Justice Action Update #7—December 2024

1. Update on the Justice Action Coalition

This year, the Justice Action Coalition participated in or was referenced at several key events and meetings related to access to justice and the rule of law. Notably, the Justice Action Coalition delivered a statement at the SDG 16 Conference in May; was profiled at the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in a statement delivered on behalf of the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies; and published a statement on the adoption of the Pact for the Future.

These contributions amplified the collective voice of our members, advancing the cause of people-centered justice and underscoring our commitment to justice reforms and equal access to justice for all.

The Justice Action Coalition continues to showcase its work at relevant justice and multilateral forums. For example, at the World Bank’s Justice and the Rule of Law Conference in June, the Coalition participated in a “World Café” session—engaging new audiences and broadening our influence. At HLPF in July, the Justice Action Coalition was featured in multiple events alongside prominent speakers, including a US-sponsored side event that highlighted the Coalition’s growing impact. Additionally, at the Summit of the Future in September, the Justice Action Coalition co-sponsored a side event focused on Workstream 4 (Justice Financing), which not only showcased the Coalition’s substantive contributions but also addressed the critical issue of financing for justice reforms. In Ottawa, the Justice Action Coalition was strongly featured in the final session of the OECD Global Roundtable on Equal Access to Justice, as well as in Bangkok at the UN People-Centered Justice Regional Conference.

Exciting events are on the horizon for 2025. The Justice Action Coalition will organize a senior-level meeting (SLM) during the World Justice Forum, which will be held in Warsaw, Poland, from June 23-26, 2025. This key event for justice sector stakeholders will provide an important opportunity for the Justice Action Coalition to convene and take stock of its work and plan for the next steps beyond the two-year inception phase of the permanent structure of the Justice Action Coalition. Later in the year, the Justice Action Coalition will host its inaugural biennial Ministerial Meeting under its new permanent structure. In addition, several high-profile events will offer further platforms for the Justice Action Coalition to showcase its work, including the HLPF and the UN High-Level Week.

2. Update on the Workstreams

A key update for the Justice Action Coalition (JAC) is that the Board is now fully operational and has convened twice this year to address important issues, including membership and priorities for 2025.

As we near the end of the first year of the inception phase, the JAC workstreams have begun delivering tangible results.

Workstream 1: Data and Evidence

The Workstream on Data and Evidence aims to create a robust, people-centered justice measurement framework and indicators to improve global measurement, monitoring, and reporting of access to justice and to build a compelling business case for making justice systems more accessible and effective by demonstrating the socio-economic benefits.

In the long term, these efforts aim to strengthen a global knowledge infrastructure, facilitate the professionalization of the justice sector, standardize data collection methodologies, and promote the sharing of successful strategies and research findings. The ultimate goal is to support countries in their efforts to build people-centered justice systems.

The workstream is coordinated by the OECD, in collaboration with and with significant contributions from the World Justice Project and HiiL. The work will seek input and contributions from all members of the Justice Action Coalition and organize regular policy dialogues to this end. Workstream 1 links directly with initiatives under Workstreams 2, 3, and 4, and alignment between them is central to the approach.

Workstream 1 is working on two aspects: building a business case for people-centered justice and developing a measurement framework. An update of these two aspects is as follows:

Business case for people-centered justice.

• The OECD work to strengthen the business case for people-centered justice, building on the 2019 whitepaper on this same topic, has begun and the draft methodology for the business case reports was presented during the OECD Round Table strategy meeting in Canada on October 8, 2024.

• Work has begun for Canada and Colombia with desk research, data sources identification, and initial analysis. National partners—Justice Canada, Statistics Canada, and DNP in Colombia—are providing support. OECD is in the process of identifying two other countries for country case studies.

Measurement framework development.

• In collaboration with HiiL and the World Justice Project (WJP), OECD is advancing key building blocks for measurement frameworks for the justice sector to be developed in the long term. This long-term vision and approach for this measurement framework was shared during the OECD Round Table strategy meeting on October 8, 2024.

• In alignment with the OECD recommendation, the OECD will develop core indicators for people-centered justice that are focused on policy and implementation. The OECD will also develop and implement a country questionnaire to gather country data in the first half of 2025. The data collected will feed into the report on the State of People-Centered Justice in the second half of 2025, with publication in 2026.

