11:45 - 13:15 (CET)

This session discussed The Challenge Paper on Justice for Children which outlines the distinctive needs and
rights of children in relation to their context as victims, witnesses and offenders in both criminal and civil
disputes, and also explores the broader understanding of access to justice as a process that underpins and
creates conditions for the realization of all other rights. Participants discussed two main challenges. First,
the challenge to ensure the empowerment, participation, and engagement of children in all decisions that
affect their lives. And, second, the challenge to secure high level sustained political commitment to
accelerate the achievement of high quality justice for children, including prioritizing financial resources and
investing in the necessary skills.

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Working Sessions are concurrent workshops, interactive dialogues and facilitated discussions hosted by a wide variety of global and local institutions around pressing issues and opportunities related to the Forum’s theme of “Realizing Justice for All.” 

This working session focused on the need for recognition of the role of community paralegals, justice
advocates and independent justice service providers in realizing access to justice. It discussed policies that
create enabling environments for community-based paralegals, such as effective legal aid policies, the
recognition of paralegals in law, and formalized working structures. The session also discussed the
necessary safeguards needed to ensure their independence and sustainability, including the need to
sufficiently resource paralegal efforts. Participants debated the responsibilities, scope of work, and models
of funding for community paralegals. The session highlighted recognition efforts in diverse contexts,
including the importance of political recognition, and sought to clarify the relationships to, and distinctions
from, other professionals in the justice sector and other related services. It offered concrete discussion of
how national policies can support and promote accessibility of community-based justice providers.

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Read the full summary for this working session. 

The Center for Court Innovation is renowned for its work reforming the New York criminal justice systems
with ambitious, cutting-edge projects and offering its technical expertise across the US and internationally
to jurisdictions seeking to reform their own systems. This session explored the three principles that drive
the Center's work and how they translate into practice and programming: just outcomes, procedural
fairness, and community justice. The session shared some of the lessons learned from the Center's efforts
and invited attendees to share and troubleshoot their own efforts at justice reform. The experience of the
Center for Court Innovation highlighted three key lessons learned. First, while outcome fairness
traditionally has been measured by the determination of whether the conviction has been properly
achieved, a just outcome should also consider whether the disposition and sentence is seen as appropriate
in the eyes of a victim and the community. Second, procedural justice should be emphasized, and, third,
justice reforms should embrace community justice.

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In order to effectively address global health issues such as HIV/AIDS, people and institutions focused on
public health and those focused on justice must work together. Discrimination and other human rights
abuses all impact the effective treatment of global health epidemics. This session explored how to build
support and partnerships between these two interconnected fields. Speakers and participants discussed
how to make the case for integrating legal empowerment and justice approaches into health programs, and
identified three key opportunities to strengthen collaboration between justice and global health, including:
increasing funding for justice related public health work; moving from ad hoc, small scale programming to
comprehensive programming brought to scale; and embedding justice programs into existing strategic
public health frameworks such as those for HIV and TB.

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To bridge the justice gap, innovation is needed, yet the regulation of legal services and procedural rules
create obstacles. The Innovation Working Group of the Task Force on Justice has called for a “level playing
field.” In this working session, representatives of the access to justice movement and organized bars
considered case studies from South Africa, the United States and elsewhere and engaged in constructive
dialogue. The session considered three issues: How to regulate high quality justice journeys that lead to fair
solutions? What should the focus be on regulation and deregulation efforts? And how to create a level
playing field? 

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Court systems around the world are recognizing that to truly deliver justice, they must modernize both their host systems and their approaches. This session first described the trends and successes in automation, such as the use of Legal XML to standardize and streamline the eFiling and eService submission process, as well as the challenges of sustainability and public access. To address these challenges, speakers recommended the use of open sources and widely used software. The session then looked at how Online Dispute Resolution has enabled new approaches in the area of high-volume, low-value claims important to everyday litigants by leveraging features such as asynchronous communication, legal information and triage, mediation and negotiation spaces, and document creation, storage, and court payment.

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During this session, the presenters discussed the use of international agreements to advance
environmental justice in Europe and Central Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Aarhus
Convention came into effect in 2001, and specifically applies to the 40 countries. It is not an environmental
treaty per se, and does not provide classic environmental protection because it does not protect a
particular part of the environment. Instead, it links procedural rights to a human right. The Escazú
Agreement was signed in March 2018 after a six-year negotiation process. This agreement specifically
applies to Latin America and the Caribbean, where conflicts over natural resources are increasing. Four
environmental defenders are killed every week, which is part of the reason for creating the agreement. The
agreement intends to increase the number of national laws addressing matters regarding environmental
protection. Participants explored challenges with these two agreements, including implementation gaps
and a potential excess of agreements, but also opportunities, such as expansion of a similar agreement to
Africa. 

Read the full summary for this working session.