New AfricLaw Blog for African Rule of Law Issues

AfricLaw, launched in April 2012, is a blog which provides a platform for discussion for those interested in the rule and role of law in Africa. The AfricLaw blog is a joint venture of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa (ICLA) and the Centre for Human Rights (CHR) of the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria.

All areas of law applicable to Africa are covered, both international (global and continental) and national. Legal academics and students, researchers, international and national civil servants, legislators and politicians, legal practitioners and judges, as well as those who are not lawyers but have an interest in law are among those who are welcome to participate in the discussions. 

AfricLaw provides a space for the discussion of issues of substance, forming of opinions and information sharing among people living on the continent, those from Africa who are in the diaspora, and anyone else who is interested in participating. AfricLaw will also serve as a vehicle for comments from Africa on legal developments in the rest of the world. 

Legal Opinion delivered via Poetry

I read about this recent piece of brilliant poetry aka legal opinion on Martin Gramatikov's Access to Justice blog, and just had to share. This is an awesome twist to innovation in justice- using not new technology like cell phones or the internet (which we often blog about on this site), but old fashioned poetry. Admittedly, this judgement so much easier to read and understand than a typical legal document. Gives some food for thought about the dissemination of legal knowledge for legal empowerment- maybe we can have legal information in poetry via SMS!

(reproduced partially from the legal opinion of Commonwealth v. Goodson here):

In January, 2001, appellant’s car was in a collision.
His insurer totaled the aging New Yorker, then made a just division
of the value of the insurance claim, sending $6,289 to the lender;
the balance of $135, to appellant they made tender.

2012 LSC/TIG Conference January 11-13, 2012 - Albuquerque, New Mexico

The US Legal Services Corp (LSC), through its Technology Initiative Grant (TIC), has been hosting these networking and innovation  conferences since 2007 but this is the first time it has moved away from it's typical Austin location to New Mexico this coming year.

From The TIG/LSC website: (You should also check out the rich repository of past conference materials here)

Download the 2012 TIG Conference Tentative Agenda (15KB)

Registration: Click here to register online for the 2012 TIG Conference.Registration for TIG attendees is $420, which includes all sessions, breakfast and lunch and one evening reception.

Where: LSC will be holding the 12th Annual TIG Conference in Albuquerque, NM at the Embassy Suites Albuquerque, 1000 Woodward Pl. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87102. The TIG Conference rate is $81/night single occupancy and $101/night for double occupancy. Go to http://bit.ly/TIG2012Hotel to book a hotel room online.

Namati's Website is in Beta!

Namati is a new Legal Empowerment organization I have heard a lot about while it is in the works to being launched. Through esteemed colleagues in the Legal Empwerment/Access to Justice field- like Stephen Golub, Martin Mgramatikov and the microjustice network- I've been looking forward to its web presence, and finally it's here in Beta.

You can access it at http://namati.org (The administrators are asking for user feedback so do particulate if you have any thoughts about how to make it even better.)

World Bank hosts first Law, Justice and Development Week 2011 - Innovation and Empowerment for Development, November 14-17, Washington, DC

For the first time, Law, Justice and Development Week 2011 will be a Bank Group-wide event organized by the World Bank Legal Vice Presidency, IFC and MIGA Legal Departments, and ICSID. This will be a forum to explore how legal innovation and empowerment can contribute to development. Registration now open !

Study reports access to justice gaps in many South Pacific nations

via Access to Justice Blog by mgramatikov on 10/27/11

Recently published Needs evaluation survey by the South Pacific Lawyers Association reveal significant access to justice gaps in most of the studied countries:

• Australia 
• Papua New Guinea 
• Cook Islands 
• Republic of the Fiji Islands 
• Kingdom of Tonga 
• Samoa 
• Kiribati 
• Solomon Islands 
• Nauru 
• Timor Leste 
• New Zealand 
• Tuvalu 
• Niue 
• Vanuatu 
• Norfolk Island 

Tools to Create an Unbundled-Orriented Lawyer Referral Service

via Richard Zorza's Access to Justice Blog by richardzorza on 10/31/11

The time is long past for every jurisdiction that allows unbundling — and of course now most do, to have such services available through lawyer referral and information services, ideally through a panel of the existing lawyer referral system. Lets face it, thats where the clients without lawyers enter into the system, and it is hard to understand why more LRIS do not offer this crucial affordability tool, particularly given the poll data on the public's interest in exploring the option.

