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ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Staff

Following the departure of Natalia Schiffrin, who held the position of Legal Officer for the Caribbean and for Free Expression, Mariann Meier Wang joined Interights, taking up the full time position as Legal Officer for Free Expression, though later also taking temporary responsibility for an emerging programme on discrimination.

Vanessa Gosselin, who had held a short-term post as Programme Assistant for the South Asia and Commonwealth Law Programmes left and was replaced, also on a temporary basis, by Floriane Begasse.

Cathal Sheerin joined Interights as Administrative Assistant, a new position.

Board

Livingstone Sewanyana, Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative in Uganda, who joined the Board for the period of his one year residence in England, resigned when he returned to Uganda. Otherwise there were no changes to the membership of the Board this year.

A meeting of Interights� International Advisory Council took place in June 2000. Discussion was wide-ranging, and focussed especially on intersecting interests of the programmes. These included access to justice, public interest law and strategic litigation, training and resources for judges and lawyers. Potential areas of new or developing activity were discussed including economic, social and cultural rights, international justice and work in the Middle East, with valuable feedback and interchange.

Jochen Frowein stepped down from the Advisory Council at the end of the year. There were otherwise no changes to the membership.


FINANCIAL REPORT

Income for the year remained steady - �742,439 as compared with �756,685 in 1999/2000. By comparison expenditure for the year showed an increase of 11%, up from �651,335 to �722,038. The increase was largely due to increased activity on two programmes (Central and Eastern Europe and South Asia), and to the holding of an Advisory Council meeting. Overall, income exceeded expenditure for the year by �20,401. The result was an increase of �9,312 on the year-end unrestricted fund balance (up from �21,689 to �31,001) and an increase of �11,089 on the restricted fund balance (up from �177,700 to �188,789).

The year also saw a substantial increase in pre-funding for future expenditure ('deferred income') from �61,283 to �534,001 (�211,099 restricted; �322,902 unrestricted). The increase explains the substantial increase in the year-end cash balance from �276,923 to �819,960: the funds will be expended on future commitments, principally in the financial year 2002-2003.

Interights relied for its activities during the year on generous support from the following: The Alan & Babette Sainsbury Charitable Fund, The British Council, Butterworth and Co. (Publishers) Ltd., Charities Aid Foundation, Community Fund (UK), Council of Europe, The Danish International Development Agency, Department for International Development (UK), European Commission, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, The Ford Foundation, The JM Kaplan Fund, The John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, The John Merck Fund, Know How Fund, The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Midi TV Ltd., The Netherlands Helsinki Committee, News International plc, The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, The Oak Foundation, Open Society Institute, Norwegian Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, The United Nations Development Fund for Women. We are also very grateful for a number of donations from anonymous and individual donors.

We benefited greatly this year from a strong relationship developed with the law firm Allen and Overy, which has provided both material assistance and pro bono support of its lawyers in a number of the cases mentioned here. We are also very grateful to PILI, Ukko Ltd and the University of Essex for their generous pro bono assistance with our Website. The support provided by Butterworths for the publication of our two periodicals, the Bulletin and the Digest, which has been invaluable, came to an end this year.