Fair Trials is founded
Helping people facing criminal proceedings abroad.
Our Work
On this page
Our mission is international, but we are currently focused on campaigning for fair and equal justice systems in Europe.
30 Years of Impact
For more than three decades, Fair Trials has helped change the way criminal justice systems treat people.
Founded in London in 1992, Fair Trials began by supporting people facing criminal proceedings far from home. Through this work, we saw first-hand how language barriers, limited access to legal representation, weak procedural safeguards and unequal treatment could undermine the right to a fair trial. What started as individual casework quickly revealed a wider truth: these were not isolated injustices, but symptoms of systemic problems that demanded systemic solutions.
That insight has shaped our work ever since.
Over the years, Fair Trials evolved from supporting individual cases to becoming one of the leading voices for fair and equal criminal justice. We have combined legal expertise, research, strategic litigation and policy advocacy to improve the laws, institutions and practices that affect millions of people. Rather than responding to injustice one case at a time, we have worked to prevent it by strengthening the systems that protect fundamental rights.
A defining feature of our work has always been collaboration. We have built networks of defence lawyers, academics, civil society organisations and people with lived experience who bring practical knowledge from across jurisdictions. Together, these partnerships have enabled us to identify emerging challenges, develop evidence-based solutions and ensure that the realities of criminal justice are reflected in national, European and international policymaking.
Our work has helped shape some of the most significant developments in criminal justice over the past three decades. We have contributed to stronger procedural rights across the European Union, championed fairer approaches to extradition and pre-trial detention, supported strategic litigation before European courts, and played a leading role in exposing and reforming abuses of INTERPOL’s Red Notice system. Throughout this work, our focus has remained constant: ensuring that efficiency and security never come at the expense of justice and fundamental rights.
Today, Fair Trials is based in Brussels and continues to work for fair and equal criminal justice across Europe. At the same time, the expertise, partnerships and experience we have built over more than thirty years continue to inform debates well beyond Europe. Many of the challenges facing criminal justice today — from cross-border policing and digital technologies to discrimination and access to justice — do not stop at national borders. Neither does the knowledge needed to address them.
Our organisation has evolved over time, but our purpose has not. We continue to work with those closest to the problems, to challenge injustice where it occurs, and to build criminal justice systems that are fair, effective and accountable for everyone.
LEAP is launched
Creating Europe’s largest network of criminal justice experts.
Fair trial rights become European law
Fair Trials helps shape and later monitor the implementation of the EU Procedural Rights Directives.
Reforming INTERPOL
The first report exposing abuses of Red Notices.
Brussels
Fair Trials moves to the centre of EU criminal justice policymaking.
From 2014 Shaping European human rights jurisprudence
Fair Trials has helped shape criminal justice jurisprudence through interventions before European courts, supporting landmark cases on defence rights.
Justice during COVID-19
Fair Trials becomes one of the leading voices on emergency criminal justice measures, documenting the impact of the pandemic on detention, courts and procedural rights.
That’s memorable.
Artificial Intelligence enters criminal justice
Fair Trials is among the first NGOs working specifically on AI, predictive policing and automated decision-making in criminal justice managining a partial ban of predictive policing in the AI Act.
Again—that’s memorable.
The creation of the European Impacted Persons Advisory Council (EIPAC).
EIPAC is an advisory committee composed of people with lived experience in various aspects of the criminal legal system who are committed to supporting reform of the system.
Our work around the world
Fair Trials’ mission has always been international. Over the past three decades, we have worked across Europe, the United Kingdom, Latin America and the United States, collaborating with lawyers, civil society organisations, academics, campaigners and people directly affected by criminal justice systems.
Our work in each region responded to different legal and political contexts, but shared a common purpose: protecting the right to a fair trial, challenging abuses of state power and developing practical reforms that could improve criminal justice systems.
Europe
Across Europe, thousands of people being held in prison for months, and sometimes years, while waiting for a trial. This not only undermines their right to a fair trial and to liberty, but is contributing to overcrowding and inhuman and degrading conditions in Europe’s prisons. Pre-trial detention also reflects the discrimination that is embedded in the practices and functioning of Europe’s criminal justice systems. These disparities risk and in some cases are already being reinforced by the increased use of artificial intelligence to make decisions about policing, arrests, release and sentencing. The increased use of criminal law and powers, most recently in the context of the Covid-19 health pandemic, is resulting in overcriminalisation and the prosecution of minor offences. Criminal justice systems cannot cope with the number of cases they have to process and countries are increasingly resorting to trial waivers systems and fast-track proceedings where people can be coerced to give up their right to a full trial.
Find out more about our work in Europe
United Kingdom
We closed our dedicated UK office in 2024 and no longer run an active UK campaign programme, but we continue to follow developments in the UK’s criminal justice system.
The UK’s criminal justice system has faced an unprecedented crisis. Over a decade of funding cuts have left courts buckling under a growing backlog of cases, and increasing numbers of people are left without the support they need to defend themselves, due to the neglect of legal aid. The UK has one of the highest prison populations in Europe, including thousands of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime but are waiting months, and even years, for a trial.
Find out more about our work in the UK
Latin America
Fair Trials ran project-based work in Latin America from 2021 to 2024, in collaboration with local partners and organisations. This work has since concluded.
Torture by law enforcement officials, including police officers and prison guards, was a systemic problem we addressed in several Central and Latin American countries. It was indeed used to extract confessions later admitted in court, resulting in unfair trials and miscarriages of justice. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we also worked to challenge the rapid expansion of remote hearings in criminal proceedings across the region, warning that normalising video hearings would be a setback in the fight against torture.
Find out more about our work in Latin America
United States
Fair Trials Americas worked as a registered 501(c)3 organisation in the United States from 2016. This work has since concluded.
America’s criminal legal system remains in urgent need of reform. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and excessive sentencing has led to a situation where the US resolves the vast majority of criminal cases through plea bargaining. Fair Trials worked with campaigners, defense lawyers, grassroots movements, prosecutors and policy makers to tackle the intersecting problems of structural racism, mass incarceration and overcriminalisation, including campaigning for early access to counsel and challenging the reliance on plea bargaining.