World Justice Project
Encyclopedia
Mainstreaming
The World Justice Project holds action-oriented meetings with leaders from a range of fields to mainstreamMainstreaming
Pilot or policy Mainstreaming is the act of broadening the application of a change or innovation from a small-scale pilot to the whole of a programme or policy domain. It involves recognising that the results of an experiment are positive and the learning deserves to be applied more widely...
rule of law advancement and make strengthening the rule of law as fundamental to the thinking and work of all professionals as it is to lawyers. These action-oriented meetings are both convened in the United States and internationally.
World Justice Forum
The World Justice ForumWorld Justice Forum
The World Justice Forum is the largest international event hosted by The World Justice Project. It is a global gathering at which prominent leaders from all parts of the world and a variety of disciplines come together to articulate how the rule of law affects their disciplines and regions and to...
is the largest international event hosted by The World Justice Project. It is a global gathering at which prominent leaders from all parts of the world and a variety of disciplines come together to articulate how the rule of law affects their disciplines and regions and to develop collaborative actions to strengthen the rule of law.
World Justice Forum I
Held in Vienna, Austria on July 2–5th 2008, The World Justice Project held an inaugural forum of global specialists, more than 450 governmental and non-governmental leaders from 83 nations from throughout the Pacific, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America.
World Justice Forum II
The World Justice Forum II took place November 11–14, 2009 in Vienna, Austria. This second worldwide gathering hosted by The World Justice Project was attended by 312 participants from 84 countries and a multitude of disciplines – including architecture, the arts, business, education, environment, government, faith, human rights, international development, labor, media, military, public health, public safety, science.
World Justice Forum III
Building on the success of the previous two World Justice Forums, as well as regional outreach meetings in Africa, South America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America, the World Justice Forum III took place from June 20–23, 2011 in Barcelona, Spain at the Hotel Rey Juan Carlos I.
This event convened over 450 world leaders from a breadth of disciplines to: promote an interdisciplinary understanding of rule of law issues; strengthen global commitment to the rule of law; and to develop concrete cross-disciplinary action plans on the community level.
The three-day program included project design working sessions where participants collaborated on ideas to strengthen the rule of law in areas of mutual interest. In addition, discussants addressed eight timely rule of law issues during concurrent plenary sessions.
International Mainstreaming Meetings
The World Justice Project's mainstreaming is an initiative to advance the rule of law into the work of a variety of disciplines, such as the arts, architecture, business, education, engineering, environment, faith, finance, government, human rights, labor, law and the judiciary, media, public safety, public health, and science. The World Justice Project's mainstreaming efforts include action-oriented multidisciplinary meetings and the Opportunity Fund.Middle East & North Africa Rule of Law Conference
The World Justice Project utilized its distinctive multidisciplinary approach for a two-day action-oriented Middle East & North Africa Conference on June 25–26, 2010 at the prestigious Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. This event convened an unparalleled number of regional leaders from various disciplines that debated rule of law issues relevant to the region with a topical focus on Access to Justice in a broad sense, exploring the political, social, economic, and cultural issues related to "rights" and "justice."
Latin America & the Caribbean Rule of Law Conference
The World Justice Project’s second major Rule of Law Conference in Latin America and the Caribbean joined over 100 regional leaders from a variety of disciplines to underscore the impact of the rule of law on all aspects of life and generate new cross-disciplinary plans to strengthen the rule of law in the region. This conference followed The World Justice Project’s first regional meeting in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2007.
Topics discussed included: Balancing Economic Development and the Environment; Public Security; Government Accountability.
Asia Pacific Rule of Law Conference
The World Justice Project held its second major regional conference in the Asia Pacific on January 26–28, 2011, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This multidisciplinary, action-oriented conference convened 150 leaders from across the region and a breadth of professional disciplines to discuss and address regional rule of law concerns. The main objective of the Asia Pacific Conference was to generate new cross-disciplinary plans to advance the rule of law in the region. The Asia Pacific Rule of Law Conference focused on several themes, including Building a Better Business Enabling Environment; Ensuring Basic Rights for Migrants and Refugees; and Mitigating Environmental Degradation.
Mainstreaming in the United States
In more than 20 states across the nation, state and local bar associations, law schools and other local leaders have worked with The World Justice Project to sponsor state-level multidisciplinary outreach meetings to form multidisciplinary partnerships to strengthen the rule of law at the state and community level.The Opportunity Fund
The Opportunity Fund was established to support action-oriented programs that resulted from ideas generated during the first World Justice Forum in 2008. The Fund is currently supporting 36 programs spanning all the world's continents. These programs are multi-disciplinary and aim to promote the rule of law through a total of 17 disciplines, including: ArchitectureArchitecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, Arts, Business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
, Education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, Engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
, Environment, Faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
, Government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
, Human Rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, Judiciary
Judiciary
The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
, Labor
Labour law
Labour law is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on, working people and their organizations. As such, it mediates many aspects of the relationship between trade unions, employers and employees...
