The European Union Integrated Rule of Law Mission in Iraq, (EUJUST LEX), is a

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

mission to support and train judges, prison officials and other justice-sector workers in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

, to improve the rule of law and protection for human rights. EUJUST LEX is part of the European Union's External Action service. The mission has around 50-60 staff, with members from several different EU (and non-EU) states. It is divided into three main teams - supporting courts, police, and prisons respectively.

History

Support for the rule of law was requested by

Ibrahim al-Jaafari Ibrahim Abd al-Karim al-Eshaiker ( ar, إبراهيم عبد الكريم الأشيقر; born 25 March 1947), also known as Ibrahim al-Jaafari, is an Iraqi politician who was Prime Minister of Iraq in the Iraqi Transitional Government from 200 ...

, who was president of Iraq's interim government. EUJUST LEX was created by decision 6328/05 of the Council of the European Union; it started operations in July 2005, with Stephen White as the head of mission. The mandate has been extended repeatedly; the most recent extension, approved in June 2012 by a meeting of 27 EU ambassadors, continues until 31 December 2013. It was initially headquartered in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, for security reasons, with a small liaison office in the British embassy in Baghdad; but this moved to

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

in early 2011. There are also offices in Erbil and

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...

. , EUJUST LEX had trained over 5000 Iraqi officials and the total cost of the mission was around €118 million.

References

External links

EEAS website

EUJUST LEX photos
{{Common Security and Defence Policy/missions, state=collapsed Government of Iraq Rule of law missions of the European Union