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Abstract
The authors argue that legal empowerment during political transitions must take into account the numerous and varied obstacles that people living in poverty face in accessing justice. Challenging impunity and strengthening justice require explicitly targeting power asymmetries and addressing obstacles that are social, cultural, financial and systemic in nature. The article examines different types of legal empowerment and access to justice programmes, highlighting their benefits and challenges from a human rights perspective. Finally, it draws lessons from existing programmes for practitioners and policymakers working to improve access to justice in transitional contexts.
Notes on contributors
Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights (2008–2014) and is now Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD).
Kate Donald was Adviser and Researcher to the Special Rapporteur from 2012–2014 and is now based at the Center for Economic and Social Rights.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Under international human rights law, states have fundamental obligations to facilitate access to justice in a practical and tangible sense. See UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Report to the General Assembly (Access to Justice), UN Document A/67/278 (New York: United Nations, 2012), http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Poverty/A-67-278.pdf.
2 The present article does not focus on ‘transitional justice’ mechanisms per se, but rather more long-term initiatives and processes specifically aimed at promoting legal empowerment and access to justice for the poor in countries in transition.
3 UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP), Making the Law Work for Everyone, Vol. 1 (New York: UN CLEP and UNDP, 2008), 1.
4 Hague Institute for the Internationalization of Law (HiiL), Trend Report, Part 1: Towards Basic Justice Care for Everyone – Challenges and Promising Approaches (The Hague: HiiL, 2012), 28–9.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 For a more detailed analysis of the obstacles, see UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, Report on Access to Justice A/67/278.
8 See UNICEF, Every Child's Birth Right: Inequities and Trends in Birth Registration (New York: UNICEF, 2013).
9 For example, research shows that Dalits in Nepal may be reluctant to pursue justice claims due to their economic dependence on non-Dalit groups and fears of social boycotts from non-Dalits that could jeopardise their livelihoods. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal, Opening the Door to Equality: Access to Justice for Dalits in Nepal (Nepal: OHCHR-Nepal, 2011).
10 See UNDP in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Facing the Past and Access to Justice from a Public Perspective (UNDP Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2011).
11 Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, Report to the General Assembly (Rule of Law), UN Document A/67/368 (New York: United Nations, 2012), para. 32.
12 Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, Report to the General Assembly (Post-2015 Agenda), UN Document A/68/345 (New York: United Nations, 2013).
13 Stephen Golub, ‘Beyond Rule of Law Orthodoxy: The Legal Empowerment Alternative', Working Paper No. 41, Rule of Law Series (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003), 15.
14 CLEP, Making the Law Work for Everyone, 3.
15 It is important to note that the legal empowerment ‘movement’ is not homogenous. To their credit, some of the initiatives and organisations formed in the wake of the CLEP have transcended the limited approach of the CLEP's final conclusions.
16 Dan Banik, ‘Legal Empowerment as a Conceptual and Operational Tool in Poverty Eradication', Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 1, no. 1 (2009): 117–31.
17 See for example the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) arts 7, 8, 10 and 11(1), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) arts 2(3), 14, 15, 26, as well as relevant provisions in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), Convention Against Torture (CAT), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and other international human rights covenants and conventions.
18 UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 18: Non-discrimination, UN Doc. CCPR/C/GC/18 (1989), para. 10; and UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 20: Non-discrimination in Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, UN Doc. E/C.12/GC/20 (2009), para. 8.
19 UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 32, Article 14: Right to Equality before Courts and Tribunals and to a Fair Trial, UN Doc. CCPR/C/GC/32 (2007).
20 See UN Development Group, The Human Rights Based Approach to Development Cooperation, Towards a Common Understanding among UN Agencies (New York: United Nations, 2003).
21 See UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, Report to the Human Rights Council (Participation), UN Document A/HRC/23/36 (Geneva: United Nations, 2013).
22 UK Interagency Group on Human Rights Based Approaches, The Impact of Rights-based Approaches to Development (London: UK Interagency Group on Human Rights Based Approaches, 2007), 44.
