As part of WJP's Rule of Law Solutions Initiative, World Justice Project researcher and ACLS Mellon Fellow Joe Haley speaks with the founder of LawPàdí, a legal empowerment platform. LawPàdí pairs a legal referral service with innovative approaches to legal education, such as street law clinics and automated chat bots, in order to help Nigerians resolve their most common civil justice problems. The conversation touches on the security ramifications of access to justice in the Sahel, and dives into measures of program impact, the role of legal self-help, the strategic use of data, and the importance of building public trust. Ultimately, Ibidapo-Obe shares his vision for a streamlined system of justice in Nigeria.
Previous Episodes
As part of WJP's Rule of Law Solutions Initiative, World Justice Project researcher and ACLS Mellon Fellow Joe Haley speaks with the founder of Femmes et Droits Humains, a non-governmental organization working to include Malian women in the justice and peacebuilding process. The conversation addresses the cultural disparities confronting Malian boys and girls as these pertain to education and access to justice, the effort to educate women about their rights under international law, and the importance of building a women's movement to resist theocratic rule. There is also a sobering discussion about the Malian government's reliance on customary justice to address instability.
As part of WJP's Rule of Law Solutions Initiative, World Justice Project researcher and ACLS Mellon Fellow Joe Haley speaks with the founder of tech startup Bankly, Tomiola Adejana. They met in the Hague, Netherlands, where Adejana had just been announced as the 2020 winner of the Innovating Justice Challenge, an incubator program run by the Hague Institute for Innovating Law. Their conversation explores Bankly's strategy for using traditional networks to introduce digital finance to Nigeria's "last mile." They also discuss the strategic role of impact investment, the process of social entrepreneurship, and the regulatory challenges confronting a financial startup in Nigeria.
As part of WJP's Rule of Law Solutions Initiative, World Justice Project researcher and ACLS Mellon Fellow Joe Haley interviews civil society activists and local justice practitioners in West Africa to understand how access to justice — the capacity of ordinary people to resolve their everyday justice problems fairly without undue hardship — works in the Sahel.
World Justice Project Executive Director Elizabeth Andersen is joined by Christof Heyns, Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Pretoria and member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, to discuss the right of peaceful assembly. A new General Comment issued this week by the United Nations Human Rights Committee provides guidance on this topic at a critical moment, with protest movements on the rise across the globe, any many countries grappling with the appropriate response—something that has become even more complicated with the COVID-19 pandemic and public health restrictions on large gatherings.
Killian Dorier, Senior Program Associate for Engagement at the World Justice Project, is joined by Nikole Nelson, Executive Director of the Alaska Legal Services Corporation, and Walter Flores, Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Equity and Governance in Health Systems (CEGSS) to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected indigenous communities in the United States and abroad, and what this additional pressure on countries' rule of law systems means for them.
The winners of the 2020 WJP Anthony Lewis Prize for Exceptional Rule of Law Journalism— Pavla Holcová, Arpád Soltész, and Eva Kubániová—personify the principle quoted by their outlet, "Even if you kill a journalist, you can never kill a story."
In a recent online event produced in partnership with the American Society of International Law and recorded on May 20, 2020, Professor Tom Ginsburg, Jacques deLisle, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, and Mark D. Agrast joined us to discuss international law in an age of rising authoritarianism, and implications in contemporary policy contexts including management of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The unprecedented public health emergency caused by COVID-19 is posing a major crisis for justice defenders around the world. Hina Jilani, a member of The Elders and Co-Chair of the Task Force on Justice, and Maaike de Langen, Program Lead on Justice For All with the Pathfinders, join WJP Chief Engagement Officer Ted Piccone to discuss challenges for delivering justice for all during the COVID-19 crisis, and how justice defenders should respond.
Global Trends in the Rule of Law
WJP research team members Alejandro Ponce, Alicia Evangelides, and Amy Gryskiewicz join WJP executive director Elizabeth Andersen to discuss the WJP Rule of Law Index 2020—an annual study of the state of the rule of law around the world. Following the recent launch of the 2020 Index, WJP's team of experts come together for a deep dive into what the WJP Rule of Law Index measures, how WJP gathers the data, and key insights into 2020 findings.