We still have a chance to change that.

This week, the Task Force on Justice released one of the strongest endorsements of legal empowerment in any international document in history.

The Task Force, made up of governments, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector, came together to determine how countries can shift from justice for the few to justice for all by 2030.

As one of the civil society representatives on the Task Force, Namati’s CEO, Vivek Maru, goal was to sound the message of our movement: that progress towards justice requires giving people the power to know and exercise their rights.

The report doesn’t tiptoe around legal empowerment but rather embraces it as crucial to the achievement of the SDGs. “Legal empowerment helps people understand and use the law,” the Task Force finds. “It enables them to recognize legal problems when they arise and equips them with the skills and confidence to take action.”

Legal empowerment is essential not just for resolving individual disputes, but for “challeng[ing] powerful business and state interests” and “tackling the root causes of collective injustices.”

The report acknowledges that civil society has “a vital role to play in helping build trust in justice systems, by bringing justice closer to the people” and highlights the funding and protection challenges that stymie our community’s efforts.

The Task Force “supports the demand of the Justice For All campaign” and underscores that achieving the promise of the SDGs requires “recognizing grassroots justice defenders, financing them in ways that respect their independence, and protecting them from violence and coercion.”

The time is now to build long-term momentum. Use the Justice For All Action Pack to share the report’s recommendations with your government and highlight how civil society and government can work together to implement them.

Tap into the global energy around SDG16. At two moments in this Year of Justice — the High-level Political Forum and the UN General Assembly — governments will report for the first time on the progress they’ve made in delivering access to justice.

The Task Force report calls for governments to come to these events with concrete country-level commitments. Let’s use this window to shape what those commitments will be.

We cannot afford to have another year slip by without a hard charge towards justice. Our movement is helping to change the current trajectory. It’s high time our governments followed suit.

Download the full report here. 

These words from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ring true today. Especially when justice defenders themselves are at risk.

Today, on MLK Day, Namati and the Justice For All campaign are launching a policy brief that offers recommendations on how governments, donors, and multilateral institutions can finance and protect grassroots justice defenders, and why these steps are crucial to achieving the promise of “justice for all” in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Grassroots justice defenders do the work of legal empowerment. They support vulnerable groups to contend with complex, broken, or corrupt legal systems, and apply skills like negotiation, organizing, and advocacy to help people overcome injustice.

Despite mounting need, their efforts are under-resourced and often under attack.

Aid funding towards justice has decreased by 40% in 4 years; the funding that does exist tends to go to top-down approaches rather than bottom-up.

Meanwhile, civil society space is shrinking. In 2018, 321 defenders in 27 countries were targeted and killed for their work—the highest number on record. Two-thirds of Global Legal Empowerment Network members report that they were threatened for carrying out frontline justice work.

This new policy brief is an essential tool for anyone who wants to change that.

Written in close consultation with partners and Network members, our community argues that without investing in legal empowerment and securing the safety of its champions, “justice for all” will remain empty rhetoric, leaving the majority of the globe without access to justice.

Recommendations to address financing challenges include:

• ensuring investments in legal empowerment don’t curtail the independence of justice defenders;
• tapping into sector-specific sources of funding in areas like land, environment, and health.

Recommendations to address protection challenges include:

• Protecting grassroots justice defenders from intimidation, harassment, and murder;
• prohibiting lawsuits whose main purpose is to harass justice defenders.

This Wednesday, January 23rd, we are hosting a webinar to discuss how this policy brief can serve as a template to drive advocacy around the SDGs in our respective countries and as part of a global movement for justice. We hope you will join us.

Governments must ensure that justice flows not only to the strongest, richest, or most powerful, but to everyone. Justice defenders help make that happen. It’s high time world leaders recognize that with both words and action.

Download the PDF of the policy brief here.

Ten years ago, the UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor released a landmark report finding that “at least four billion people are excluded from the rule of law.” The Commission, on which I was an Affiliate Expert, identified legal empowerment as an essential solution for closing the justice gap.

Over the last decade, and on every continent on the planet, community paralegals have put the power of law in people’s hands, turning legal empowerment into a global force.

In 2015, our movement succeeded in having justice included in the Sustainable Development Goals. This was a major shift in global thinking, with leaders from 193 countries committing to making “access to justice for all” a reality.

Yet, despite many promising victories, community paralegals and other grassroots justice defenders remain grossly underfunded and increasingly under attack.

