Promoting judicial integrity by supporting those who will themselves train judges and judicial staff in their respective countries, these UNODC resources are being rolled out in 40 pilot countries. This month, the fourth training of trainers was organized at UNODC headquarters in Vienna, gathering judges and judicial staff from some 20 countries, all aiming at organizing trainings in a near future and incorporating these unique resources. Marco Teixeira, Senior Programme Officer, welcomed the judges and launched the training by reminding them of the principal goals shared by all: "The Network's purpose is to collectively address existing and emerging challenges related to judicial integrity and to promote peer-learning and information exchange."
As a judge, I think of window cleaning whenever the issue of transparency arises; it gives me perspective. Granted, the mere sound of the word sometimes provokes fear or nervousness. Perhaps we feel that our own privacy would be so invaded that we could no longer enjoy it. Or perhaps being transparent demands a vulnerability which we would be terrified to show. But as judges, we ask society to trust that we will make sound judgments. Judgments which many can neither read nor understand, and which are given by persons whose existence they discover only when the appointment makes the news. Once appointed, we so often fail to appreciate society's fear of an institution which, for far too long, has tried to foster respect through strange rituals and aloofness; an institution whose members stand firmly on their 'independence,' sometimes unwilling to accept that each and every one of us has dependencies, for no man is an island.