Pro Bono Innovators 2023 Honoree Linklaters

In our 2023 issue of Pro Bono Innovators, Bloomberg Law honors Linklaters for its work providing pro bono advice to the UN Refugee Agency on the launch of a blockchain payment solution to distribute financial assistance to displaced persons in Ukraine. The firm also collaborated with international non-governmental organizations to draft pan-African guidelines on enforced disappearances.

Your firm’s global fintech team provided pro bono advice to the UN Refugee Agency on the launch of a blockchain payment solution to aid displaced persons in Ukraine. The firm also collaborated with several international nongovernmental organizations to draft pan-African guidelines on enforced disappearances. How did your firm strategize on how to approach these matters?

Our strategy begins well in advance of the phone call or email requesting help to make something new a reality. It begins with building the client relationship – building our understanding of their context, building their understanding of our capabilities, and forging high levels of trust. For the pro bono team, each idea or request to collaborate on something truly innovative will need its own unique approach to get it launched and underway.

Elsha Butler, Linklaters head of Pro Bono practice: On the creation of a first-of-its-kind blockchain payment solution for internally displaced persons in Ukraine, speed was of the essence, but we knew we needed to go deep into the scope first. Our strategy was to seek to truly understand the aims and challenges, and to conduct a thorough forecast of the breadth of specialist expertise required and issues this project might encounter along the way.

This initial work helped us ensure swift leadership from firm partners across several practice areas and locations. It meant the firm could provide a deep commitment to the UN Refugee Agency at the outset of this complex project that we would see it through alongside them as their trusted advisor. We didn’t have to do any convincing; the potential of a project like this sells itself!

On the enforced disappearances project, the litigation team had extensive discussions with REDRESS, a global non-profit delivering justice and reparation for survivors of torture, challenging impunity for perpetrators and advocating for reforms to combat torture. Key to those discussions was understanding the role of the guidelines as the first African instrument to end enforced disappearances, and what the expert REDRESS team and their non-profit partners wanted to achieve through the drafting and adoption process.

Charalampos Dimoulis, managing associate: We expected the REDRESS enforced disappearance guidelines project to be a big undertaking (and we were right!). We had particular crunch periods in the run-up to the Christmas break. We staffed the matter primarily out of our litigation group in recognition of the specialized and sensitive nature of the project and the need for careful advocacy. A large team of lawyers and trainee solicitors then coordinated closely with our partners at REDRESS to research relevant case law, draft the guidelines and help with the translation of the guidelines into French.

What were the most innovative aspects of two of your client matters in your view? And who took the lead on driving innovation with the work?

The most innovative aspects of our two examples are the work products involved; both were milestone achievements for our clients and have the potential to scale and help many more individuals and communities.

For the UN Refugee Agency blockchain solution in Ukraine, we leveraged our finance and technology expertise to channel innovative blockchain solutions as effective aid to people in need. The advice provided by our team combined with the vision and aims of the UN Refugee Agency was the innovation on this project. Through the successful pilot, the agency distributed cash assistance to those displaced by the war in Ukraine in Circle Internet Financial USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin where one USDC is equal to one US dollar.

The money was transferred directly into the recipient’s digital wallet. It could then be withdrawn in dollars, euros, or local currency at any global MoneyGram location or transferred to personal bank accounts. This innovative blockchain payment solution is an example of how advancing technology can be leveraged to bring humanitarian aid to those who have been left particularly vulnerable with increased speed and efficiency.

Richard Hay, partner and UK head of Fintech, led the matter alongside Michael Voisin, Agata Siuchninska, Julian Cunningham-Day, Benjamin Teji and Carl Fernandes. He is extremely proud to have worked closely with the agency on such an innovative milestone project.

For the adoption of the first African instrument to end enforced disappearances in Africa, [we] built on years of work by REDRESS and other human rights organizations to expose enforced disappearance as a form of torture and promote the use of strategic litigation to tackle disappearances.

Enforced disappearance is the practice of arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of a state (or by persons who are acting with the authorization or approval of a state). It seeks to conceal the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person and places them outside the protection of the law while leaving their friends and family in the dark about their fate or whereabouts. The guidelines are the first of their kind.

For maximum impact, the guidelines needed to be both uniform enough that they can be applied across all African countries, yet nuanced enough that the scope of implementation is practical on a country-by-country basis. Our team, led by Satindar Dogra, Charalampos Dimoulis, Emma Kate Cooney and Liberty Brown, worked with multiple stakeholders to ensure the guidelines matched this nuanced need.

Tell us more about the impact of the matters on the local, national, and/or global level.

On the UN Refugee Agency blockchain matter, the client was able to successfully pilot a blockchain payment solution in Ukraine, helping vulnerable populations impacted by war to access funds and cover basic needs like rent, food, medical care and heating.

The solution is being piloted in Kviv, Lviv, and Vinnytsia and will expand to other cities in Ukraine, with the potential to expand further, aligning with the agency’s goal to expand the systemic and rapid use of cash-based interventions, to ensure people are given the freedom and dignity to decide how to prioritize the assistance given based on personal need.

On the pan-Africa enforced disappearances matter, since 1980 the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances has received over 6,000 claims from victims of enforced disappearances in Africa. However, due to a combination of factors including denial of the use of this crime, victims’ fear of reporting cases and a norm of impunity, these numbers are believed to be much higher.

Only 17 out of 54 African states have ratified the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances which bans the practice. Our work with REDRESS helped to shine a light on the issue, bringing it to the attention of key stakeholders and affirming the need to provide meaningful justice and accountability to victims.

We provided recommendations for legal and policy reform, highlighting the plight of those seeking justice and the lack of remedies available to victims. The guidelines build on existing law and encourage states to ratify existing treaties that prevent enforced disappearances in the continent.

Additionally, in the absence of an existing binding document, the guidelines can be used by civil society organizations to hold State Parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights accountable.

Why do you think your team ultimately achieved successful results in these matters?

True to the ethos of our firm, our teams were bold and ambitious in their approach and strengthened by the diversity of our members. We were creative and agile in our problem solving, focused on producing effective solutions with wide scale reach based on the needs of our clients, the communities, and individuals they serve and their civil society stakeholders.

We were committed to leveraging our expertise, technology, and wider supplier network to deliver positive social impact. Most importantly, our teams were passionate about the people and the causes they were working for on these projects, going above and beyond to deliver innovative legal solutions for our clients.

What did you do to celebrate when these matters were resolved?

For all of the lawyers involved in these projects, seeing the guidelines be published and the blockchain solution become a reality were memorable career moments. REDRESS kindly invited the litigation team to celebrate their collaborative efforts and achievements together at their summer party, while the Fintech team met with the UN Refugee Agency legal counsel in person to celebrate finalizing the blockchain solution and in doing so using their day-to-day expertise to facilitate critical support for people in need.

Responses provided by Elsha Butler, Head of Pro Bono Practice; Zahra Vakil, associate, Technology, Media and Telecommunications & Intellectual Property; Sophie Brambley, managing associate, Pro Bono; Charalampos Dimoulis, managing associate, Litigation, Arbitration & Investigations; Michael Voisin, partner, Capital Markets; and Richard Hay, partner, Capital Markets.