So it is important to draw attention to these LRIS Unbundling materials developed to assist in the creation of such a panel. (Remember, of course that state law governs as to who is allowed to operate such a lawyer referral service.)

20 Innovations in Legal Aid by the LSC

2011 Innovations Session Workshop Book Now Available!

At the 2011 Centennial NLADA Conference, Legal Services Corporation, AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly andManagement Information Exchange offered a series of presentations at a session titled Innovations in Civil Legal Services. The book by the same name features 20 innovations ranging from a PBS-aired documentary, to smartphone legal aid apps, to new approaches to intake, and many more.

Please click here to access the full version of the of the workshop book. The book is also broken up into sections below.

Addtionally, workshop books from 2007-2010 can be found here.

2011 Innovations Workshop book:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

The Fail Faire DC 2011 Impact: A Renaissance of Failure in ICT4D

via ICTWorks by Wayan Vota on 10/24/11

Two weeks ago, ICTworks led the organization of Fail Faire DC, an amazing celebration of failure as a mark of leadership, innovation, and risk-taking in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ideas from pilots to global programs.

Our goal was to continue the Fail Faire movement started by Mobile Active, and make failure more acceptable in the international development community. So far, the impact of Fail Faire DC 2011 is greater than we anticipated. Yes, the event itself was amazing, and others agree, but more importantly, it spawned a greater conversation around failure and the need to fail if we are to expand our profession.

Here is a quick tour of the Fail Faire DC impact to date:

• Learn about the 10 levels of ICT4D failure, including the "epic fail", better know as the face palm 
• Check out the FailFaireDC photos on Flickr. Relive your favorite slides and remember your favorite presenters. 
• Read the Slate.com article. We had a great write up, complete with the academic underpinnings to our erstwhile activities. 
• Read a presenter's first-person account. Tessie San Martin, CEO of Plan International USA was a FailfaireDC presenter and is proud of her failures 
• Learn how NOT to plan a FailFaire. Ian Thorpe explains that going big is not a path to success 
• And how to fail successfully. Or that's the boast from NDI Tech, who somehow failed to attend FailfaireDC. 
• Join Admitting Aid Failure, the second Aid Blog Forum. The aid bloggers are taking our idea to the Internets. 
• While "just say no" to admitting failure is the American Public Health Association's contribution, as talking about failure might scare off donors 
• Yet EWB admits failure annually and still somehow gains funding and buzz 

Look for a FailFaireNYC. Mobile Active is teaming with Unicef to have a FailFaire in New York City this December. Most of all, remember to fail in everything you do. Only then are you showing leadership and innovation in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ICT and international development.

World Bank's Law, Justice and Development E-Newsletter, September 2011

The newest Law, Justice and Development E-Newsletter is out. Started last year, this is a quarterly e-newsletter providing news, perspectives and events relating to Law, Justice and Development topics. It is produced by the World Bank's Legal Vice Presidency with contributions from experts inside and outside the World Bank.

Microjustice Initiative's 'Access to Justice' Handbook

In light of my previous post on the UNDP Paper on Evaluation Methodologies for Legal Empowerment, my colleague from Tilburg University informed me that Microjustice Initiative (with TISCO, HIIL and Microjustice Workplace) has published a new methodology on measuring access to justice. You can download it here. 

Essentially, it is one of the budding set of literature on measuring access to justice from the subjective perspective (ie, not using the usual top-down, World Bank-like indicators), and provides a detailed description, with questionnaires, for measuring access by aggregating individual experiences of the justice process. Very interesting to me how the field of 'legal empowerment' and 'access to justice' has grown, thanks in large part to the UN Commission of Legal Empowerment of the Poor. 

Frontline SMS Legal

I have been familiar with FrontlineSMS since my days at The Asia Foundation, and in fact have thought about using that technology on many occasions for our projects. I love the idea, but it was still in the rather early stages of deployment then. I recently talked to Sean McDonald today about FrontlineSMS Legal, which builds on the original core Frontline to expand functionality for people in the legal world, in particular, as a SMS-based case management system of sorts. Legal is still in the early stages of development, but I can't wait till I can see a beta version to help test it, using the Microjustice field offices. 

