Prosecution Advisor

Job Description

Position Summary:
The Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) seeks a Prosecution Advisor for a project focused on strengthening the criminal justice system in Belize. This 2-year program will involve working closely with law enforcement, National Forensic Science Service (NFSS), prosecutors, and judiciary. The Prosecution Advisor will serve as a technical lead on project activities related to this subarea of expertise and will collaborate closely with other project team members and host country government staff. The position reports to the Chief of Party, based in Washington, DC.

Major duties and responsibilities include:

• Provide training, advice, and mentoring to police authorities and prosecutors (including the police, customs, immigration, and financial intelligence unit) to develop their assessments of investigations through review of case files and feedback to investigators, to collaborate more efficiently and effectively among themselves, and to build consistent and appropriate case outcomes.
• Review the organizational and operational capacities of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Customs Prosecutors, Immigration Prosecutors, Financial Intelligent Unit Prosecutors, and the Police Prosecution Branch.
• Develop an assistance plan to strengthen institutional capacity and improve prosecutorial protocols and procedures.
• Provide training, advice, and mentoring to prosecutors to establish expertise in building and prosecuting cases related to transnational organized crime (including narcotics, human, and natural resources trafficking), money laundering, and other complex and/or international crimes.
• Coordinate with relevant local agencies and other advisors in the prosecution of complex crimes.
• Provide training, advice, and mentoring to prosecutors from all agencies on accountability and transparency as it applies to professional conduct, the importance of system redundancy, and expectations of partner organizations.
• Provide recommendations for INL programming and support to the prosecutions and the larger Criminal Justice Sector. Assist the government of Belize is moving programming requests through its chain of approval and to INL Belize.

Education, Experience and Other Qualifications:

• Advanced law degree from an U.S. or a U.K. accredited law school or the equivalent, with emphasis on criminal justice or criminology;
• Minimum of ten (10) years of relevant technical experience in prosecution.
• Prior role as prosecutor strongly preferred.
• Experience working in the common-law system required.
• Expertise in the Westminster system of governance and justice is required.
• Experience serving as a trainer, supervisor or mentor required.
• Experience working with donor-funded projects strongly preferred.
• Experience working with transnational organized crime cases strongly preferred.
• Experience working as an advisor of a program funded by the U.S. Department of State strongly preferred.
• Must have worked in the legal profession or on international Rule of Law reform within the past five years.
• Ability to write about general and legal issues clearly and concisely in English, to express complex ideas in a clear and logical and highly professional way.
• Fluency in English is required.

About the Organization

Created in 1962 through a unique agreement between the Organization of American States (OAS) and the private sector, the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) is an independent, non-profit organization 501(c)(3) that creates public-private partnerships to assist the least advantaged people in Latin America and the Caribbean. Having worked in every country in the region, PADF engages community-based groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), public and private sector in the process of implementing appropriate solutions for sustainable development. The Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) empowers disadvantaged people and communities in Latin America and the Caribbean to achieve sustainable economic and social progress, strengthen their communities and civil society, and prepare for and respond to natural disasters and other humanitarian crises, thereby advancing the principles of the Organization of the American States (OAS).