, Law, Media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, Military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
, Public Health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
, Public Safety
Public Safety
Public safety involves the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety of the general public from significant danger, injury/harm, or damage, such as crimes or disasters .-See also:* By nation...
& Law Enforcement, and Science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
.
The first round of the Fund supported a wide variety of rule of law initiatives, ranging from capacity building to aid services for the poor in India, to legal aid training for women in Lebanon, to developing a model for delivering justice services in China.
For the second round of the Opportunity Fund, 12 outstanding multidisciplinary rule of law programs were selected. The proposals cover 28 countries and a broad spectrum of disciplines.
WJP Rule of Law Index
The WJP Rule of Law Index is an innovative quantitative assessment tool designed by The World Justice Project to offer a comprehensive picture of the extent to which countries adhere to the rule of law in practice.The Index consists of nine factors and 52 sub-factors. To date, 66 countries and jurisdictions have been covered by the Rule of Law Index, including: Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Hong Kong SAR of China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Liberia, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
The WJP Rule of Law Index 2010 Report, the first of an annual series, was released on October 14, 2010 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
The WJP Rule of Law Index 2011, the second report in an annual series, was released on June 22, 2011 at the World Justice Forum III in Barcelona, Spain.
Scholarship
The World Justice Project supports rigorous scholarship examining the contributions of the rule of law to various aspects of economic, political and social development and shedding new light on how to strengthen the rule of law. The World Justice Project disseminates and encourages the publication of such research for wide discussion.The World Justice Project, in partnership with Morocco’s Mohamed V University, will publish papers in the University’s renowned academic journal Horizons on work that corresponds with the themes and working session topics of the Middle East and North Africa Regional Rule of Law Conference 2010. The effort will inform scholars, policymakers, civil society leaders, and other interested persons about the themes and action plans developed at the conference, and point the way towards positive reform of the rule of law in the MENA region.
The World Justice Project’s scholarship program supported the research and preparation of two sets of papers on the rule of law in 2007 and 2008. The scholarship program consisted of two internationally diverse teams of scholars from the fields of law, economics, political science and anthropology. The scholars presented their papers at the World Justice Forum.
The first team of scholars developed a body of scholarship examining the relationship between the rule of law and economic, political, and social development. This team included Nobel Laureates James Heckman and Amartya Sen, as well as other prominent legal scholars, political scientists and economists. The first of the two volumes, Global Perspectives on the Rule of Law has been published by Routledge Press.
The second scholarship team prepared a series of comparative studies on how marginalized groups obtain access to justice. The studies span diverse continents and cultures, including the Roma of Eastern Europe, nomadic herding peoples of Kenya, the Maori of New Zealand, and the urban poor of China. This team was led by Professor Yash Ghai, a constitutional and human rights scholar who previously served as Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Cambodia on Human Rights. These scholarly articles entitled Marginalized Communities and Access to Justice is published by Routledge Press.
Honorary Chairs
The World Justice Project has the support of outstanding leaders representing a range of disciplines around the world. The Honorary Chairs of the World Justice Project are:Hon. Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Korbelová Albright is the first woman to become a United States Secretary of State. She was appointed by U.S. President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996, and was unanimously confirmed by a U.S. Senate vote of 99–0...
Hon. Giuliano Amato
Giuliano Amato
Giuliano Amato is an Italian politician. He was Prime Minister of Italy twice, first from 1992 to 1993 and then from 2000 to 2001. He was more recently Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the new European Constitution and headed the Amato Group. He is commonly...
Hon. Robert Badinter
Robert Badinter
Robert Badinter is a high-profile French criminal lawyer, university professor and politician mainly known for his struggle against the death penalty, the abolition of which he successfully sponsored in Parliament in 1981...
Hon. James A. Baker III
Hon. Stephen G. Breyer
Sharan Burrow
Sharan Burrow
Sharan Burrow is the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation and a former President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions...
David Byrne
President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
Maria L. Cattaui
Hon. Hans Corell
Hans Corell
Hans Axel Valdemar Corell is a Swedish lawyer and diplomat. Between March 1994 and March 2004 he was Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and the Legal Counsel of the United Nations...
Hon. Hilario G. Davide, Jr.
Hilario Davide, Jr.
Hilario Gelbolingo Davide, Jr, GCSS is a former Ambassador/Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the United Nations in New York City....
Hernando de Soto
William H. Gates, Sr.
William H. Gates, Sr.
William Henry Gates, Sr. is a retired American attorney and philanthropist and author of the book Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime. He is the father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.-Life and career:Gates was born in Bremerton, Washington, to William Henry Gates I or Sr...
Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. She is the second female justice and the first Jewish female justice.She is generally viewed as belonging to...
Hon. Richard J. Goldstone
Hon. Kunio Hamada
Kunio Hamada
is a former member of the Supreme Court of Japan from 2001 until 2006. Until his appointment to the court, he worked in private practice. In November 2007, he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, by the Japanese Government for his public service....
