Multilateral – annual report 2024

Details

Published: September 4, 2025

Overall Concept

The aim of the IRZ’s multilateral events is to bring together legal practitioners from different legal professions with colleagues from other countries to discuss specialist and reform topics. In this way, the participants can not only expand their own skills and knowledge, but also receive new impulses for possible areas of reform in their domestic legal system or the application practice of the legal framework.

The internship programmes provide a special insight into legal and judicial practice in Germany, focusing on a selected key area. This year it was civil and commercial law. In these programmes, the interns can gain a direct impression of how court hearings actually take place, how the parties involved in the proceedings communicate with each other and how recent developments (such as digitalisation and artificial intelligence) are dealt with in Germany. The work shadowing programmes are partly offered in a modified form in English to also reach legal practitioners who do not speak German.

A long-term goal of these formats is the establishment of a transnational network, both within the respective target groups as well as beyond the professional groups. As part of the internal monitoring, the German involved parties often emphasise as particularly valuable that the host institutions and law firms in Germany gain specific points of contact in numerous countries through the interns. These contacts are also very important for the IRZ’s bilateral project work, providing opportunities for interesting follow-up projects – even several years later – some of which are initiated by former participants.

Traditional multilateral programmes

Internship programme for lawyers

In 2024, the internship programme for lawyers took place for the 30th time. From 1993 to 2024, around 530 lawyers took part in the programmes.

This year’s German-language programme for twelve lawyers from Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Lithuania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine took place in August and September and was carried out as usual in cooperation with the German Federal Bar and the German Bar Association.

Speakers from the German Federal Bar and the German Bar Association, as well as other lawyers, gave the interns an insight into professional law, self-administration by lawyers, contract and company law, the complaints procedure before the European Court of Human Rights and the impact of the Court’s judgements on national legal systems.

The introductory week was followed by a three-week work-shadowing phase in a law firm. This gave the participants the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the work of the German legal profession. Not least because the internship lasted several weeks, the interns were intensively involved in the work of the respective law firm. They were able to familiarise themselves in depth with proceedings, took part in client meetings and court hearings and engaged in a lively professional exchange with their German colleagues. The law firms supervising rated the interns’ stay as ­beneficial, and in some cases, there are plans for future cooperation.

Internship programme for notaries

In November 2024, IRZ and the Federal Chamber of Notaries with the support of the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks organised the multilateral practice-oriented training in English for a total of eleven notaries and notary assessors from the IRZ partner states Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

The one-week seminar focussed on the role of the notary in the preventive administration of justice in Germany, how candidates are appointed notaries and issues relating to professional representation at national and international level. Furthermore, topics such as real estate law, loan secured by mortgage, preventing money laundering, family and inheritance law, commercial and company law and private international law in notarial practice were discussed, as well as the advantages and challenges of the digitalisation of the notaries’ office. In addition to the lectures and discussions, the participants visited the notaries’ office of Dr Rabl and Dr Gassen in Bonn to discuss such as office organisation.

Focus on the “Middle East training programme”

To support young legal professionals from the Middle East, the IRZ organised a series of seminars in 2016 specifically for Arabic-speaking refugee lawyers. This has been continued annually ever since. The aim of the training programme was initially to familiarise the participants with Rule of Law related topics preparation for a potential return to their home countries. Over time, aspects of local social and professional integration in Germany increasingly came into focus. The programme took place for the last time this year. The events listed below were part of the programme.

Online seminar on “The foundations and principles of international humanitarian law and the work of the International Criminal Court in enforcing them”

Following on from last year’s online seminar on the protection of Human Rights, this year’s IRZ online seminar focussed on the foundations and principles of international humanitarian law at the request of the participants. The speakers covered the legal framework in armed conflicts as well as the role of the International Criminal Court in the enforcement of international humanitarian law. The aim was to provide participants with a deeper understanding of international humanitarian law.

Online seminar “The role and function of the separation of ­powers and its significance for the Rule of Law”

Another online seminar focused on the “Role and function of the separation of powers and its significance for the Rule of Law”. Priority was given to the foundations and principles of the Rule of Law, the principle of the separation of powers and mechanisms for controlling state power. Potential threats to the Rule of Law were also discussed and the importance of the separation of powers for ensuring the Rule of Law was emphasised.

Two-day guest lecture for lawyers from the Middle East in Berlin

Finally, the IRZ welcomed twelve lawyers from the Middle East to Berlin in October 2024. The priorities of the two-day face-to-face event were topics relevant to migration and labour law, including the legal requirements for occupational health and safety in the workplace and the current Residence Act.

Further multilateral programmes

Promoting the participation of competition authorities from partner states in the International Conference on Competition in Berlin

In keeping with a long-standing tradition, the IRZ once again supported the participation of representatives of the competition authorities from the IRZ partner states in the International Conference on Competition. The conference takes place every two years and is organised by the Bundeskartellamt. It was held in Berlin from 28 February to 1 March 2024. This enables the participating representatives of the competition authorities of the IRZ partner states to discuss best practices from other antitrust authorities as well as current antitrust issues.

Festival Summer Event

Members of the German Bundestag, representatives from the federal and state governments as well as high-ranking representatives of the judiciary, from business and associations, including the then State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Justice, Dr Angelika Schlunck, and the then President of the Board of Trustees of the IRZ, Benjamin Strasser – then Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Justice – attended the IRZ’s joint summer party with the German Association of Judges, the German Notaries’ Association and the German Association of Women Lawyers in June 2024. In his role as Federal Minister of Justice, Dr Marco Buschmann emphasised the importance of the Rule of Law in challenging times and underlined the role of the judiciary as the guardian of the law. The IRZ’s General Director, Alexandra Albrecht, focussed in particular on the EU accession prospects of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova and underlined the IRZ’s commitment to both partner states on the complex path to the European Union.