Transformative justice project

 

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers has set an ambitious set of policy goals focused on protecting the guardians of human rights and the rule of law, safeguarding the role of independent judges in checking unaccountable power, and reimagining justice by advancing legal empowerment – a rights-based methodology intended to ensure that those most directly impacted by injustice are given the tools to know, use, and shape the law.

Efforts to promote the rule of law and ensure equal access to justice for all articulated in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 face growing challenges, with an estimated 5.1 billion people lacking meaningful access to justice globally, amidst a rising wave of autocracy and democratic decline across regions. The efforts of the Special Rapporteur thus offer a unique opportunity, through access to high-level policymakers at the national and international level, and significant influence within legal and judicial communities, to sustain and accelerate much-needed policy support to achieve access to justice for all, in the final years of SDG implementation and in a post-2030 period.

This project will aim to amplify the policy goals of the Special Rapporteur, with an emphasis on ensuring within global processes the participation of legal empowerment researchers, practitioners and affected communities from across the Global South. To that end, three sets of activities will support development of: a transformative justice platform, to chart a roadmap for policy change, bilateral and multilateral coordination and shared commitments; strategies and policy guidance for how grassroots justice can be deployed to resist democratic decline and rising autocracy; and a core set of outcome indicators to demonstrate legal empowerment’s impact, to underpin efforts to promote renewed policy commitment, unlock funding, and scale implementation efforts.