Hon. Lee H. Hamilton
Lee H. Hamilton
Lee Herbert Hamilton is a former member of the United States House of Representatives and currently a member of the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council. A member of the Democratic Party, Hamilton represented the 9th congressional district of Indiana from 1965 to 1999...
Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim
Hon. Tassaduq Hussain Jillani
Tassaduq Hussain Jillani
Justice Tassadduq Hussain Jillani is a justice in Supreme Court of Pakistan and a former justice of Lahore High Court.-Early life:Justice Jillani was born on July 6, 1949. His father name was Muhammad Ramzan Shah Jillani.-Education and training:...
Hon. Anthony M. Kennedy
Hon. Ferenc Mádl
Ferenc Mádl
Ferenc Mádl was the second President of the third Republic of Hungary, having served from 4 August 2000 to 5 August 2005.-University studies and scientific activities:...
Hon. George J. Mitchell
George J. Mitchell
George John Mitchell, Jr., is the former U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace under the Obama administration. A Democrat, Mitchell was a United States Senator who served as the Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995...
John Edwin Mroz
John Edwin Mroz
John Edwin Mroz is the Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the EastWest Institute, an international not-for-profit, non-partisan "think and do" tank established in 1980. Mroz was born on May 1, 1948 in Westfield, Massachusetts...
Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi
Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi is an Indian-born American business executive. She is the current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo, the second largest food & beverage business in the world ....
Hon. Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor is an American jurist who was the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. She served as an Associate Justice from 1981 until her retirement from the Court in 2006. O'Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981...
Hon. Ana Palacio
Ana Palacio
Ana Isabel de Palacio y del Valle-Lersundi in Madrid, daughter of Luis María de Palacio y de Palacio, 4th Marqués de Matonte, and wife Luisa Mariana del Valle-Lersundi y del Valle, was Spain's Minister for Foreign Affairs in the People's Party government of José María Aznar from July 2002-March...
Gen. Colin L. Powell
Roy L. Prosterman
Hon. Richard W. Riley
Hon. Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate...
Hon. Petar Stoyanov
Petar Stoyanov
Petar Stefanov Stoyanov is a former President of Bulgaria from 1997 until 2002. He was elected as a candidate of the Union of Democratic Forces...
John J. Sweeney
The Most Rev. Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
Hon. Antonio Vitorino
António Vitorino
António Vitorino is a Portuguese politician and member of the Socialist Party .-Career:Vitorino graduated in law from the University of Lisbon. A lawyer by training, he was first elected to Parliament in 1980...
Paul A. Volcker
Rt. Hon. Lord Harry Woolf
Hon. Andrew Young
Andrew Young
Andrew Jackson Young is an American politician, diplomat, activist and pastor from Georgia. He has served as Mayor of Atlanta, a Congressman from the 5th district, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations...
Hon. Zhelyu Zhelev
Zhelyu Zhelev
Zhelyu Mitev Zhelev is a Bulgarian politician and former dissident who was the first democratically elected President of Bulgaria, he is elected for his first mandate by the Parliament for the period 1990 to 1992, in January 1992 general elections are held when he is reelected for his second...
Board of Directors
The World Justice Project's Board of Directors includes:Sheikha Abdulla Al-Misnad
Emil Constantinescu
Emil Constantinescu
Emil Constantinescu was President of Romania from 1996 to 2000.He graduated from the law school of the University of Bucharest, and subsequently started a career as a geologist...
Ashraf Ghani
Ashraf Ghani
Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai is a prominent politician in Afghanistan and the former chancellor of Kabul University. He is also the chairman of the Institute for State Effectiveness, an organization set up in 2005 to promote the ability of states to serve their citizens. Before returning to...
William C. Hubbard
Mondli Makhanya
William H. Neukom
Bill Neukom
William Horlick "Bill" Neukom is currently the managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants baseball team ownership group. Although he has only held this position since October 2008, it has been reported that he will be stepping down on December 31, 2011. Prior to holding this position,...
Ellen Gracie Northfleet
Ellen Gracie Northfleet
Ellen Gracie Northfleet is a Brazilian judge of American descent. She is the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Brazil and the Court's first female president....
James R. Silkenat
The World Justice Project has the following Board Officers:
William C. Hubbard, Chairman of the Board
William H. Neukom
Bill Neukom
William Horlick "Bill" Neukom is currently the managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants baseball team ownership group. Although he has only held this position since October 2008, it has been reported that he will be stepping down on December 31, 2011. Prior to holding this position,...
, President and Chief Executive Officer
Deborah Enix-Ross, Vice President
Suzanne E. Gilbert, Vice President
James R. Silkenat, Vice President
Lawrence B. Bailey, Secretary
Roderick B. Mathews, Treasurer
Gerold W. Libby, General Counsel