People like Musa Usman Ndamba, a Global Legal Empowerment Network member and land rights activist from Cameroon. In May, Musa was sentenced to six months in prison based on claims of defamation from a wealthy businessman, which many in our community believe was retribution for Musa’s work exposing corrupt land deals. His imprisonment came after five years of judicial harassment, during which the court adjourned his hearings over 55 times.

Musa’s case is emblematic of how justice defenders are increasingly under threat of harassment, imprisonment, and violence.

Adding to these challenges is a lack of funding for the work of legal empowerment. In a recent survey of the Global Legal Empowerment Network, 67% of respondents noted that they’ll have to make cuts or will not be able to operate in the coming year due to funding concerns.

In 2015, when justice was included in the Sustainable Development Goals, not one country pledged a penny to finance access to justice. In fact, donor funding for justice has actually declined by 40% over the last four years.

As long as justice defenders are thwarted in this way, with threats increasing and funding decreasing, injustice will remain the norm for billions of people across the globe.

To overcome these odds, #JusticeForAll is a global campaign mobilizing to demand funding and protection for grassroots justice defenders. Sign the petition today and we’ll deliver our collective demands to world leaders at the UN General Assembly.

In recognition of the 10-year anniversary of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, we are also launching 10 Days of Local Action. From September 25 to October 6, grassroots campaign partners are organizing actions to advance financing and protection for grassroots justice defenders. Check out this Action Pack to see how you can join these efforts and organize an event in your community.

The people that make up our movement give me hope. Ten years ago, the Commission wrote, “Democracy and legal empowerment are kindred spirits.” I believe it. Our movement believes it. It’s time we made world leaders believe it too.

–

When the 17 goals were announced, most were accompanied by major financial commitments: $956 million from the Gates Foundation and the UK government for nutrition; $25 billion in public and private financing for a global strategy to improve healthcare for women and children. Not a single penny was pledged to access to justice.

Grassroots approaches to justice remain chronically underfunded. Between 2005 and 2013, only 1.8% of global aid was dedicated to the justice sector [i] and only a handful of governments and donors recognize or fund grassroots justice defenders. In some of the world’s strongest economies, legal aid budgets are being cut.

Declines in democracy are further undermining the fight for justice in many societies. As authoritarianism grows and civil society space shrinks, the efforts and safety of grassroots justice defenders come increasingly under threat. [ii]

This World Social Justice Day grassroots justice defenders from around the world came together in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to call on world leaders to deliver on their promise of ensuring access to justice for all.

Mary Robinson and Hina Jilani of The Elders joined hundreds of civil society organizations for a public walk from the Cabildo to the Congress to demonstrate their shared commitment to realizing access to justice for all. The event is part of #WalkTogether, a year-long campaign leading up to Nelson Mandela’s 100th anniversary to inspire hope in the world by celebrating courageous moral leadership for “Mandela’s freedoms”: Peace, Health, Justice, and Equality.

The walk coincided with the first convening of a new global Task Force on Justice. Ministers from Argentina (host of the G20), the Netherlands (host of The Hague’s justice institutions) and Sierra Leone (chair of the G7+) have joined Hina Jilani as chairs of this new body. They have been tasked with accelerating the delivery of the SDGs that increase justice for people and communities living outside the protection of the law.

Civil society from across the world presented the members of the justice task force with the Declaration Villa Inflamable and called on them to implement its recommendations. The Declaration outlines practical steps for governments, the private sector, and civil society to increase access to justice by working together and supporting community-led efforts.

We know, however, that the biggest issues facing the justice community cannot be solved by a single walk or declaration. That is why Namati and the Global Legal Empowerment Network is taking the momentum generated by this event forward into a new three-year global campaign: Justice For All. The campaign will advocate for governments to improve funding and protections for grassroots justice defenders. Only when the work of those who help people to know, use and shape the law is secured will we be able to achieve access to justice for all.

Check out more photos and highlights from the day’s events on Twitter. 

[i] 2011 World Development Report

[ii] The Economist Intelligence Unit (2017), ‘Democracy Index 2017,’ available at Country analysis, industry analysis – Market risk assessment and The Economist Intelligence Unit (2017), Democracy Index 2017 – Free speech under attack. London: The Economist, available at Democracy Index 2017

View by clicking on the image.

A better version for download.

Listen to the full discussion on the CFR website, or watch here.