An estimated 5 billion people have unmet justice needs globally, including people who cannot obtain justice for everyday problems, people who are excluded from the opportunity the law provides, and people who live in extreme conditions of injustice.

This justice gap underscores the urgency of realizing justice for all and demonstrates unacceptable levels of exclusion from justice. Out now, Measuring the Justice Gap: A People-Centered Assessment of Unmet Justice Needs Around the World, a report produced by the World Justice Project with expert input from the Task Force on Justice, describes the development process, measurement approach, and progress being made to estimate the scale and impact of the justice gap. 
 

Read the full report
 

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals lay out ambitious targets to guide global and national development policies to 2030, including target 16.3's promise to “ensure equal access to justice for all.” However, as the availability of data on people’s experience of justice grows, it is becoming increasingly clear that the world is not on track to meet this target. The data presented in WJP's Measuring the Justice Gap report demonstrate that many people face justice problems, and too few get the justice they need. This “justice gap” undermines human development, reinforces the poverty trap, and imposes high societal costs. Closing the justice gap is therefore vital to realizing the broader development agenda and its vision of a “just, equitable, tolerant, open and socially inclusive world in which the needs of the most vulnerable are met.”

Learn more about the Measuring the Justice Gap report here, and download the report below.

Download the report:

title bar

Read More

title bar

Indigenous Network Combats Fake News to Protect the Amazon and its People

Rede Wayuri is a network of 55 Indigenous communicators in the Rio Negro region of Brazil. Through their use of WhatsApp and local radio, they have not only reported on topics like illegal mining in the Amazon, but also distributed accurate information about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines.   At the World Justice Forum in The Hague this past June, Rede Wayuri was presented with the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Award for their outstanding work in countering disinformation by bringing accurate, reliable information to 23 Indigenous peoples and 750 communities in five local languages and Portuguese. 

Read More

The Smartest Solutions

When I was taking off to attend my first World Justice Forum, I had every expectation that I would hear the brightest minds debating the most complex social issues of our time. I was ready to learn about challenges unknown to me, faced by communities outside of the United States. What I didn’t expect was to see so many effective and transformative solutions that had already been implemented across the globe. The Justice Expo was not a showcase of proposals, suggestions, or hypotheses. It was an inventors’ forum: a spectacular display of evidence that dramatic change and global healing are achievable through innovation.

Read More

Founder of “The Happiest Place in Afghanistan” Makes Powerful Appeal to Save Afghan Music and Musicians

During the World Justice Forum, Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, founder of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), called on the international community to save Afghan music, women musicians, and all Afghan musicians. He described the human rights that have been stripped away since the Taliban’s August 2021 takeover made Afghanistan a “silent nation.” You can read Dr. Sarmast’s full remarks from June 1, 2022, in The Hague below, edited for clarity, and watch a performance by ANIM students who now live in exile Portugal.  

Read More

My Long Struggle to Rebuild the Rule of Law in Cambodia

As one of Cambodia’s first human rights defenders, Vandeth recently made the difficult decision to stay home when the World Justice Project invited 30 World Justice Challenge finalists to showcase their exemplary rule of law projects at the World Justice Forum in The Hague.

Read More