New Paper on 'What is Law and Development'

A good recent summary on the intersection of law and development. A parallel discussion to my previous post:  'Theories of Law and Development'

What is Law and Development?  Mariana Prado (Toronto Faculty of Law)

ABSTRACT: Law & Development studies have been growing in the past few years, after having its death declared in the 1070s. There is, however, very little clarity as to what this field of study encompasses or whether it is a field at all. Under the label of Law & Development one can find a wide variety of studies, approaches, analyses and topics. Some studies focus on formal institutions, discussing how enforcement of contracts, protection of property rights, and an independent judiciary protect investors and improve economic growth in developing countries. Others have not focused on economic development, but instead on how laws to protect women from abuses in the family and to create quotas to guarantee their participation in the public sphere have been largely ineffective due to deeply embedded social norms and value that cannot be changed by legislation (at least not from one day to the next). Still others have criticized the Law & Development discourse as another source of imperialism and dominance that justify senseless legal transplants from the North to the South.



What brings all these studies together under one label? What is it that one should know, if one is looking for a concise summary of what this field of study encompasses? These are the questions that I will try to answer in this essay. The read should be forewarned that the title may be slightly misleading, as the paper will not provide comprehensive and conclusive answers to the question “What is Law & Development?” but hopefully it will offer a starting point for a deeper inquiry. Most importantly, I hope readers will take this as an invitation to explore this field in greater depth.

American Bar Association eLawyering Website

It's more than just a web presence- read the fundamentals of providing legal services over the internet, as well as innovative best practices (with a US-slant of course): 

From the American Bar Association eLawyering website:

"How can I practice law over the Internet?" This web site will help you find answers to that question.

eLawyering is doing legal work - not just marketing - over the Web. Pioneering practitioners have found dramatic new ways to communicate and collaborate with clients and other lawyers, produce documents, settle disputes, interact with courts, and manage legal knowledge. ELawyering encompasses all the ways in which lawyers can do their work using the Web and associated technologies. Think of lawyering as a "verb" - interview, investigate, counsel, draft, advocate, analyze, negotiate, manage, .. - and there are corresponding Internet-based tools and technologies.

There are exciting initiatives underway now that deserve attention by all lawyers - present and future. While admittedly just a subset of the vast legal technology world, eLawyering and its lawyer-less analogs present fundamental challenges for our profession. There are great dangers, but also great opportunities for attorneys in the coming decade. To be successful in the coming era, lawyers will need to know how to practice over the Web, manage client relationships in cyberspace, and ethically offer "unbundled" services.

New Report on Customary Justice: Perspectives on Legal Empowerment

Leiden University and IDLO has partnered to produce a new report Customary Justice: Perspectives on Legal Empowerment. Very timely because customary legal systems have slowly gained importance over the last few years, and has usually been the first and last stop for justice for the poor and vulnerable. 

Abstract:

This edited volume explores the relationship between traditional justice and legal empowerment. It discusses key aspects of traditional justice, including the rise of customary law in justice sector reform, the effectiveness of hybrid justice systems, access to justice through community courts, customary law and land tenure, land rights and nature conservation, and the analysis of policy proposals for justice reforms based on traditional justice. The volume was developed in partnership with the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Development of Leiden University and features articles by some ten leading authors, country specialists and practitioners working in the areas of traditional justice and legal empowerment.

Top Human Rights Groups and Global Networks: A Primer

Microblogged from DevEx- one of my main sources of development information, on its list of what it considers to be the most renowned international organizations and networks focused on the promotion of human rights.:

The basic principles of human rights are ancient, but it’s only in the last 50 years or so that human rights organizations have begun to pop up. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations, includes education, health care, food and many other areas of focus for the international development community. It’s no wonder, then, that aid groups are increasingly framing their work in the context of human rights, whether they advocate for sex workers’ rights or help boost primary school attendance. Highlighting human rights can broaden the scope and appeal of global activism and advocacy campaigns – and it may help secure funding at a time it is increasingly difficult to come by.



Here are some of the most renowned international organizations and networks focused on the promotion of human rights.

Human rights groups
Amnesty International
Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
Type: nonprofit network
Founded: 1961
Secretary general: Salil Shetty
Focus: research and advocacy is broken down into 25 broad categories focusing on children, indigenous peoples, health and other issues
Members: more than 3 million network supporters, activists and members in more than 150 countries and territories

Amnesty International is arguably the world’s prime, multifaceted human rights organization, operating as both a network and a reliable, detailed research database. Amnesty’s strength lies partly in its girth: Through its offices in more than 80 countries, Amnesty regularly produces short analyses and in-depth reports on issues related to human rights. Amnesty engages its supporters through petitions posted on its website and shared via Facebook or Twitter. Amnesty’s user-friendly website has a search function and allows browsing through by country and topic.

