In the News...

Latin Lawyer and Vance Center team up for pro bono survey (1/8/2013)

How Innovators Want to Transform African Media (12/26/12)

Vance Center committee member featured in the NYTimes (12/27/12)

NYC Bar President Carey R. Dunne discusses the Vance Center's role in advancing global social justice (10/22/12)

Stolper Featured in "Voice of Experience" Profile on The Glass Hammer

Shearman & Sterling partner Antonia Stolper, head of the firm’s Capital Markets-Americas and Latin America groups, was featured as a "Voice of Experience" on The Glass Hammer, an online community designed for women executives in financial services, law and business.

Read Antonia Stolper's "Voice of Experience" feature on The Glass Hammer

Introduction: The International Pro Bono Network

Freedom of Information in Chile

The Committee on Communications and Media Law and the Vance Center for International Justice submitted an amicus brief in the Matter of the Constitutionality of Section 2 of Article 5 of the Access to Public Information Law to the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Chile. The case concerns a request under Chile’s freedom of information laws for access to certain e-mails sent to and from Chilean government e-mail addresses. This submission provides an overview of how U.S. freedom of information laws have been interpreted with regard to electronic communications, in the hope that it might be of assistance to the Constitutional Tribunal in its deliberations in this case. The brief notes that the purpose of the U.S. freedom of information laws is to promote the fundamental principle that citizens have a right to access their government’s public documents, while balancing the government’s ability to operate and privacy of governmental employees. Although there is variation in transparency laws across the fifty states and the U.S. federal government, there is a strong presumption in favor of disclosure and a clear trend in favor of public disclosure of government communications involving official business, whether or not those communications are in electronic or physical form and made to or from government computer systems.