The American Lawyer
November 2005
BARTALK Vol. 27

A Force for Good:
The Public International Law and Policy Group was a nominee for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize
Joshua Lipton

Ten years ago, Michael Scharf and Paul Williams were just two friends who had quit the U.S. Department of State to teach and form a pro bono boutique -- the Public International Law & Policy Group, based in Washington, D.C., and Cleveland. This year they thought they'd hit the jackpot when PILPG was nominated for a $1.5 million Nobel Peace Prize.

(In October the prize went to the International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei.)

Scharf and Williams got the idea to start PILPG on a sunny day in 1993, in the courtyard of the State Department. Scharf was heading to the New England School of Law in Boston, and Williams had enrolled at Cambridge University to pursue a Ph.D. in international environmental law. While working on the crisis in Yugoslavia for the State Department, the two attorneys had spent long evenings together, cowriting diplomatic correspondence and drafting resolutions. Although they were leaving government service, Scharf says, "we didn't want to give up the satisfaction of having an impact on international relations."

So they decided to start an unorthodox law firm. PILPG, Scharf and Williams imagined, would provide free guidance to developing states on the legal complexities of peace negotiations, constitution drafting, and war crimes tribunals. A friend of Scharf's at Steptoe & Johnson helped them incorporate PILPG, and in 1995, they landed their first client: the Bosnian government, which was headed into the Dayton Peace Negotiations. Other clients soon followed. The firm's first major donor was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Additional funding now comes from the Open Society Institute. And law firms including White & Case and Sullivan & Cromwell donate pro bono hours worth $2 million a year.

Today the 60 attorneys of PILPG -- mostly former State Department advisers and other international law experts -- work pro bono for nations around the world. The firm has helped establish war crimes tribunals in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia, and has represented tribes from Botswana and Ethiopia. "We came into this because we are idealists," Scharf says. "We want to make the world a better place."

Not long ago, eight former clients paid tribute: They nominated PILPG for the Peace Prize, arguing that the firm has "significantly contribut[ed] to the promotion of peace throughout the globe." The nominees included the governments of Afghanistan and Bosnia, as well as David Crane, former prosecutor of the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.

But Scharf and Williams are not resting on their laurels. Scharf, 42, splits his time between teaching law at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University and assisting war crimes tribunals, while Williams, 40, leads peace negotiations and drafts constitutions when he isn't teaching law at American University in D.C. Their latest assignment: shaping the future of Iraq.

Scharf played a behind-the-scenes role preparing for the trial of Saddam Hussein, which will be conducted by the Iraqi Special Tribunal this fall. Twice in the last year, he and another PILPG staffer flew to London to lead seminars for the 39 judges who will preside over the trial. Their curriculum included mock trials and discussions of such topics as of genocide, plea-bargaining, and self-representation.

In 2004, when the U.S. Department of Justice tapped him for the job, Scharf was skeptical. "I thought a lot of these Iraqi judges would be politicians who would just use the trial to further their careers," he says. Instead, he met professionals with decades of experience trying murder, robbery, and corruption cases. The Iraqi Bar Association and the U.S. - backed Iraqi governing counsel had chosen them from hundreds of applicants, and they were approved by the popularly elected National Assembly.

Scharf says the judges were independent-minded: At one point, he told them the Hussein trial should not be televised because the former dictator might use the spotlight to encourage the insurgency. The judges disagreed. "They thought it was important to have transparency and to have the Iraqi people watch those proceedings," Scharf says.

Some have doubts about the Iraqi war crimes tribunal. For example, David Scheffer, who was U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes until 2001, would have preferred a tribunal established by the United Nations. The current tribunal, he says, gives the appearance of "victor's justice," since it was set up during the occupation and has only one benefactor -- the United States. And because the Iraqi judges chose the option of sentencing Hussein to death, many nations will not participate.

Scharf is optimistic. "I hope the convictions are supported by a ton of evidence and that there is a historic record of the horrors of the Hussein regime," he says. And though he didn't get the prize, he says, "A couple times, the world would've been a different place if PILPG hadn't been involved."