15:00 - 16:30 (CET)

Women and girls are at the forefront of transformative action for justice, building a world that works better for everyone. Societies with higher levels of gender equality are also characterized by less deforestation and air pollution, lower levels of conflict, and improved health of communities. Despite this, women remain underrepresented in decision-making, and are often portrayed as passive victims of conflict and climate change rather than holders of diverse knowledge and skills. In this HagueTalks, three women on the frontlines for justice will tell their personal stories of defending freedom of speech, fighting climate injustice, and tackling gender-based violence.

Language: English

These sessions will be hosted on the premises of various Hague-based institutions to highlight solutions-oriented work to advance the rule of law by local organizations and global collaborators.

All participants attending this offsite working session must bring a government-issued ID (such as passport or driver’s license) and a face mask.

• Addressing the Enforcement Gap: The Proposal for an International Anti-Corruption Court In-Person EN
• How to Engage Business in Transforming Governance In-Person EN
• Justice-By-Design: How to Integrate Justice into Technology? In-Person EN
• Localizing the SDGs and Creating More Just and Equitable Communities In-Person EN
• Ombuds Institutions’ Role in Contributing to Access to Justice and SDG 16 In-Person EN

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.” 

While pilots projects innovating justice abound, few countries in the world have models that deliver legal services at the national scale. This session explored recent efforts by governments and civil society in a range of countries to bring innovative community-based models to a sustainable, national level. It examined how public financing is being diversified across social sectors and levels of government to enhance access, effectiveness, and sustainability of basic justice services, and the emerging evidence to strengthen policy arguments for institutionalization of these collaborations. Discussants from Ukraine, North Macedonia, Argentina, and Indonesia shared experiences of what is working, including networks of legal aid centers, improvements in cross-sector and local level support, comprehensive legal frameworks for efficient legal aid systems, and advocacy for justice as a social problem.

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A framework and measurement for access to justice is necessary to ensure the existence of effective legal frameworks and policies to benefit the Indonesian people. During this working session, the consortium working on an Access to Justice Index, including the Indonesian Government, sought input and guidance from Forum attendees on their ongoing process to establish this Index for Indonesia.

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This session explored how enhancing the functions of traditional rulers in their communities has been an important part of rebuilding, conflict reduction, and building community cohesion in the aftermath of a crisis. Focusing on the northeastern Nigerian states that were subject to the Boko Haram insurgency, participants examined questions regarding the interface between formal and informal systems. Specific techniques – including hosting training sessions where traditional rulers acquire expertise in where their jurisdiction should end and how to transfer these cases to the formal sector, hosting training sessions that inform traditional rulers about cultural differences and ways to employ these differences in the decision making process, and hosting workshops where traditional rulers, judges, police and the media convene and discuss ways in which the challenges they face can be tackled by policy reform – informed a lively discussion about effective strategies for community level informal justice.

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There are various initiatives and platforms that show willingness on behalf of the business community to set-up grassroots initiatives that aim at addressing the justice gap, fostering rule of law, and implementing SDG16. However, there are inherent difficulties in scaling these up in a consensual manner. This session discussed the role of the business community in catalyzing action on SDG16 and access to justice, showcased examples, and considered the challenges and practical limitations to scaling up these interventions. Participants heard from Safaricom on implementing an internal strategy to advance and operationalize SDG Goal 16; Touton on forming a public-private partnership to address supply-chain issues;Hewlett Packard Enterprise on developing a socially responsible corporate culture; Jones Day on implementing a project to assist refugee women; and ABN Amro Bank on creating multi-stakeholder platforms between NGOs and governments to ensure compliance with the rule of law.  

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This session explored how and why African courts have developed as they did, and what they need to move effectively into the future. Using Burkina Faso as a test case, it looked specifically at how systems change theory can be applied to African courts to address the critical problems of trust and performance and create a more effective and just system moving forward.To this end, USIP leverages the following four principles at each stage in the process: Act locally – need to act within a system if you are addressing a complex system; Act deeply – follow a process that allows them to move from local events to broader patterns; define high leverage points; Act collectively – involve all systemic actors, “bring the system in the room” to move towards a shared understanding of the overall system; Act iteratively.

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Effective use of data and design can be a powerful driver of successful access to justice solutions. This session, inspired by the “School of Data” workshops for journalists, educated and empowered those working in the legal and social sector to use these tools effectively. The workshop leads provided an overview on trends in data, noting the explosion in sources of and amount of data, including from sources in the “internet of things” thought to have strictly commercial value, but with ever-increasing applicability to solving larger social and justice problems. Another key trend is that a provider-centric approach to delivering legal services is giving way to a person-centered view of legal needs, driven by survey and other data. For example, increased use of data demonstrated that the allocation of legal provider resources were not well matched to the legal needs of the population, such that, for example, many providers offered family law services when a great number of people reported medical issues as their primary legal need. The working session then described and examined a series of case studies of individuals or organizations that had mined data sources or otherwise used data in order to better understand or tackle a justice problem, such as Clear My Record by Code for America. Outcomes included increased data-literacy, the ability to spot data-project potential, and building a collaborative data and design ecosystem.

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When citizens are mistreated by people in power they often have little capacity to ensure justice. Citizen Helpdesks are pioneering a feedback process through which citizens use information to work with power-holders to fix problems and then disseminate information about the changes, ensuring better and more equal access to everything from healthcare to justice. This session discussed how closing the feedback loop in this way has built trust and transformed governance in Liberia, Mali, and Nepal. The first step in the Citizen Helpdesk cycle is listening. Communities select groups of volunteers who work to collect and later disseminate information. These volunteers function as community frontline associates (CFAs) and interact face-to-face with different stakeholders in the community to understand what problems they currently face. Next, these volunteers routinely gather information on critical problems using community surveys. Once collected, these data are analyzed, checked and synthesized by the Accountability Lab. The information is then disseminated to facilitate conversations with all of the pertinent local stakeholders using the most impactful mediums tailored to the local context, such as radio shows and community meetings. This process ensures that everyone understands how and when something will happen, which builds accountability into decision-making processes and closes the feedback loop that often exists between citizens, governments, the media, and the private sector. 

Read the full summary for this working session.