23 Flavia Bustreo, Paul Hunt et al., Women's and Children's Health: Evidence of Impact of Human Rights (Geneva: World Health Organisation, 2013), 13.
24 UK Interagency Group, The Impact of Rights-based Approaches to Development, 7–8.
25 CARE USA and Oxfam America, Rights-based Approaches Learning Project (CARE and Oxfam 2007); Paul Gready, ‘Reasons to be Cautious About Evidence and Evaluation: Rights-based Approaches to Development and the Emerging Culture of Evaluation', Journal of Human Rights Practice 1, no. 3 (2009): 380 and 397.
26 While root causes of violent conflict are complex, it is widely agreed that violent conflict and multiple inequalities between groups mutually reinforce each other. Fred Cocozzelli, ‘The Role of Social Policy in Post-conflict Reconstruction', Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 2, no. 3 (2006): 49–63; Frances Stewart, Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict, Understanding Group Violence in Multiethnic Societies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
27 Stephen Golub, ‘The Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor: One Big Step Forward and a Few Steps Back for Development Policy and Practice', Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 1, no. 1 (2009): 108.
28 Most of the examples come from countries in transition, but some examples from other contexts have also been included where it is considered that the methods used, challenges experienced and lessons learned would also apply.
29 Erica Harper, ‘Promoting Legal Empowerment in the Aftermath of Disaster: An Evaluation of Post-Tsunami Legal Assistance Initiatives in Indonesia', in Legal Empowerment: Practitioners' Perspectives, ed. S. Golub (Rome: International Development Law Organisation, 2010), 157–78.
30 See Uganda Land Alliance website, http://ulaug.org/departments-and-programs/legal-empowerment/land-rights-information-offices/.
31 Rita Aciro-Lakor, ‘Land Rights Information Centres in Uganda', in Legal Empowerment in Practice: Using Legal Tools to Secure Land Rights in Africa, ed. Lorenzo Cotula and Paul Mathieu (London: IIED, 2008): 71–76.
32 See for example, HiiL, Trend Report.
33 See UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. Report to the Human Rights Council, UN Document A/HRC/17/27 (Geneva: United Nations, 2011).
34 See Simon Jeffery, ‘Ushahidi: Crowdmapping Collective that Exposed Kenyan Election Killings', The Guardian, 7 April 2011.
35 See Annie Wilkinson, ‘Documenting the Backlash: LGBTI Rights in Haiti', Benetech website (2014), http://benetech.org/2014/01/23/documenting-the-backlash-lgbti-rights-in-haiti/.
36 UNICEF, Every Child's Birth Right: Inequities and Trends in Birth Registration (New York: UNICEF, 2013), 14.
37 Ibid., 23.
38 See for example UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Birth Registration and Armed Conflict (Florence: UNICEF Innocenti, 2007).
39 Casey Dunning, Alan Gelb, and Sneha Raghavan, Birth Registration, Legal Identify and the Post-2015 Agenda, CGD Policy Paper 46 (Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, 2014).
40 UNHCR, Birth Registration, Child Protection Issue Brief (Geneva: UNHCR, 2013).
41 UNICEF, Every Child's Birth Right, 32.
42 Plan International, ‘Cambodia: Impact of the Universal Birth Registration Campaign', Plan website, https://plan-international.org/birthregistration/resources/country-case-studies/cambodia.
43 Sinclair Dinnen and Nicole Haley, Evaluation of the Community Officer Project in the Solomon Islands, World Bank Justice for the Poor Research Report (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012).
44 See for example, Donny Meertens and Margarita Zambrano, ‘Citizenship Deferred: The Politics of Victimhood, Land Restitution and Gender Justice in the Colombian (Post?) Conflict’, The International Journal of Transitional Justice 4 (2010): 189–206; Lucy Hovil, ‘The Nexus between Displacement and Transitional Justice: A Gender-Justice Dimension', ICTJ Research Brief (New York: ICTJ, 2013); Makau Mutua, ‘Transitional Justice in Sexual and Gender-Based Violence', Pambazuka News, Issue 388 (2008).
