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On May 23, President Obama gave a speech on counterterrorism in which he called for a winding down of the war that began in the wake of 9-11. To that end, he pledged to close the Guantanamo detention facility, clarify the legal standards that guide the targeted killing program, and work to repeal the 2001 Authorization of Military Force (AUMF).  

Who defines the rule of law? What can we do to strengthen it? And why should non-lawyers or judges care about it?    This week, 600-odd delegates from 120 countries arrived in The Hague to answer these questions and to dive into many more.   Official proceeding kicked-off with a curtain-raising keynote by William H. Neukom, the founder and CEO of the World Justice Project.  Mr.

On July 10 2013, panelist Roberto Hernandez will discuss the ways in which specific artistic voices emerge in societies; how art can be used to educate people about their rights; the skills and mediums that artists employ to raise awareness; and the effect on the art and the artist when he or she transforms into a representative of the people, or even the government.  ***

"What was once unavoidable--millions of deaths due to waterborne diseases--is now unacceptable" - John Oldfield, CEO WASH Advocates, Forum IV Speaker: Sustainable Water Solutions Safe drinking water for everyone on the planet is not a controversial issue. Every political leader in every country, province, or municipality wants each of his/her constituents to have access to the safe, affordable, and sustainable drinking water they need to survive and improve their lot in life.

One Office, Two Worldviews  In the mid-1990s I had the opportunity to review the work of selected human rights monitoring missions across the globe, including in post-conflict Cambodia. As part of that consultancy, I met with a senior United Nations official who had been dispatched from his agency’s headquarters to oversee its office in Phnom Penh. Much of our discussion consisted of his reading and highlighting in yellow for me key portions of UN General Assembly resolutions pertinent to his work.

What are our ultimate objectives in measuring the application of laws within the countries of the world? Objectives of the Rule of Law  1. For all peoples to live a better quality of life and to live in greater harmony, not only within the context of their respective countries, but also in relation to the rest of the world. 2. To aid in reducing and eliminating worldwide cataclysmic injustices such as poverty, violent crimes and corruption.

On July 9th 2013, the relationship between the status and rights of women, and the pervasive health issues were discussed on the panel titled "Access to Health: A Better Life for Woman and Girls." Panelists discussed efforts to improve access to health services, clean water and sanitation, as well as commodities in the supply chain to integrate services of health, education and nutrition. 

Laws which safeguard dignity, health, and justice are essential to effective HIV responses. This was one of the main messages of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, an independent panel of eminent legal, political and public health experts convened by UNDP on behalf of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS.

The World Justice Project, an independent organization working to advance the rule of law worldwide, opens the World Justice Forum IV - a global gathering designed to engage nearly 600 leaders, dignitaries, and innovators from more than 120 countries

The World Justice Project today opened the World Justice Forum IV – a global gathering designed to engage nearly 600 leaders, dignitaries, and innovators from more than 120 countries to address critical rule of law issues related to economic development, technology, supply chains, women’s rights, freedom of expression, and more.

A look around the world the world at the latest rule of law events in July.  1- 3 July: Lebanon to hold parliament session. The 17-month extension of the parliament mandate was mainly caused by the lawmakers’ failure to reach a new electoral law. Click here to find out more.

The quality of justice, many insist, cannot be measured by an index or an indicator. True enough, at least of justice in the aggregate, or justice with a capital J, but not necessarily of its component parts; and it is on those component parts of justice that reformers must work. In each individual country, province, and city, reformers must strengthen the rule of law one part at a time.

Rape and sexual abuse is a threat that hangs over women wherever they live in the world. But in some countries that threat is more terrible because that violence is much more likely to occur. It takes a lot of work and much courage to try to change the culture that breeds it, to educate people to understand that sexual violence in all its forms is abhorrent, and that these atrocities must be prevented at all costs. The High Court of Kenya has recently taken such an admirable step. 

This paper offers one practitioner’s perspective on the origins, evolution and possible direction of legal empowerment (LE), which in some ways is a new field and in others is a continuation of many kinds of efforts linked by certain common elements.

On May 30, a 27 member of a High Panel co-chaired by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom released a report, “A new global partnership: eradicate poverty and transform economies through sustainable development.” This report has set out a universal agenda to eradicate extreme poverty from the Earth by 2030, and deliver on the promise of sustainable development. 

A look around the world at the latest rule of law events in June

On April 24th, 2013, Bangladesh faced its worst industrial disaster. An eight-story garment factory collapsed, resulting in the loss of more than 1100 lives. A few days after the incident, Christian Amanpour of CNN interviewed the Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, where she responded to the crisis by saying “Anywhere in the world, accidents can happen.

As the most populous city in Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya has many of the problems of any large city (crime, substandard housing, poverty, etc.), and is also at the center of a nation divided by ethnic strife and a vast disparity between those that have much and those that have very little.  These issues came to a head with the Presidential elections in December 2007, which led to large-scale conflict, including between protesters and police.  The violence was most acute in the poorest neighborhoods of Nairobi, including the slums of Kibera, Mathare and Babandogo.