Ludovic Trarieux Prize Awarded to Yulia Yurgilevich in Warsaw

On May 25, 2024, the Warsaw Bar Association hosted the Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize Award ceremony. Previously, on September 22, 2023, at the Palace of Justice in Rome, 26 European jurists of the International Human Rights Prize Jury awarded the prize to attorney Yulia Yurgilevich, who was sentenced to six years in a general regime colony.

As the laureate could not attend the award ceremony, the prize was accepted on behalf of Yulia Yurgilevich by Maria Kolesova-Gudilina, the attorney who has been stripped of her professional status in Belarus, and currently serves as the President of the Belarusian Association of Human Rights Lawyers. The award was presented by the jury chairman, Honorary President of the European Lawyers Union Bertrand Favreau and Mikołaj Pietrzak, Chairman of the Warsaw Bar Association.

The Warsaw Bar Association itself was honored with the Ludovic Trarieux Prize in 2022.

Established in 1984, the "Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize" is awarded to "a lawyer, regardless of nationality or bar association, who has demonstrated throughout their career, through their activities or sufferings, the defense of human rights, the promotion of the right to defense, the rule of law, and the fight against racism and intolerance in any form". It is the oldest and most prestigious award given to a lawyer worldwide, memorializing French jurist Ludovic Trarieux (1840-1904). The first award was presented on March 29, 1985, to Nelson Mandela, who was then imprisoned. The prize is awarded annually in partnership with the Human Rights Institute of the Bordeaux Bar, the Human Rights Institute of the Paris Bar, the Human Rights Institute of the Brussels Bar, the Forensic Union for Human Rights Defense (Rome, Italy), the Berlin Bar, Bars of Luxembourg, Geneva, Amsterdam, as well as the International Association of Lawyers (UIA), the European Bars Federation, and the European Bar Human Rights Institute (IDHAE).