have persisted in increasing the IBA profile, creating and reinforcing relationships with top-tier institutions such as the World Bank Group , the International Chamber of Commerce , the European Commission , the European Law Institute and Chatham House . On the academic side, we fostered collaborations with FGV Sao Paulo Law School in Brazil, King's College London in the UK and IE Law School in Spain. We have enhanced our cooperation with sister associations such as LawAsia , the Inter-Pacific Bar Association , the East African Law Society , the International Association of Young Lawyers (AIJA), the International Association of Lawyers (UIA) and the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) promoting unity of the profession.
We have continued with our commitment to the different regions, so well looked after by the IBA Regional Fora . Led by the LPD Chair, we put in motion a new strategic plan for Africa. We sensed that it was important to reaffirm the IBA's existing engagement with the African region. We need to work further with our African colleagues, and our African colleagues need increased visibility amongst the international legal community. Thus, we organised a Presidential visit to Uganda in November 2024. The IBA, as the global voice of the legal profession, needs more African voices.
The above adds to the IBA's continuing programme of specialist conferences and webinars organised by our more than 70 Committees and Fora, which increasingly became sold-out events in 2023 and 2024. The same applies to their work in advancing the law and its practice through the Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration , the International Guidelines on Wellbeing in Legal Education , the Updated IBA Guidance Note on Business and Human Rights , among other, and the numerous journals, newsletters and podcasts. They make the IBA soil more fertile and solid year after year.
And I stop there.
Our International Bar Association, due to the values it so well represents and defends, to the contributions it makes to the legal profession and to society and to its membership that enriches every step taken, makes us so proud. We must also feel proud of what we have achieved together in 2023 and 2024. It has been an immense honour contributing to the success story of the IBA these two years as its President. A success story that will continue under the new leadership in the bright years ahead of us.
Almudena Arpón de Mendívil Aldama
IBA President 2023-2024
Partner, Gómez-Acebo & Pombo Lawyers, Spain
