Defending the Condemned: Building Solidarity Across Borders

Please join us online Friday October 9th, 2020 from 10-11AM EDT as we mark World Day Against the Death Penalty.

On the occasion of World Day Against the Death Penalty, which this year is focused on the theme of “Access to Counsel,” the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide invites you to a one-hour webinar on the successes and challenges facing capital defenders in sub-Saharan Africa. The event will feature lawyers from the Makwanyane Defenders network, which has emerged from the Center’s annual training intensive for capital defense lawyers, the Makwanyane Institute.

You will hear from Makwanyane Fellows in panel discussions and videos describing their most significant cases, the meaning of their work, and how they collaborate globally. Attorneys Funke Adeoye and Pamela Okoroigwe from Nigeria and Bwighane Mwenifumbo from Malawi will share advice with aspiring capital defenders and discuss how the pandemic has affected their work. Capital defense work may contribute to legal reform in the criminal justice arena, and plays a role in shifting policy towards abolition of the death penalty and other extreme sentencing.

You will also hear from the Center’s Executive Director Delphine Lourtau and Founder and Faculty Director Sandra Babcock about their passionate multiyear efforts to work on behalf of clients in Africa and elsewhere, to develop best practices manuals for capital defenders, to train them in the US and abroad, to conduct death penalty research, and to practice radical collaboration to expand the network of the Center’s active partners, researchers, and advocates around the world.

The webinar promises to be a moving, powerful, insightful and inspiring hour of your time, and a fitting way to honor World Day 2020. We hope you can join us!

You may join the free webinar at this link.