Human Rights First
Headquarters: New York City and Washington, D.C., USA
Type: nonprofit
Founded: 1978
President and CEO: Elisa Massimino
Focus: research and advocacy; programs include providing assistance to asylum seekers to the United States and advocating against U.S. counterterrorism measures amounting to torture
Staff: 57 per HRF website

Human Rights First conducts fact-finding and advocacy work on a global scale but often geared toward the U.S. government. For instance, HRF works to protect human rights defenders, refugees and asylum seekers around the globe but often stresses U.S. accountability on these and other issues, whether it is pushing the United States to close its military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or pressing U.S. officials to raise human rights abuses with world leaders. HRF offers a pro bono program for lawyers to represent asylum seekers in the United States, and in a recent publicity stunt, one attorney biked across the United States to raise awareness and funds for the group’s work. HRF’s website is fairly basic but gives a good overview of the human rights situation stateside as well as in certain parts of the Middle East.

Human Rights Watch
Headquarters: New York City, USA
Type: nonprofit
Founded: 1968
Executive director: Kenneth Roth
Focus: research and advocacy to prevent discrimination, uphold political freedom, protect people from inhuman conduct in wartime, and bring offenders to justice
Staff: 280 worldwide

Human Rights Watch compiles information on human rights in nearly every country, often through grass-roots networking. On its website, topics are broken down into 12 broad categories (including refugees, United Nations, health and arms) and even more subcategories, totaling close to 90 listings. Each year, HRW publishes more than 100 studies, including its mammoth World Report. Its in-depth reports – five were published in May 2011 alone – provide ample information about hard-to-reach regions and marginalized issues.

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
Type: U.N. office
Founded: 1993
High commissioner: Navanethem Pillay
Focus: standard-setting, monitoring, on-the-ground implementation
Staff: more than 850 in Geneva, New York, 11 country offices and seven regional offices around the world

As secretariat of the U.N. Human Rights Council, OHCHR works to mainstream a human rights focus through all United Nations programs and agencies. Outside the U.N. system, it facilitates partnerships with various international institutions such as the International Criminal Court, civil society organizations and governments. The office’s website provides fact sheets, research papers as well as free, downloadable training and educational materials such as guides, manuals and handbooks – including some specifically geared toward human rights monitors and social workers. It also showcases routine assessments conducted by its country and regional offices, as well as other background and news.

United for Human Rights
Headquarters: Los Angeles, USA
Type: nonprofit
Founded: 2004
Executive director: Michele Kirkland
Focus: provides free educational materials on human rights
Staff: 3

United for Human Rights makes books, videos and other educational material available free to educators. Its sister organization, Youth for Human Rights International, produced the acclaimed “United” anti-bullying music video. United’s website offers a brief explanation of human rights and their history, as well as one-minute public service videos exploring 30 of these rights. The human rights education packages mailed by the nonprofit are geared toward high school and college students, and include a documentary and 24 copies of a booklet that discusses the story of human rights. The website also offers suggestions for taking action in your own community to challenge human rights violations.


International human rights networks

Association for Women’s Rights in Development
Headquarters: Toronto, Canada
Type: international network
Founded: 1982
Executive director: Lydia Alpízar Durán
Focus: creates capacity-building strategies to strengthen women’s rights, supports women’s rights advocates and organizations, lobbies international institutions and actors
Members: nearly 5,000 individual and more than 3,000 institutional members in 130 countries

AWID campaigns such as “Where is the Money for Women’s Rights?” and “Influencing Development Actors and Practices for Women’s Rights” involve topical research, networking and lobbying. The association’s Young Feminist Activism initiative offers a way for young feminists to become involved with the organization and to receive a special online newsletter. AWID’s website features reports and news briefs of a feminist bent; its “Urgent Action” section features online petitions and other ways to support feminist human rights defenders and movements that are under threat. The site also showcases gender-related training courses and conferences worldwide, as well as fellowship ads and solicitations for research papers. Outside Toronto, AWID has offices in Mexico City and Cape Town, South Africa.

