DLA Piper received the award for Collaboration at the ninth annual TrustLaw Awards 2019. DLA Piper, along with NGOs Asylum Access and Host International, other law firms and the Nokia Corporation were recognised for their work on a project to map a legal framework of the rights of refugees to work across Asia. The TrustLaw Awards celebrates remarkable pro bono projects undertaken by legal teams with NGOs and social enterprises around the world.
The Asia Pacific region is home to 4 million refugees. However, they face many barriers when entering a new country. Access to healthcare, education, housing, employment and the right to work can be extremely difficult.
Understanding the scale of this problem, NGOs Asylum Access and Host International embarked on a task to map the legal framework of the right of refugees to work in eight Asian countries. In order to do this, they engaged international and domestic law firms, including DLA Piper in Japan and Singapore. These firms were co-ordinated via an in-house team at Nokia and worked together to address one of the key challenges for refugees across Asia - the right to work.
The DLA Piper team looked at local laws relating to what skilled visas existed in the country as well as what legal protections were available for foreign workers. The same process was followed by local firms in each of the eight countries. The project seeks to provide long-term solutions such as ensuring that refugees have the right to work, helping them integrate within the host communities and assisting them in gaining access to other basic rights such as healthcare and education.
Commenting on receiving the award DLA Piper’s Hong Kong based Pro Bono Counsel for Asia, Annette Bain said: “Doing this project reinforced the importance of economic empowerment for refugees. It seems profoundly illogical to allow refugees to stay in a country without giving those who are able to do so, the right to work, support their families and contribute to the community, just as refugees have done successfully around the world since time immemorial. This benefits everyone.
Our collaborative project, led by TrustLaw and Nokia, sends the key message that pro bono work is not limited to accessing legal assistance. Pro bono means increasing access to justice in its many facets, including the right to access law, housing, health, education and work. The project was also a reminder of how much can be achieved when different sectors combine for the common good.”