• A mapping exercise has started with OECD, HiiL, and WJP to conceptualize outcome indicators for people-centered justice. The goal is to develop an approach to connecting these indicators to the framework and collect and analyze data for them. This data will also feed into the report on the State of People-Centered Justice.

Workstream 2: Strategy, Programming, and Innovation

Coordinated by UNDP, this workstream focuses on the co-creation and implementation of innovative strategies for people-centered justice at the national level and broker access to international expertise, partnerships, and financial support. This programming supports justice actors in designing data-driven and evidence-based programs and setting goals appropriate for the context. This is demand-driven, short/medium-term support to countries, in order to help these countries make the pivot towards people-centered justice. In 2024, UNDP commenced support on PCJ in five countries: Colombia, Dominican Republic, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Sao Tome and Principe. The catalytic fund provides critical financial and technical resources to support these initiatives, aiming to address unique justice challenges in each context while fostering collaboration across the Justice Action Coalition (JAC).

• 🇸🇱 The work in Sierra Leone is focused on enhancing access to justice for vulnerable groups, including women, girls, and persons with disabilities, through mobile legal clinics and gender-responsive legal aid services. These clinics aim to bridge gaps in legal support by reaching underserved communities, especially in rural communities.
• 🇰🇪 Kenya’s programming focuses on leveraging digital technology to enhance the efficiency and accessibility of Small Claims Courts (SCCs), targeting marginalized populations, including women, youth, and low-income groups. This effort aims to reduce case backlogs, improve transparency, and expand access to justice through digital solutions.
• 🇨🇴 Colombia’s programming aims to strengthen the Agrarian and Rural Jurisdiction (JAR) to provide agile, inclusive access to justice for rural communities facing complex land use conflicts. This initiative aligns with commitments under the 2016 Peace Agreement and recent legislative reforms.
• 🇩🇴 The Dominican Republic’s programming focuses on scaling up national case management systems and developing justice indicators to improve inclusivity and access to justice for marginalized groups, including women persons with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.
• 🇸🇹 São Tomé & Príncipe’s programming centers on improving access to justice in remote areas through mobile justice units and enhancing mediation processes using alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms.

Workstream 3: Communication, Narrative, and Connection to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Coordinated by Pathfinders, this workstream supports coordinated advocacy and communications for the Justice Action Coalition (JAC) by ensuring a shared vision and a coherent narrative on people-centered justice based on the findings and outputs of workstreams 1, 2, and 4. It plays an instrumental role in tying key aspects of the Justice Action Coalition together. Specifically, workstream 3 supports other JAC workstreams in the following ways:

1. Profiling and providing advocacy and communication on innovations arising from country-level implementation of people-centered justice as supported by catalytic funding in Workstream 2;
2. Sharing the importance of and (promising and) good practices on data collection and data usage in policy and decision-making based on research in Workstream 1; and
3. Supporting advocacy and messaging on financing for justice, based on lessons and insights arising from the research and discussion under Workstream 4.

The workstream also supports the Justice Action Coalition to communicate key aspects of people-centered justice with a collective voice and a common ambition through cohesive messages that reflect contextual nuances. This workstream also identifies opportunities to engage with UN processes to profile and promote people-centered justice. It provides a platform for Justice Action Coalition partners to create and maintain a shared vision on people-centered through, amongst other things, creating core messages and ‘asks’ for effective advocacy.

In 2023, Justice Action Coalition partners came together around a set of key messages that expressed a shared vision for the people-centered justice movement. In 2024, Workstream 3 has built upon these key messages to achieve three key outputs:

1. Continue to refine and update a shared vision of people-centered justice and what it means in practice.
2. Identify opportunities to promote and profile people-centered justice at the global level.
3. Co-create effective communication and advocacy strategies on people-centered justice, linking it to the Sustainable Development Goals.

To this end, meetings were held in April and September alongside offline review processes in May, June/July, August, and October to refine these messages and strategies. In 2024, organizations developed a series of coordinated messages around global events, including the UNDP Meeting on Rule of Law and Human Rights, the World Bank Justice and Rule of Law Global Forum, the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), and the SDG Summit. In parallel, the workstream developed a set of global asks to achieve people-centered justice and a repository of thematic messages. These outputs build upon existing key messages on people-centered justice. This document is being finalized, and it will be released in 2025, which will be followed by the development of a communications strategy that will be presented to the Justice Action Coalition Board for review.