45 See UNICEF, ‘Thuthuzela Care Centres', UNICEF website, http://www.unicef.org/southafrica/hiv_aids_998.html; and National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa, ‘Thuthuzela: Turning Victims into Survivors', http://www.info.gov.za/events/2009/TCC_2009.pdf.
46 Shelby Quast, ‘Justice Reform and Gender', in Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, ed. Megan Bastick and Kristin Valasek (Geneva: DCAF, OSCE/ODIHR, UN-INSTRAW, 2008), 11.
47 UN Women, Progress of the World's Women 2011–12: In Pursuit of Justice (New York: UN Women, 2011), 60.
48 UN Women, Progress of the World's Women 2015–16 (New York: UN Women, forthcoming), Chapter 1.
49 Quast, ‘Justice Reform and Gender’, 12.
50 Penal Reform International and the Bluhm Legal Clinic of the Northwestern University School of Law, Access to Justice in Africa and Beyond: Making the Rule of Law a Reality (Chicago: Penal Reform International and the Bluhm Legal Clinic, 2007), 147.
51 Adam Stapleton, ‘Empowering the Poor to Access Criminal Justice: A Grass-roots Perspective', in Golub, Legal Empowerment, 41.
52 Maha Jweied and Miranda Jolicoeur, Expert Working Group Report: International Perspectives on Indigent Defense (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, 2011), 44.
53 The Asia Foundation, Promoting Improved Access to Justice: Community Legal Service Delivery in Bangladesh (Unpublished paper, commissioned by the UK Department for International Development, 2007), http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/procurement/annex-g-comm-legal-servs.pdf.
54 Timap for Justice website, http://www.timapforjustice.org.
55 HiiL, Trend Report, 110.
56 Open Society Justice Initiative, Between Law and Society: Paralegals and the Provision of Primary Justice Services in Sierra Leone (New York: Open Society Foundations, 2010), 2.
57 Pamela Dale, Delivering Justice to Sierra Leone's Poor: An Analysis of the Work of Timap for Justice (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009), 33.
58 See for example Roberto Gargarella, ‘Too Far Removed from the People: Access to Justice for the Poor. The Case of Latin America', http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/drivers_urb_change/urb_society/pdf_violence_rights/gargarella_removed_from_people.pdf ; and Natalie Stroud, ‘The Koori Court Revisited: A Review of Cultural and Language Awareness in the Administration of Justice’, Australian Law Librarian 18, no. 3 (2010): 184.
59 Administrative Resolution No. 37-2011-CE-PJ, of 26 January 2011 (Consejo Ejecutivo del Poder Judicial) establishing programme ‘Justicia en tu Comunidad’.
60 Cesar San Martín Castro, ‘National Justice in Your Community programme of Peru’, Innovating Justice website (2012), http://www.innovatingjustice.com/innovations/National-Justice-in-Your-Community-Programme?view_content=details.
61 Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, Report to the General Assembly (Rule of Law) A/67/368, para. 28.
62 These centres have since been integrated into the National Programme for Access to Justice. See Decree No. 28586 of 17 January 2006.
63 Tiernan Mennen, ‘The Mystery of Legal Empowerment: Livelihoods and Community Justice in Bolivia', in Golub, Legal Empowerment.
64 Adolfo S. Azcuna, ‘The Justice on Wheels of the Philippines (Presentation at the International Conference and Showcase on Judicial Reforms, 2005), http://jrn21.judiciary.gov.ph/forum_icsjr/ICSJR_Philippines%20%20(A%20Azcuna).pdf.
65 Arrêté d'Organization Judiciaire 299/79 portant règlement intérieur des cours, tribunaux et parquets.
66 Tessa Khan and Jim Wormington, ‘Mobile Courts in the DRC: Lessons from Development for International Criminal Justice’, Oxford Transitional Justice Research Working Paper Series (Oxford: University of Oxford, 2011).
