The Fight for Justice for All
The Justice For All campaign ran from 2018-2021.
The campaign advocated for increased financing and protection for grassroots justice defenders around the world. It was designed and led by the Grassroots Justice Network (formerly Legal Empowerment Network) and executed by a coalition of justice organizations.
At the time, an estimated 5.1 billion people lived outside the reach of the law, leaving them susceptible to violence, discrimination, and systemic injustice. Grassroots justice defenders helped change this status quo by bringing down barriers that prevented people from accessing justice and supporting communities to know, use, and shape the law.
Leading up to the campaign’s launch, 193 countries agreed to make “equal access to justice for all” one of the key goals of the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — in part thanks to the advocacy efforts of members of the Grassroots Justice Network. Still, the work of justice defenders remained chronically underfunded, and the defenders themselves were increasingly at risk. The Justice For All campaign took on these challenges.
What we achieved
Lessons Learned
Justice For All Campaign Timeline
Following decades of efforts spearheaded by civil society, the Justice For All campaign built on that momentum over the course of the campaign, from 2018 to 2020. Below are key activities and critical points of opportunity for our movement.
Featured Resources
The Case to Fund and Protect Grassroots Justice Defenders
This policy brief offers recommendations for policymakers, donors, and multilateral institutions on how to finance and protect the defenders who provide essential legal support to communities.
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Grassroots Justice in a Pandemic: Ensuring a Just Response and Recovery
This brief offers recommendations for policymakers, donors, and multilateral institutions on how to finance and protect grassroots justice defenders during and after the pandemic.
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Justice for All: Report of the Task Force on Justice
Drawing on research by the world’s leading justice organizations and experts, the report of the Task Force on Justice proposes a different approach to justice – putting people at the center of justice systems and justice at the heart of sustainable development.
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Justice For All Campaign Evaluation
After the Justice For All campaign came to a close, an external evaluation was conducted of the campaign. Read the evaluation to understand what strategies were effective, and the key lessons we learned in driving forward a network-directed campaign.
Learn MoreVoices of the Campaign
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The Justice For All campaign, in addition to raising attention and concern about the importance of providing finance for justice and particularly grassroots justice, also importantly secured finances to make funding available to grassroots justice organizations in a time of crisis as the COVID pandemic unfurled across the world.
Sara Hossain
BLAST
I was so impressed at how the campaign structured financing and funding in a way that it did not feel like a big unachievable process. A lot of justice defenders are everyday people just trying to solve their own justice issues in their local communities…It made the money quickly available…and it really gave people the room they needed to use the funding in response to the needs of their community.
Jhody Polk
Founder and Director, Legal Empowerment and Advocacy Hub
At the global level, we are beginning to speak with a more similar language around access to justice needs, and that’s mostly because of the agenda that the Justice For All campaign sought to bring forward.
Sebastián Pilo
Co-Director, Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia
The Justice For All campaign was critical in helping government and civil society in Sierra Leone drive forward policy reforms on access to justice. This was particularly useful through the Open Government Partnership Co-creation Process, in which civil society organizations and governments developed an access to justice commitment for Sierra Leone’s third National Action Plan that focused on Community-Based Justice Service provision as a key government policy commitment.
Eleanor Thompson
Deputy Director of Programs, Namati Sierra Leone
The Justice For All campaign helped us in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region to build real regional partnership, which allows us to change our experiences, to change our knowledge to help solve common issues in different countries.
Yevgen Poltenko
Formerly Executive Director, Legal Development Network
