Recent Efforts

The WJP and the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (HiiL) has completed a two-year effort to advance the world's knowledge on measurement of the rule of law. Coordinating leading researchers and developers of major institutional indicator projects in the fields of governance, corruption, and access to justice, this effort culminated with a special edition of the Hague Journal on the Rule of Law devoted entirely to institutional indicators. Published in September 2011, the special issue was edited by Juan Carlos Botero, WJP Interim Executive Director and Rule of Law Index Director; Robert L. Nelson, Co-Chair of the WJP Scholarship group; and Christine Pratt, WJP Rule of Law Index Senior Program Associate. Please click here to download a copy.

The WJP, in partnership with Morocco’s Mohamed V University, published papers in the University’s renowned academic journal Horizons on work that corresponds with the themes and working session topics of the Middle East and North Africa Regional Rule of Law Conference 2010. The purpose of these papers is inform scholars, policymakers, civil society leaders, and other interested persons about the themes and action plans developed at the Conference, and point the way towards positive reform on the Rule of Law in the MENA region.

Accomplishments

In order to enhance experts' and practitioners' knowledge of the rule of law, including strategies to strengthen access to justice, the WJP's scholarship program supported the research and preparation of two sets of papers on the rule of law in 2007 and 2008.

The scholarship program consisted of two internationally diverse teams of scholars from the fields of law, economics, political science and anthropology. The scholars presented their papers at the World Justice Forum.

The first team of scholars developed a body of scholarship examining the relationship between the rule of law and economic, political, and social development. This team included Nobel Laureates James Heckman and Amartya Sen, as well as other prominent legal scholars, political scientists and economists. To read the biographies of these scholars, click here. To access the conference level versions of their papers, click here.

The first of the two volumes,Global Perspectives on the Rule of Law was published by Routledge Press.

The second scholarship team prepared a series of comparative studies on how marginalized groups obtain access to justice. The studies span diverse continents and cultures, including the Roma of Eastern Europe, nomadic herding peoples of Kenya, the Maori of New Zealand, and the urban poor of China. This team was led by Professor Yash Ghai, a constitutional and human rights scholar who previously served as Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Cambodia on Human Rights. To read the biographies of this team of scholars, click here. To access their papers, click here.

These scholarly articles are available in Marginalized Communities and Access to Justice by Routledge Press.

 

The first group of scholars produced the following papers:

Robert L. Nelson and Lee Cabatingan	Introductory Essay: New Research on the Rule of Law
Thomas Carothers	Rule of Law Temptations
Amartya Sen	Global Justice: A Human Capability Perspective
Daniel Kauffman	Misrule of Law in Numbers: Worldwide Empirics and its Implications for Law and Economic Development Orthodoxy
James Heckman	The Viability of the Welfare State
Franklin Allen and Jun "QJ" Qian	Comparing Legal and Alternative Institutions in Commerce
Ron Harris	Law, Finance and the First Corporations
Tom Ginsburg, Zachary Elkins and James Melton	The Lifespan of Written Constitutions
Margaret Levi and Brad Epperly	Principled Principals in the Founding Moments of the Rule of Law
Katharina Pistor, Antara Haldar and Amrit Amirapu	Social Norms, Rule of Law, and Gender Reality
Terence C. Halliday	The Fight for First Generation Rights: A Comparative Essay on the Mobilization of the Legal Complex for Basic Legal Freedoms
Barry R. Weingast	Why Developing Countries Prove So Resistant to the Rule of Law
Yash Ghai	Constitutionalism and the Challenge of Ethnic Diversity

The second group of scholars produced the following papers:

Yash Ghai and Jill Cottrell	Introductory Essay
Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Flavia Cartlet	The Landless Rural Workers' Movement and its Legal and Political Strategies for Gaining Access to Law and Justice in Brazil
Yash Ghai	Rule of Law in Cambodia
Eva Pils	Peasants Struggle for Land Rights in China
Hannah Irfan	Honour-Related Violence Against Women in Pakistan
James A. Goldston and Mirna Adjami	The Opportunities and Challenges of Using Public Interest Litigation to Secure Access to Justice for Roma Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe
Geoff Budlender	Lessons from South Africa's Land Reform Program
David Williams	"People perish, but land is permanent": Seeking justice for the historical claims of indigenous people in New Zealand
Tanja Chopra	Peace Versus Justice in Northern Kenya
Julio Faundez	Access to Justice and Indigenous Communities in Latin America

The research sponsored by the World Justice Project inspired two other meetings of scholars, both in March 2008. One session was of political scientists on empirical evidence regarding the rule of law at Yale University's MacMillan Center, and the other session was a conference on "Lawyers and the Construction of the Rule of Law" at the American Bar Foundation.