From the President's Desk: 5,000 lawyers and one mission — safeguarding justice in a fractured world

I have recently returned from two weeks in Canada. A week with my family was followed by the International Bar Association’s 2025 Annual Conference in Toronto, representing the Law Society of Scotland alongside our CEO Ben Kemp.

I can’t speak for Ben, but I must confess that before arriving at the conference I didn’t know what value the Law Society would get from my attendance. It took very little time for any doubts to dissipate. As I said last month, we are in extremely challenging times and the truth of that was highlighted by the emotional and inspiring speaker at the opening ceremony.

Justice Roselie Siberman Abella, a former judge at the Supreme Court of Canada, spoke powerfully about the importance of the rule of law and the dangers it is facing today around the world. She called lawyers to action, saying it is our responsibility to ensure that society does not surrender to indifference, as it did in the run-up to World War II. Justice Abella said we need to replace global hate with global hope, otherwise there is no hope.

That message was reflected in several sessions during the week. The conference was attended by over 5,000 international lawyers and you can well imagine the varying degrees of challenges to the rule of law experienced by those present. The USA as we know is experiencing intolerable behaviour towards lawyers and the judiciary, but as one American bar representative stated, “At least for the most part the effects of the government’s intolerance are financial, whereas in other parts of the world those with the courage to stand up to the injustice are facing far worse, physical torture and even death.”

We in Scotland may feel immune, but Justice Abella reminded attendees that “the gap between the values the international community articulates and the values it enforces are so wide that almost any country that wants to can push its abuses through… In too many parts of the world, there are no regrets, no tolerance, no justice and no hope and those parts of the world are putting the rest of the world in danger because intolerance, the world’s fastest growth industry, seeks in its hegemonic insularity to impose its intolerant truth on others.”

How in those circumstances can we be hopeful. Ben and I attended a breakfast hosted by the Ontario Bar Association where they told us about a national campaign being launched to define the rule of law for the average person on the street, explaining its importance and what people can do to protect it. The campaign, Ours to Protect, was launched 5 November 2025.

Later in the week the renowned US journalist Bob Woodward appeared alongside IBA Executive Director Mark Ellis to discuss Donald Trump. The Watergate-breaking reporter said the current President poses an intolerable risk to US democracy, because he has shredded the rule of law and is using fear to extend the power of the presidency to an extent that we have never seen before. Fortunately, we have since heard that the Trump administration’s attempts to upend the norms of international justice are finding resistance from global institutions. By way of example, the UN are undergoing reforms which have been necessary for years, NATO is being funded more evenly, and the Council of Europe has created a new tribunal to prosecute the Russian aggression against the Ukraine in the absence of US leadership on that. As one panellist stated, “It’s like turning a big tanker around… it’s a slow process but eventually it gets there.” Let’s hope so.

And closer to home, as you may have heard or read in the news, the Society had a recent success in the Supreme court. We made the difficult decision last year to intervene in two criminal appeals as a reflection of our concerns that accused persons were being denied the right to present potentially relevant evidence at trial and the Supreme Court has found that the concerns we expressed are justified. The right to a fair trial, as is guaranteed by Article 6 the European Convention on Human Rights, is another aspect of the rule of law that is worth fighting for.