67 American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative, ‘DRC's Mobile Courts Strike a Blow against Rape and Related Crimes', American Bar Association website (2009), http://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/rule_of_law/where_we_work/africa/democratic_republic_congo/news/news_drc_mobile_courts_strike_blow_against_crimes_1109.html.
68 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Programming for Justice: Access for All (Bangkok: UNDP, 2005), 160.
69 UNDP, Doing Justice: How Informal Justice Systems Can Contribute (New York: UNDP, 2006), 5.
70 Chief of an Abunzi committee in the Karongi region in Rwanda, cited in HiiL, Trend Report, 118.
71 Rwandan Governance Board, ‘Abunzi’, Rwanda Governance Board website, http://www.rgb.rw/main-menu/innovation/abunzi.html.
72 Seraphine Murerwa, Muriel Veldman, and Marco Lankhorst, ‘An Insight into Abunzi Justice', RCN Bulletin No. 31 (Brussels: RCN, 2010), 9–11.
73 HiiL, Trend Report, 116.
74 International Council on Human Rights Policy, When Legal Worlds Overlap: Human Rights, State and Non-State Law (Geneva: International Council on Human Rights Policy, 2010), 53.
75 Joanna Pozen, Richard Neugebauer, and Joseph Ntaganira, ‘Assessing the Rwanda Experiment: Popular Perceptions of Gacaca in its Final Phase’, The International Journal of Transitional Justice (2014): 1–22.
76 Ibid.
77 See Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute website, http://www.paclii.org/pg/Manuals/Magistrates/Part4Chap18.htm.
78 Anne Grandjean ‘No Rights Without Accountability: Promoting Access to Justice for Children', in Golub, Legal Empowerment.
79 Margot Kokke and Pedro Vuskovic, ‘Legal Empowerment of the Poor in Nicaragua: Microjustice avant-la-lettre?’ (2010), 3, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1674020.
80 Ministry of Justice, Nicaragua, ‘Servicio Nacional de Facilitadores Judiciales', Poder Judicial website, http://www.poderjudicial.gob.ni/facilitadores/.
81 HiiL, Trend Report, 112.
82 Open Society Justice Initiative, Improving Pretrial Justice: The Roles of Lawyers and Paralegals (New York: Open Society Foundations, 2012), 30.
83 See Open Society Justice Initiative, The Socio-Economic Impacts of Pretrial Detention (New York: Open Society Foundations, 2011).
84 See Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, UN Document E/CN/4/2006/7 (Geneva: United Nations, 2005), para. 66; and Christopher Lowenkamp, Marie VanNostrand, and Alexander Holsinger, Investigating the Impact of Pretrial Detention on Sentencing Outcomes (Houston, TX: Arnold Foundation, 2013).
85 Open Society Justice Initiative, Improving Pretrial Justice, 42.
86 Open Society Justice Initiative, ‘Making Legal Aid Work in Nigeria's Police Stations', Open Society Foundations website (2012), http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/making-legal-aid-work-nigeria-s-police-stations.
87 United Nations Economic and Social Council, Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems (E/CN.15/2012/L.14/Rev.1), adopted by the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, April 2012.
88 Open Society Justice Initiative, Improving Pretrial Justice, 41.
89 Ibid., 46.
90 Robert Varenick, ‘Rethinking Justice in Mexico: The Case of Morelos', Open Society Foundations website (2011), http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/rethinking-justice-mexico-case-morelos.
91 Instituto de Justicia Procesal Penal. Presunción de Inocencia website, http://www.presunciondeinocencia.org.mx/index.php.
92 Acuerdos de Paz de Chapultepec signed on 16 January 1992. The creation of the NHRI was in the Mexico Agreements of 27 April 1991.
93 For example, the NHRI intervened in a serious dispute over water and coca harvests in the region of Cochabama, securing an agreement with indigenous leaders. See Claudia Lopez and Miguel Moguel, ‘Latin America's National Human Rights Institutions: Fostering Democratic Transitions and Guaranteeing Human Rights', ELLA Policy Brief (Mexico: FUNDAR, 2012).