The justice gap is widening; trust is declining, corruption is widespread; justice reforms are incomplete; and many feel that justice systems are broken. Despite significant investments to consolidate rule of law and strengthen justice institutions, a new rule of law vision is possible to address these complex, deeply-rooted development constraints. This vision presupposes embracing a new paradigm that defines justice as a “service” designed and delivered with people – i.e., justice users – in mind. Taking this new people-centered approach to justice, innovative rule of law programming revisits old assumptions that emphasized top-down, institution-focused, lawyer-centric solutions, prioritizing instead legal and non-legal strategies built from the bottom-up, delivered through collaboration between justice operators, paralegals, and community actors. While this directly impacts the rule of law environment – measured in terms of greater legitimacy of the system, increased public trust, and solid integrity networks to combat pervasive corruption – this new vision brings higher cross-sectoral development outcomes, to advance Sustainable Development Goal 16.3 and the broader 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
(792.75 KB)