A/HRC/22/32 to support the growing trend of establishing separate courts or specialized chambers dealing with judicial review of administrative acts in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (Albania, Serbia, Ukraine), South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) and upcoming efforts in Central Asia (Kazakhstan). OHCHR has been a counterpart in this endeavour since 2011. 71. Another area of ODIHR activities to support States’ efforts to strengthen their judicial system is the resolution of electoral disputes, which is at the core of the ODIHR mandate to assist OSCE-participating States in ensuring free and fair elections. ODIHR assists OSCE-participating States in following up on recommendations made in ODIHR election-observation reports, including on electoral disputes. In 2012, ODIHR started assisting countries bilaterally with a pilot round table on election dispute resolution in Kyrgyzstan, where all relevant stakeholders – including the judiciary and national court and election observers – gathered to discuss how to implement the respective recommendations from the ODIHR Election Observation Mission Report.10 72. ODIHR also assists OSCE-participating States’ efforts to strengthen judicial independence and accountability. For this purpose, it has developed, jointly with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and a group of experts, concrete and technical policy suggestions, namely the Kyiv Recommendations on Judicial Independence in Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia, at a regional meeting in 2010. This document serves as basis for ODIHR support to States in the region providing policy advice and participating in reform debates, as was done in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. In some States, ODIHR consultations about the relevance of the Kyiv Recommendations for strengthening judicial independence in the national reform context have led to technical assistance projects offered in cooperation with OSCE field operations, such as training for members of the Council for the Selection of Judges in Kyrgyzstan in 2011 (followed by an analytical report on selection of judges in Kyrgyzstan in March 2012) and developing criteria and procedures for evaluating the performance of judges in the Republic of Moldova in 2012. C. Commonwealth Secretariat 73. Enhancing international cooperation is at the core of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s activities. Primary goals of its technical cooperation programmes are supporting its member countries in strengthening their judiciary system and administration of justice as well as promoting respect for human rights. The Commonwealth Secretariat’s work on strengthening the judiciary and the administration of justice is carried out by the Justice Section of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division. The work is demand driven and tailor-made to the needs of the requesting member State. Most requests received revolve around strengthening court registries and building the capacity of court staff, effective case-flow management and training for judicial officers in the subordinate and superior courts. The nature of any assistance is usually identified through needs assessment missions and consultations on how best the capacity of the judicial system can be enhanced. The Handbook of Best Practice for Registrars of Final/Appellate, Regional and International Courts and Tribunals11 was developed and disseminated in member countries. 74. The Justice Section provides training to judicial officers and court administration staff. Training activities are conducted either in-country or by sponsoring the participation of judicial officers in relevant and appropriate courses and/or events held abroad. 10 11 16 Warsaw, 2010. London, 2012.