The independent lawyers’ association of Myanmar as a legal transplant: Local challenges to the idea of an independent national bar association

The Independent Lawyers’ Association of Myanmar (ILAM was an outcome of a three-year programme by the International Bar Association (IBA) through its IBA Human Rights Initiative (hereafter IBAHRI). Lasting from 2014 to 2016, the IBAHRI programme in Myanmar sought to promote the idea of an independent legal profession, with ILAM being an attempt to provide an independent national bar association for Myanmar. The IBAHRI sought to be an inclusive initiative encompassing state and non-state Myanmar legal actors, but it also provided international experts to engage Myanmar legal actors with alternative perspectives regarding the legal profession and the rule of law. The IBAHRI programme in Myanmar falls within a framework of legal transplant theory, since the work of the IBAHRI essentially served to introduce IBA conceptions about an independent national bar association into a domestic Myanmar context.