Lionel Barber receives rapturous applause as the keynote speaker at the International Bar Association in Miami.

The annual IBA conference returned after a three-year hiatus, with speakers including Chartwell’s Lionel Barber and also Volodymyr Zelensky.  Zelensky highlighted the importance of access to justice through tools including technology, financial controls and class actions.  Describing lawyers as “defenders of human rights”, Zelensky said the Russian invasion poses a threat to rule of law, but that “lawyers will put an end to this war” by bringing those responsible for the invasion, and the war crimes committed during it, to justice.

Lionel Barber, former editor of the Financial Times and now a popular keynote speaker with Chartwell, gave a wide-ranging opening keynote, which considered the struggle between authoritarian regimes and liberal democracies over recent years.​    Accepting that globalisation is rolling back, that the global economy has reached the end of an era of low inflation, and that there is an energy crisis caused by war in Ukraine, he also saw reason for optimism for liberal democracies and in those who fight for justice around the world.