Workstream 4: Justice Financing

Workstream 4 on Justice Financing seeks to arrive at and promote a shared understanding of how to invest effectively in justice, providing a roadmap for interested policymakers. One way in which Workstream 4 intends to achieve its objectives is through the creation and adoption of the Justice Financing Framework (the Framework). Pathfinders coordinates the work of Workstream 4, with HiiL and ODI drafting the Framework.

The Framework aims to guide country-level justice financing, setting out financing principles, benchmarks, and ambitions to deliver people-centered justice. Its foundation is the 2019 Hague Declaration of Equal Access to Justice for All by 2030 and the OECD Recommendation on Access to Justice and People-Centered Justice Systems.

The Framework enables effective strategies and policies to transform justice systems to respond to the unmet legal needs of billions of people and ensure respect for human rights. It comes from the realization that without changing financing structures and processes, ministries of justice and judiciaries will not be able to effectively make the transition to people-centered justice programming, as set out in the OECD Recommendation. The Framework draws inspiration from the approach to financing in other sectors (especially health and education) that have scaled up front-line services and improved outcomes. Working with members of the Justice Action Coalition, Workstream 4 prepared a Zero Draft of the Framework during the first half of 2024.

Since the development of the Zero Draft, the workstream has held various meetings and consultations to review and refine the Justice Financing Framework. On June 26, the workstream held a meeting with members and partners of the Justice Action Coalition on the sidelines of the World Bank Justice and Rule of Law Global Forum in Washington, D.C.

On September 18 on the sidelines of the Summit of the Future in New York City, the workstream hosted the first-ever public consultation for the Framework. The call for a new approach in justice financing (which includes strategic allocation and efficient spending) for better outcomes was welcome. There was consensus that the Framework is a necessary intervention and that the Zero Draft is a good point of departure.

On October 10, on the sidelines of the OECD Roundtable on Equal Access to Justice in Ottawa, the workstream convened once again to discuss the key takeaways of the Summit of the Future and to map the next steps in developing the Justice Financing Framework.  On November 12, during the United Nations People-Centered Justice Regional Conference in Bangkok, Achieving Just Societies: Inclusive Justice Pathways for People and Planet in Asia and the Pacific, there was a second public presentation and discussion of the Framework.

The meetings and consultations of Workstream 4 have been invaluable. They have validated the process and garnered strong interest and feedback showing that the workstream is on the right path. These engagements have also been helpful to refine the Zero Draft and to ensure that the work on justice financing is consultative and inclusive, through working with partners throughout the Justice Action Coalition as well as engaging with external stakeholders.

3. Young Justice Leaders

The Young Justice Leaders is a cohort of young change-makers from across the globe who are working to obtain people-centered justice for all, represent young and innovative voices, and influence international dialogues and research around justice.

In the last issue of the Justice Action Update, an exciting update was shared: a new 2024–2025 cohort of Young Justice Leaders was on the horizon. Since then, the new cohort has launched and boasts an eclectic group of passionate leaders who embody the spirit of youth-led advocacy and are committed to advancing access to justice for all.

The Young Justice Leaders have hit the ground running, participating in and contributing to:

• An inter-cohort discussion on the Young Justice Leaders.
• A vlog about people-centered justice.
• A Peace One Day, Youth Live 2024 video interview.
• An Intergenerational Dialogue: Young People as Catalysts for SDG16.
• The World Bank’s Justice and the Rule of Law Global Forum.
• The 2024 OECD Global Roundtable on Equal Access to Justice.
• The United Nations People-Centered Justice Regional Conference.
• The Launch of the African Alliance on People-Centered Justice.

4. African Alliance for People-Centered Justice

The African Alliance for People-Centered Justice (AAPCJ) was launched on November 19, 2024, at the Knowledge Platform Annual Conference held in Dakar, Senegal, with leaders from across Africa, along with international leaders of the justice sector committed to closing the justice gap in the continent. Its mission is to foster regional cooperation, catalyze funding for local justice initiatives, and strengthen the capacity of justice systems to deliver equitable and accessible solutions for all Africans.

The founding members of AAPCJ have put together a four-year strategic plan to outline the vision, strategic goals, and objectives for the Alliance’s initial phase. It also details the governance structure guiding the Alliance during these first four years. The main three strategic goals are to:

1. Ensure a common and shared understanding of people-centered justice among a range of formal and informal justice actors,
2. Mainstream a people-centered approach to the delivery of justice at the country level and
3. Expand the work of the Alliance into more countries and regions in Africa.