Child Rights Information Network
Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
Type: international network
Founded: 1995
Director: Veronica Yates
Focus: advocacy campaigns and analysis to promote and defend children’s rights
Members: more than 2,100 organizations in 150 countries

Guided by the United Nations’ Convention of the Rights of the Child, CRIN helps to elevate campaigns and coalitions, as well as to enforce treaties, that call for full respect of children’s rights. CRIN’s website includes country pages that don’t just provide news and analysis (in multiple languages) but also links to relevant international and domestic laws ratified by each country. The website also contains topic pages, an “Ask the Expert” function and an advanced search for laws affecting children around the globe.

Global Network of Sex Work Projects
Headquarters: Edinburgh, Scotland
Type: international network
Founded: 1990
President: Andrew Hunter
Focus: “influences policy and builds leadership among sex workers”
Members: more than 100 institutions

Evolved from a loose alliance of activists more than 20 years ago, NSWP has emerged as a leader in supporting human rights policy for sex workers. The association and its members oppose the criminalization of sex work. They conduct research and speak out at international health and trafficking forums, as well as various eventsNSWP organizes each year, including the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers in December, the International Sex Workers’ Rights Day in March, and a film festival in London. At these events – and on NSWP’s website – they circulate “Research for Sex Work” and “Making Sex Work Safe,” publications intended for sex workers, researchers, health activists and others. NSWP’s website is fairly basic; it features the work of its partners by region.

Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems, International (HURIDOCS)
Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
Type: international NGO
Founded: 1982
Executive director: Daniel D’Esposito
Focus: improve documentation methods and information technologies
Members: 40 affiliated NGOs

HURIDOCS provides advice and support to international human rights organizations in various ways, ranging from personalized consultations via phone or email correspondence to on-site support and training. Simply put, the organization helps human rights groups process, analyze, store and present research and other documents in an organized, safe manner. HURIDOCS offers advice on how to best document human rights violations or witness testimonies, for instance, and it engages in longer-term partnerships aimed at setting up documentation management tools that could be used for litigation or other reasons. HURIDOCS tries to provide all of its services free of charge to organizations based in the Global South, and works on a cost-sharing basis with institutions based elsewhere.

International Federation for Human Rights
Headquarters: Paris, France
Type: international network
Foundation: 2009
International Secretariat CEO: Antoine Bernard
Focus: “action priorities” include ending impunity of human rights violators, facilitating the work of human rights defenders and promoting universality of all rights, especially those of women and migrants
Staff: 30 in Paris
Members: 164 organizations

FIDH’s members are active around the globe, including in countries like Myanmar, North Korea and Zimbabwe where human rights work can be tricky. FIDH’s website, which can be viewed in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian, among other languages, provides easy access to all of its partner organizations – a convenient feature when you’re searching for human rights groups in a particular country. The website also offers timely and in-depth information, press releases and open letters on various issues such as migrants’ rights, terrorism, women’s rights and international justice. Only nonprofits can become FIDH members, although individuals and companies can become “friends” by donating.

International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association
Headquarters: Brussels, Belgium
Type: international network
Founded: 1978
Secretaries general: Gloria Careaga and Renato Sabbadini
Focus: campaigning for the rights of lesbian, gay, bi-, trans- and intersexual people
Members: 690 groups in 110 countries
ILGA works with its partners to draw public and government attention to discrimination against LGBTI persons through programs, protests, media work and diplomacy. ILGA’s website provides ample information on discriminatory practices, laws and attitudes toward people because of their sexual and gender identity; it features an organization directory, topical and regional pages with news and action alerts, as well as a world map that allows site visitors to filter only countries that consider transgenderism a mental illness or punish female-to-female relationships, among a host of other options. Perhaps a unique aspect of the site is the “Your Stories” section, which provides an open forum for LGBTI people to share their experiences and thoughts. Any organization can join ILGA, whose members gather every year or two.

