The Rule of Law Program of the International Renaissance Foundation and the Public Interest Law Institute presented the Ukrainian edition of the "Pursuing the Public Interest" handbook .
The Rule of Law Program of the International Renaissance Foundation and the Public Interest Law Institute presented the Ukrainian edition of the “Pursuing the Public Interest” handbook .
This handbook is about the following:
- How to define public interests?
- Who can represent and act for the purpose of pursuing the public interests?
- How can public activity influence the activity of public administration?
- How to find balance of public interests?
The “Pursuing the Public Interest” book is a well-known handbook of the Public Interest Law Institute (Budapest – New York), which published it in English in 2001. The Ukrainian edition of the handbook was added with the best practices of Ukrainian organizations’ activity for pursuing the public interests.
“The handbook helps to understand the main forms of activity of organizations that pursue the public interests and helps to see opportunities for effective resolution of public problems. It is especially important that Ukraine already has a significant experience in this area. At the same time, we view this handbook not only as an opportunity to see successes and we also hope that it will become an additional incentive for enhancement of the public activity, directed on pursuing the public interests.” (from the foreword to the Ukrainian edition of the handbook).
“Who defines the public interest?” In a liberal society, maybe the answer is: you and me. We all participate in defining what is — and what is not — in the public interest. And the public interest is worked out in the resulting contest of values and opinions.” (from the article by Edwin Rekosh “Who defines the public interest?”).
“In post-communist societies, advocates, who pursue the public interest, by the very fact of their existence, continue the fundamental reform on a path for development of culture of democracy. Their work continues to destruct comparison of the public and state interests. Their symbolic presence among us opens up new horizons for self-regulation of the civil society. Let’s hope that this work will prove to be useful for those who have again discovered for themselves the public interest law and even more so – for those who in the coming years will continue discovering it” (from the foreword of the Public Interest Law Institute for the English edition of the handbook).