One key aspect of the African Alliance is that it seeks to work closely with other regional and international movements, like the Ibero-American Alliance for Access to Justice and the Justice Action Coalition, to cross-pollinate key insights and lessons about people-centered approaches to justice.

5. Reports, Policy Briefs, and Other News

• A new JAC brochure was published earlier this year, and the JAC webpage has been updated to reflect the changes under the permanent structure.
• IDLO published their 2025-2028 Strategic Plan, which serves as a roadmap to navigate a complex political and socio-economic environment and to continue championing justice and the rule of law.
• With 2024 marking IDLO’s 40^th anniversary, the 2023 Annual Report offers a tangible demonstration of the results achieved despite the increasingly challenging global context.
• IDLO also released a gender assessment of climate and environmental laws in the Philippines, which makes recommendations for strengthening institutional, legal, policy, and implementation frameworks to advance climate justice for women and girls.
• ODI released a country case study on cost-effective front-line justice services in Sierra Leone: a case study in frugal innovation and domestic resourcing.
• ODI also released a policy brief, Justice Financing 2024 Annual Review Domestic Financing and Aid, which presents the latest global data on justice finance. It covers the level of finance flowing to the justice sector from domestic resources and aid.
• The OECD released a working paper, Towards effective governance of justice data, which explores the role of data governance in advancing people-centered justice systems. Drawing on OECD policy instruments, it outlines the objectives, values, and practices necessary to harness data effectively.
• The OECD also released a policy paper that introduces the OECD Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Framework, exploring how digital technologies and data can support dispute resolution within and beyond court systems, thereby enhancing access to justice for all. It elaborates on three pillars—governance, policy levers, and ethics and safeguards—offering comprehensive guidance to countries on integrating ODR.
• The OECD’s policy paper, Measuring and improving access to justice in court services, presents a step-by-step assessment to help countries implement the OECD Recommendation on Access to Justice and People-Centred Justice Systems.
• Pathfinders published a report, Tipping the scales towards a people-centered justice approach to resilience in fragile contexts, that traces the evolution and importance of an emerging resilience paradigm and the simultaneous rise of people-centered approaches to justice (PCJ) arguing that PCJ is a vital but missing element of the new resilience paradigm and key to its success.
• Pathfinders also published a report on the climate change, injustice and displacement nexus. By bridging the gaps between climate justice, displacement, and legal support, this paper argues for more effective, equitable solutions rooted in people-centered justice that address the root causes of displacement and support climate-impacted communities in their fight for justice.
• WJP launched their 2024 Rule of Law Index, revealing that a majority of countries are experiencing backsliding, diminished human rights, and justice systems that are failing to meet people’s needs.
• A massive data collection exercise on people’s perceptions and experiences of the rule of law, the WJP EUROVOICES is based on in-depth surveys of over 72,000 local people and legal experts regarding their dealings with the government, the police and the courts, their ability to exercise their rights, the strength of their democracy, and the extent of crime, corruption, and violence.
• WJP’s Kathryn Grace Hulseman contributed a chapter, “Advancing access to justice, the rule of law and economic prosperity,” to the SDG 16 Data Initiative 2024 Report,
• The Working Group on Customary and Informal Justice and SDG16+ published the French translation of their Diverse Pathways to People-Centered Justice report.
• The World Bank published a note as part of its “Reforming Justice” series on Engaging with Countries on Judicial Budgets. This note presents trends in judicial budgets and budgeting reforms emphasizing the need for judicial leaders to continuously advocate for resources by demonstrating the judiciary’s integral role in maintaining law and order, promoting democracy, and fostering societal stability.
• The World Bank also published a note as part of its “Reforming Justice” series on Improving Service Delivery through Technology. This note explores how technology can enhance the efficiency, transparency, and accessibility of judicial service delivery by streamlining court processes, facilitating user access, and supporting the quality and transparency of judicial decisions.
• Manuel Ramos-Maqueda and Daniel Chen co-authored a research article in World Development that explores the transformative potential of data science in enhancing justice systems globally. Leveraging the increasing availability of judicial data and the advancements of the digital revolution, this article demonstrates how policymakers can significantly improve access, efficiency, and fairness within justice systems—crucial components of economic development, as discussed in a companion paper.

6. Justice for All Calendar 2025

Get in touch!
Have an event, report or activity related to people-centered justice that you would like to see featured in this newsletter? Contact: Themba.Mahleka@nyu.edu