World Organization Against Torture
Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
Type: international network
Founded: 1986
Secretary-general: Eric Sottas
Focus: fight against “torture, summary executions, enforced disappearances and all other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”
Members: 297 affiliate members in the SOS-Torture network

The Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture is the world’s main coalition of NGOs fighting torture. Its 297 member organizations, present in 97 countries, serve as its eyes, ears and supporting hands that work alongside OMCT’s International Secretariat in Geneva to report and follow up on cases of abuse and torture.OMCT is the only organization that provides legal, medical, social and other forms of assistance to individuals at risk or victims of torture; it also helps protect human rights defenders, women who have faced or are at risk of facing violence, and vulnerable children. OMCT mounts “urgent campaigns” and issues appeals every day to government authorities around the globe in response to reported cases of torture. Member organizations – all listed on the OMCT website – gain special access to information on U.N. human rights bodies.

These are only some of the many organizations and networks with a strong human rights focus. Others are doing equally important and unique work to help individuals around the globe protect and uphold human rights. Please let us know if we forgot to list any institution focusing squarely on human rights work.

Berkman Center Series 11 July 2011: Cultivating New voices, Approaches, and Audiences for national - and international - reporting in an era of global interconnectedness and shrinking news budgets

The Berkman Center will host a conversation about the challenges of reporting international stories to US and Global audiences. In an age of shrinking news budgets, American newspapers and broadcasters are producing less original reporting of international stories. And while gripping events like the Arab Spring capture the attention of the public, many important international stories fail to garner widespread attention. The challenges for international reporting are both ones of supply (who reports the news from around the world?) and demand (who pays attention?).

This conversation was inspired by Berkman Fellow Persephone Miel, whose work focused on how compelling narrative and context for international stories could make unfamiliar international news more accessible to American and global audiences. Her efforts to support and promote talented local, non-US journalists whose work has the potential for global impact, but who need to overcome significant obstacles to succeed, are continued through a fellowship established in her honor by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, in partnership with Internews. Journalists Fatima Tlisova (Voice of America) and Pulitzer Prize winner Dele Olojede will join Ethan Zuckerman (Berkman Center/Global Voices), Colin Maclay (Berkman Center), Ivan Sigal (Global Voices), Jon Sawyer (Pulizter Center) and the Miel family for a discussion and reflection on these questions, and on Persephone's work and the journalistic values she championed. URL: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/6927



Monday, July 11, 5:00 pm
Harvard Law School, Location TBA
Free and Open to the Public; RSVP required via the form below
This event will be webcast live at 5:00 pm ET and archived on our site shortly after.Reception to follow


This conversation was inspired by Berkman Fellow Persephone Miel, whose work focused on how compelling narrative and context for international stories could make unfamiliar international news more accessible to American and global audiences. Her efforts to support and promote talented local, non-US journalists whose work has the potential for global impact, but who need to overcome significant obstacles to succeed, are continued through a fellowship established in her honor by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, in partnership with Internews. Journalists Fatima Tlisova (Voice of America) and Pulitzer Prize winner Dele Olojede will join Ethan Zuckerman (Berkman Center/Global Voices), Colin Maclay (Berkman Center), Ivan Sigal (Global Voices), Jon Sawyer (Pulizter Center) and the Miel family for a discussion and reflection on these questions, and on Persephone's work and the journalistic values she championed. URL: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/6927

Fatima Tlisova is an investigative journalist, researcher and expert on the North Caucasus region of Russia. She has written extensively on Circassian nationalism, the role of Islam in regional affairs, human rights abuses during the military operations in the North Caucasus, torture, disappearances and corruption. She was Editor in Chief of the Regnum News Agency, worked as a special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta, and reported for RFE/RL and for the Associated Press.


Dele Olojede is the publisher of NEXT, NextOnSunday and 234NEXT.com, which provide news and informed opinion primarily for a Nigerian audience to further the common good. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a former foreign editor at New York Newsday, he is chairman of the Global Network Initiative International Advisory Council and a member of the governing board of the Aspen Institute's Africa Leadership Initiative.

Ethan Zuckerman served a fellow of the Berkman Center from 2003 through 2009. Since 2009, he's been a senior researcher at the center, working on projects that focus on the impact of technology and media on the developing world and on quantitative analysis of media. With Hal Roberts, he is working on comparative studies of tools for censorship circumvention, techniques for blocking-resistant publishing for human rights sites and on the Media Cloud framework for quantitative study of digital media.

Colin M. Maclay is the Managing Director of the Berkman Center, where he is privileged to work in diverse capacities with its faculty, staff, fellows and extended community to realize its ambitious goals. His broad aim is to effectively and appropriately integrate information and communication technologies (ICTs) with social and economic development, focusing on the changes Internet technologies foster in society, policy and institutions.

