The first association with the name of "Lawyers Without Borders" was created in Belgium in 1992 by a group of lawyers campaigning for the defence of human rights. Following the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Lawyers Without Borders initiated in this country its first large-scale project, so as to allow equitable trials by offering victims and accused alike the services of volunteer lawyers mandated by the association.
LWB France was founded in 1998 in Toulouse. The movement spread to other European and African countries also, but the most active sections to this day remain those of Belgium, France and Canada.
Following a meeting with the president of LWB France in 2002, Dominique-Anne Roy set out to launch the Québécois version of LWB. Pierre Brun and Pascal Paradis joined and founded LWB Québec, with the purpose of contributing to the international solidarity efforts by building on the professional experience of lawyers from this province, on a volunteer basis.
Today, Lawyers Without Borders Canada (LWBC) is an organization for the defence of human rights which manages international cooperation programs and leads dozens of yearly missions in various countries, which counts on permanent staff in Quebec City as well as on the ground, and which, most of all, participates concretely in the advancement of justice and human rights for vulnerable groups, so that we may live in a society with more justice and solidarity.
