All News

Most Americans, if asked, would rank the United States at the top of any scale measuring rule of law compliance. This assumption is squarely challenged by the World Justice Project’s (WJP) recent rule of law index rankings for 2012: here the US fares well overall, but disturbingly low in critical areas of securing fundamental human rights, including worker rights.  

Last Friday marked the second anniversary of Egypt’s January 25th revolution, which toppled former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Yet the weekend’s celebration has been marred by five straight days of clashes between opposition protesters and security forces.

In large parts of the world, indigenous courts, councils of elders, and similar traditional authorities play a central role in the resolution of disputes. Despite all cultural differences, they share common features. Their relations with the state justice institutions are in many cases problematic, especially when they are not formally recognised. Nevertheless, they are perceived as legitimate institutions by local populations.

It is likely that most US citizens who consider themselves informed about global events are aware of the genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia and East Timor, yet it’s likely that few people in the US are aware of the ongoing genocide in West Papua, New Guinea.

The Justice Rising Blog aims to highlight grassroots organizations who are striving to advance the rule of law. If you would like to highlight your organization, send us an email at [email protected]! Name of Organization: FLAC (Future Leader for Anti-Corruption) Indonesia Project Title: Laskar Anti Korupsi

Interest in informal legal systems has grown in recent years with greater emphasis being placed on local ownership as an effective means of development. Non-state justice systems, including indigenous, customary, and religious legal orders; alternative dispute resolution mechanisms; and popular justice fora are often the only avenues through which the masses can access justice. Customary justice systems (CJS) provide access to justice for marginalised or impoverished communities that may otherwise have no other options for redress.

A major arena for successful pro-poor rule of law reform has been the provision of secure land rights for the rural poor. The bulk of the 70-75% of the extreme poor on our planet who make their livelihood in the rural sector fall into one of three great groups (altogether around 1.25 billion people) who lack secure land rights: tenants or agricultural labourers on lands of private owners; members of collective farms who have not yet received secure individual land rights in a break-up; and squatters on land claimed under public ownership.

The Rule of Law Index is an invaluable tool for assessing conformance to the rule of law across the globe, but the index fails to measure an important indicator. Rule 5.1 specifies "the laws are publicized and accessible" as a key metric, echoing most classic formulations of the Rule of Law from Dicey's classic formulation to our modern era.

The 2012 Roderick B. Mathews Opportunity Fund competition was unlike any other. For the first time, the entire process took place online. Seeking to inject entrepreneurial creativity into rule of law reform efforts, the Opportunity Fund is the World Justice Project’s mechanism to provide direct funding and support to projects that strengthen the rule of law across the world.

The World Justice Project’s Honorary Chair Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim is a Sudanese-born, British mobile communications tycoon, the founder of Celtel, and the chairman of Satya Capital and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.

The capacity of national justice sector institutions to prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes is one of the greatest challenges to national rule of law initiatives within the context of peace and security. Approximately 60% of States Parties of the International Criminal Court (ICC) are yet to adapt their national legal framework to the cooperation requirements, crimes and modes of liability defined by the ICC Statute. Positive Complementarity is the most important conceptual insight to address this.

Laurie Conway's film seeks to highlight the importance of the rule of law by focusing on Lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa’s efforts in Zimbabwe. In spite of beatings by police, she has courageously defended in court those jailed by the Mugabe government—peace activists, journalists, opposition candidates, farmers that had their land confiscated, ordinary citizens that had the courage to speak up.

For many, the failures of the struggle against sexual crime translate into a daily, ongoing nightmare. The MILEAD Fellows of the Moremi Initiative for Women's Leadership in Africa stand in solidarity and sympathy with victims and survivors of these crimes all over the world, particularly the woman who so tragically lost her life following her brutal gang rape in New Delhi just recently. We choose not to be silent in the aftermath of this particular case precisely because it is geographically removed. We are all connected.

The crime of forced internal displacement is not a new phenomenon in Colombia. It has been a widespread practice in the country’s internal armed conflict for several decades. However, forced internal displacement cannot be reduced to an inherent or unintended effect of the conflict. The armed actors in the Colombian armed conflict—the army and its paramilitary groups, on one hand, and the guerrilla groups, on the other—have used the practice of forced displacement of civilian populations as part of their military strategies to take control of or maintain a presence in certain territories.

The 67th UN General Assembly recently adopted an unprecedented resolution emanating from its first-ever High-Level Meeting on the Rule of Law in September. For the first time in history, 193 Member States unanimously and explicitly linked the rule of law and development, stating:

A wave of protests has swept across the streets of Khartoum and other major cities in Sudan; adding to the long list of problems that are fundamentally challenging Omar al-Bashir and his 23-year old repressive regime.

Many Cambodian migrant workers abroad are employed in domestic work, that is, work carried out for an employer’s household, such as cooking, cleaning, looking after family members and other household tasks.  Malaysia is a major destination country for Cambodian migrant domestic workers (as well as migrant workers from other countries in the region), who are predominantly young women. 

Aside from being the most dynamic and populous region, Asia and the Pacific is a modern-day hub of people on the move in search of decent work. Some 25 million Asians are employed in countries other than their own. Beginning in the mid-1970s, the rate of Asian migration has been increasing. Since the beginning of the millennium, we’ve seen a clear acceleration of this trend.