Ivan Sigal is the Executive Director of Global Voices (http://globalvoicesonline.org), a non-profit online global citizens’ media initiative. Previously, as a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Ivan Sigal focused on how increased media and information access and participation using new technologies affect conflict-prone areas. He spent over ten years working in media development in the former Soviet Union and Asia, supporting and training journalists and working on media co-productions, and also working as a photographer. During that time Sigal worked for Internews Network, as Regional Director for Asia, Central Asia, and Afghanistan.

Jon Sawyer is founding director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-profit organization that funds independent reporting with the intent of raising the standard of media coverage and engaging the broadest possible public in global affairs. In its first five years the Center has funded nearly 200 international reporting projects, partnering with major newspapers, magazines, broadcast and online outlets as well as universities and high schools across the country. Jon was previously the Washington bureau chief for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for which he reported from five dozen countries. He was selected three years in a row for the National Press Club's award for best foreign reporting.

New paper on Legal Institutions, Innovation and Growth

Legal Institutions, Innovation and Growth

ABSTRACT: We analyze the relationship between legal institutions, innovation and growth. We compare a rigid (law set ex-ante) legal system and a flexible one (law set after observing current technology). The flexible system dominates in terms of welfare, amount of innovation and output growth at intermediate stages of technological development - periods when legal change is needed. The rigid system is preferable at early stages of technological development, when (lack of) commitment problems are severe. For mature technologies the two legal systems are equivalent. We find that rigid legal systems may induce excessive (greater than first-best) R&D investment and output growth.



LUCA ANDERLINI, Georgetown University - Department of Economics
Email: la2@georgetown.edu
LEONARDO FELLI, London School of Economics - Department of Economics, CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research), Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)
Email: lfelli@econ.lse.ac.uk
GIOVANNI IMMORDINO, Università degli Studi di Salerno - Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF)
Email: GIIMMO@TIN.IT
ALESSANDRO RIBONI, University of Montreal - Department of Economics
Email: alessandro.riboni@umontreal.ca

Google search for 'Microjustice' - June 2011

Form time to time, I google certain concepts just to see how much they have taken off. From a term nonexistent in 2005, 'microjustice' today has11.400 entries, the top few which are as follows:

• www.microjustice.org/
• www.odemagazine.com/doc/62/microjustice/
• www.microjusticeinitiative.org/
• microjusticeworkplace.net/
• papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1022936
• www.linkedin.com/groups/Microjustice-Initiative-63732
• microjustice.net/wiki/Main_Page
• http://www.innovatingjustice.com/index.php?pageID=5&innovationID=16
• www.microjustice4all.org/web/?option=com_content
• www.microjusticeuganda.org/
• http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/tisco/research/projects/micro/
• http://www.innovatingjustice.com/index.php?pageID=34&partnershipID=35
• http://internetbar.org/tag/micro-justice/

The Potential of Mobile Justice

A brief overview of why technology might help in justice, by Kate Krontiris (reproduced from the Huffington Post), where she identified the following three arguments for matching technology to justice.

• First, there are technologies that can help a developing country leapfrog from no access to justice to some access to justice.
• Second, these new technologies are not hard to use, are becoming ubiquitous in even the most remote corners of the globe, and are cheaper than ever to implement.
• Finally, tech interventions focused toward one issue often have significant secondary benefits. 

Article followsThe State Department is exploring how connection technologies might link rape survivors with the justice they seek.

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was visiting the Democratic Republic of the Congo one year ago, she met a woman who, in her eighth month of pregnancy, had been raped multiple times. Distant from any hospital, the woman was kept alive through the efforts of fellow villagers to stem her bleeding (they packed her wound with grass). Her fetus, unfortunately, died.

"I've been in a lot of very difficult and terrible settings," Secretary Clinton remarked. "And I was just overwhelmed by what I saw."

In the Congo, incidents like these are not isolated; rather, there have been an estimated 200,000 reported rapes in the last 14 years and upwards of four million people killed as a result of the surrounding conflict and displacement. As recently as the end of last month, another 200 women (and some young boys) were gang raped by Rwandan and Congolese armed groups not very far from a United Nations base. While some enhancement efforts are underway, the Congolese judicial system needs a strong dose of capacity-building, anti-corruption efforts, and pure human capital to meet the overwhelming need it faces. Most rape survivors are so remote from centers of justice that they have no hope that their attackers will be held accountable for their crimes -- many do not even know that this kind of sexual violence is against the law.

