Belizean lawyers, magistrates, judges and members of the private sector are taking part in a special seminar throughout this week. The event began on Monday and is scheduled to run up to Friday. Antoinette Moore is the country director for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative in Belize who detailed us on what was taking place in today's session.

Antoinette Moore - Country Director
"Today the ABA ROLI, the Association I work with is co-sponsoring a training for Supreme Court judges and some of the magistrates. The training is being conducted by visiting justice, a court of appeals judge from Sierra Leone, Dr. Nicholas Brown Marc. The training is on a broad area of transnational crime so Justice Brown Marc is dealing with issues that he has experienced in his country, in his court; drug trafficking, human trafficking and money laundering, the proceeds of these crime. He is talking about the legislation that exists in his country as well as the difficulties in prosecuting and convicting criminals that commit these particular offences."

But how did this training come about? To help us understand who's behind it here is Dominic Le Moignan the Director of The International Governance and Risk Institute.

Dominic Le Moignan, Director of the International Governance and Risk Institute
"It has been quite a nice collaborative effort really, it has all been funded primarily by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the British High Commission. The British High Commissioner and the Deputy High Commissioner Jackie Brown have been instrumental in pushing along this; Antoinette Moore from the American Bar Association has been instrumental in forming it and being part of it and they put up some of the funding. Our organization brought in the expertise and arranged the logistics behind all three programs. It has been a really good collaboration. Marilyn Williams from the FIU, Kenneth Benjamin the Chief Justice has also been instrumental in coordinating everything. They have really been focusing on the specific needs Belize has in order that they can be targeted most effectively and this capacity building skills can be transferred from us."

The training ends on Friday and those involved are looking forward to have other seminars in the future. The facilitators say they feel great to be in Belize and are looking forward to continue enjoying a couple more days in the jewel by visiting the islands.

LOVEFM