Nigerian legal professional Yusuf Nurudeen has gained the 2026 World Bar Affiliation (IBA) Professional Bono Award for his sustained efforts to bridge the justice hole via mobilising 141 volunteer attorneys to offer unfastened criminal products and services to indigent and inclined other folks throughout 18 states.
Nurudeen, founding father of the Basis for Public Passion Legislation and Construction, sometimes called The Professional Bono Centre, won the global honour on Thursday, 8 October, on the IBA’s annual awards breakfast in Copenhagen, Denmark.
His popularity puts Nigeria a number of the international locations whose criminal practitioners were honoured for the use of their skilled experience to advance get right of entry to to justice, specifically for individuals who may another way be denied efficient criminal illustration as a result of their monetary cases.
The award was once offered via Babatunde Ajibade (SAN), Chairman of the IBA Phase on Public and Skilled Passion (SPPI) for 2025–2026.
It recognises attorneys who display remarkable dedication to unfastened criminal products and services, increase leading edge approaches to professional bono observe and make a significant affect on people, communities or the justice device.
Nurudeen devoted the award to the 141 volunteer attorneys running thru his organisation, describing their collective efforts as the true pressure at the back of the popularity.
He stated the award was once no longer a non-public fulfillment however a tribute to attorneys who proceed to provide their time, wisdom and assets with out anticipating monetary repayment.
Nurudeen’s popularity displays the philosophy at the back of the IBA’s annual Professional Bono Award: get right of entry to to justice will have to no longer rely on wealth, and attorneys have a duty to make use of their experience to offer protection to individuals who can’t have enough money their products and services.
The global frame says its Professional Bono Committee seeks to foster a tradition through which particular person attorneys, legislation corporations and criminal organisations see unfastened criminal help as important to advancing justice, specifically in jurisdictions the place criminal help does no longer adequately meet public wishes.
The award has prior to now recognised attorneys whose paintings combines direct criminal help with efforts to determine sustainable constructions for handing over justice.
Fresh recipients come with Singapore’s Arfat Selvam, who gained the 2025 award after 17 years of management within the Legislation Society of Singapore’s professional bono projects; India’s Vineetha MG, honoured in 2024 for 20 years of provider to underserved communities; and Argentina’s María Fernanda Mierez, the 2023 recipient, recognised for 20 years of professional bono paintings and projects to interact more youthful attorneys in criminal help.
Their paintings illustrates the award’s broader goal: recognising no longer best particular person acts of provider but additionally sustained efforts to construct programs that assist extra other folks download criminal help.
For Nurudeen, that dedication is rooted in private enjoy and an working out of the way the absence of criminal illustration can exchange an individual’s existence.
In his acceptance speech, he traced his interest for get right of entry to to justice to his upbringing in Ikotun, Lagos, the place he was the primary legal professional in his circle of relatives.
He mirrored on how wrongful arrest and extended incarceration can have affected his circle of relatives, pronouncing his ambitions may were reduce quick if his father had suffered the destiny of 2 Nigerians whose circumstances he cited.
“If my father were wrongfully arrested and incarcerated for 13 years, like Igba Isaac, or 8 years, like Pa Idowu Fashola, my desires may were reduce quick,” he stated.
He defined that the mirrored image underscored how an injustice in opposition to one particular person can impact a whole circle of relatives, depriving kids of alternatives and disrupting dependents’ lives.
He known amongst the ones maximum uncovered to such injustices other folks detained as a result of they can’t have enough money attorneys, girls trapped in abusive marriages, kids whose repairs rights move unenforced, and households prone to dropping their properties or livelihoods as a result of they can’t have enough money to pursue criminal therapies
For such other folks, formal popularity in their criminal rights would possibly be offering little coverage in the event that they lack the approach to put into effect them.
Nurudeen argued that the criminal occupation will have to confront this disparity quite than let poverty decide who receives a defence, whose grievances are heard and who can search redress.
“Leaving those sufferers of our society’s inherent inequality helpless can’t be the promise of the criminal occupation,” he stated.
“Our enterprise will have to be to make sure the legislation stays an software of justice, no longer a privilege reserved for wealth, energy, or affect.”
Via The Professional Bono Centre, he has led a community of volunteer attorneys offering criminal help to those who may another way be not able to safe illustration.
The community’s presence in 18 states supplies a platform to increase help past particular person circumstances, bringing in combination practitioners in a position to make use of their skilled talents within the public curiosity.
Nurudeen stated the award will have to renew the decision to motion, no longer conclude the paintings.
“I settle for this award no longer as a declaration that our paintings is whole, however as a problem to do extra,” he stated.
“It renews my dedication to resisting the commodification of justice and making sure that poverty does no longer transform a sentence of helplessness.”
The opposite recipients recognised on the Copenhagen rite had been Charmaine Yap of Singapore, who won the IBA Exceptional Younger Legal professional Award, and Zar Li Aye of Myanmar, honoured for exceptional contribution via a criminal practitioner to human rights.
Yap was once recognised for her skilled and educational excellence and her dedication to the use of the legislation to advance justice for inclined communities. Li Aye was once honoured for protecting the rights of Myanmar’s Chin indigenous group and advocating for marginalised teams.
The 3 awards, offered on the SPPI breakfast throughout the IBA’s annual convention, highlighted other facets of the criminal occupation’s public-interest tasks: increasing get right of entry to to justice, nurturing skilled excellence and protecting human rights.
For Nurudeen and his community of volunteer attorneys, on the other hand, the fast problem stays turning the promise of criminal rights into sensible coverage for individuals who lack the monetary approach to shield them.
He stated professional bono provider will have to be noticed no longer simply as charity or an occasional skilled gesture, however as an very important a part of a justice device dedicated to equity and equality prior to the legislation.
He stated the popularity had reinforced his unravel to paintings in opposition to a society the place nobody is just too deficient to be defended, too powerless to be heard or too marginalised to be secure.
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