Peláez-Pier launches IBA annual meeting by focusing on corruption

October 04, 2010 1:41 PM

Venezuela's Fernando Peláez-Pier addressed last night delegates of the annual International Bar Association conference -- his last as president.

Peláez-Pier, head of Venezuelan firm Hoet Peláez Castillo & Duque, used the opportunity to promote the IBA as the "global voice of the legal profession", drawing the audience's attention to a recent project in association with the OECD and the United Nations, which seeks to elevate the role of law firms in fighting corruption.

Details of the project, which has so far seen a global survey and initial training programmes in Argentina and Chile, are being presented during a session today.

Peláez-Pier said the highlight of his two year term, which ends at the end of the year, has been "everything".

Some 4,500 delegates have turned out for the conference, which the Canadian city last held in 1998.

Last night's keynote speaker was Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, a multiple award winner and the US's most recognised political investigative journalist.

He entertained the audience with tales from his career, including lunch with Al Gore, interviewing former US president George Bush on the motives behind the Iraq war, and of course the Watergate scandal, the story he broke about ex-president Richard Nixon with fellow journalist Carl Bernstein.

Woodward said his biggest concern for the world is the level of secrecy in governments.

Law student Leah George-Wilson welcomed attendees with a prayer on behalf of a First Nations indigenous community, and urged listeners to look at their own countries' indigenous communities and ask how they can help them.

(Source: Latin Lawyer)

4 October 2010