I arrived at the Luzira maximum security prison at about 11:15 a.m. with Andrew Khaukha, who serves as the Secretary (logistics leader) of the Plea Bargaining Task Force. Andrew had spoken with the warden in advance so he knew we were coming. After navigating three levels of security we made it inside the warden’s office. […]
My apologies for being a little opaque about the project we are working on during this trip, so what follows is an overview. In the summer of 2009, while two Pepperdine law students (Greer Illingworth and Micheline Zamora) were interning for the head of Uganda’s Criminal Division of its High Court, they noticed that Uganda’s […]
“We are having problems balancing the fuel,” the pilot said as we sat on the tarmac in Amsterdam. Two hours later, he rambled on about wings and fuselages and fuel movement. The important words were “new plane” and “new gate.” So when we finally landed in Kampala at around 2:00 a.m. (3.5 hours late), I […]
Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport feels way too familiar as I upload this update on this, my fourteenth journey to Uganda in the past four years. The fifteen days I will be on the ground are pregnant with unpredictability. But such is life in Africa. On Saturday, I delivered to LAX the nine members of the Uganda […]
It was such an honor and privilege to have IJM President Gary Haugen teaching at Pepperdine last week. My role was to be his “co-teacher” in this one-unit, one-week intensive class on International Human Rights. I reached my highest and best use as his “co-teacher” by taking roll, preparing the written administrative materials, and […]
Unfortunately, I spoke too soon. In my prior post a few weeks ago, I explained Uganda’s lamentable history of “land grabbing” in the immediate wake of the death of the male leader of a family. Too often, and too successfully, relatives of the deceased forcefully (and forcibly) eject the grieving widow and her children from […]
As I rode to the airport on Friday, I once again saw through unjaded eyes the raw texture of the landscape and peoplescape around me. My companion was California Superior Court Judge Paul Beeman, who had never been to Africa before. “God, this is beautiful,” he said as the sunset on both the productive day […]
The events of the past two days have reminded me that diligence, patience, and prayer often lead to positive outcomes. Henry’s father David was laid to rest from his toil and pain on this earth on Thursday. Regretfully, I was unable to travel the three-plus hours each way to attend the gathering due to the […]
Pepperdine became engaged with Uganda’s Judiciary as a direct result of a speech by Restore International founder Bob Goff to Pepperdine students in February of 2007 during “International Justice Mission Week” at the law school. During that talk, Bob whimsically invited the Pepperdine students in the audience to accompany him to a judicial conference he […]
Like other African countries, Uganda has a lengthy history of resolving its disputes informally. Before the arrival of the Brits in the 1860s and its subsequent colonization, Uganda didn’t have a formal justice system in the way that term is commonly understood. Rather, the tribal leaders served as judge, jury, and (sometimes) executioner. Conduct […]