Flash forward one year to the National Geographic Society museum in Washington, D.C. A small but earnest exhibit about design objects for "the other 90%" features low-cost, durable design solutions from technologists and entrepreneurs for shelter, health, water, education, energy and transport issues in developing countries.

At the back of the exhibit, a visitor will find the Internet Village Motoman Network, represented by two objects: a 33-inch satellite dish and a racy, red motorcycle. In fifteen schools, telemedicine clinics, and government offices in a remote province of Cambodia, students and teachers now have access to the internet and nurses can conduct medical visits and transmit information to Boston-based doctors for quick medical opinions and treatment recommendations. These improvements in education, health, communication, and governance have come thanks to five Honda motorcycles equipped with mobile access points and a satellite uplink.

If Cambodian social entrepreneurs can put satellite dishes on schools, clinics, and motorcycles and see gains in education and health, why cannot Congolese civil society actors use the same technology to connect rape survivors to legal advice, medical and psychosocial assessments, and justice in court?

In the spectrum of judicial engagement from initial incidence of violence to case resolution, 21st-century technologies could be used to report crime and capture witness testimony, educate citizens about rape law, train local police in forensic evidence collection and create a dialogue between judges and community leaders about nascent rule of law efforts. This summer, I was part of a team of people at the State Department that crowd sourced the best ideas for a "mobile justice" intervention, to be piloted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the coming months. Thinking systematically, we identified a few strong arguments for matching technology to justice.

First, there are technologies that can help a developing country leapfrog from no access to justice to some access to justice. It may seem like a drop in the bucket for 100 new people each year to have their cases heard in court -- each of those cases, however, represents the collaborative efforts of survivors, community counselors, police, prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, doctors, technologists, local elected leadership, and telecommunications providers, among many others. Any means available to create, repeat, and expand patterns of interdependence among these stakeholders -- facilitated through technology -- will help to cement the permanent presence and responsibilities of a fully governing state.

Second, these new technologies are not hard to use, are becoming ubiquitous in even the most remote corners of the globe, and are cheaper than ever to implement. They have largely evolved to the point that even technophobes can easily create and maintain a web presence, or use SMS-based reporting systems. For citizens with literacy challenges, it is likely that a friend or neighbor can lend a helping hand. Telecommunication companies have also shown a willingness to participate in technology development projects, given the significant market opportunities for a whole host of products and services.

Finally, tech interventions focused toward one issue often have significant secondary benefits. Let us say that a remote local organization could be wired with satellite internet in Eastern Congo and linked to a court, a hospital, and a legal service center in the provincial capital. Conceivably, survivors and witnesses could then testify in court via video conference, receive on-site telemedical assessments much like the Cambodian case, and access legal guidance. Once that local NGO is wired with internet, however, the technology could be used to provide education and training to schools, police officers, businesses, and other NGOs. Video-conferencing tools could be used to develop networks of civil-society organizations, so that they could share best practices, discuss failures, and warn each other of pending violence. Blast text-messaging systems based out of those centers could rapidly expand the delivery of educational messages about health concerns, business opportunities, and recreational activities. Finally, the local NGOs themselves would be better able to shape and transmit their own messages, draw media attention to their successes, and express their opinions and experiences directly to policy makers in their own countries and among international governing bodies. With the right infrastructure investments, a fairly rudimentary set of technology tools has opened up a world of possibilities.

What is exciting about this moment in American foreign policy is a commitment at the highest levels to the idea that connection technologies can have an appreciable impact on key diplomatic and development concerns. Mobile justice done right will require not only this culture of entrepreneurialism and collaboration across the public and private sectors. It will also require a sustained understanding of how the judicial landscape is evolving, and a concerted openness to gathering the best ideas, identifying successful solutions, and tracking indicators of effectiveness. If this intervention is successful in Congo, it could be re-deployed in other similar places in the future. I look forward to seeing the United States take a prominent and pragmatic role in bringing justice to the woman that Secretary Clinton met one year ago, and to the many others like her who deserve recognition and recompense for what they have endured.

Kate Krontiris is pursuing graduate studies in public policy and business at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the MIT Sloan School of Management. She spent time recently working for Alec Ross, the Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary Hillary Clinton.