7Toward Greater Justice in Development
4. Future Strategies and Research Agendas
What might strategies for mainstreaming justice as a necessary part of the development equation look like? In Sierra Leone, the government’s bold health-care initiative for pregnant and breastfeeding women, and children under five, suffered leakage of up to 30 per cent of drugs before they reached clinics, and women were being charged improper user fees. In-corporating inexpensive methods of ensuring accountability of service de-livery by local monitoring agents who act as investigators and assist indi-viduals in launching claims, such as paralegals, has been shown to help individuals obtain benefits they were unfairly denied, and to create longer term deterrence effects and accountability of the State to deliver the ser-vices it has promised. In projects aimed at formal justice institutions, so-cial accountability mechanisms such as the users’ committees and user surveys discussed earlier could be encouraged and expanded on by courts
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to make their processes more transparent and accessible, and media and civil society organisations could be supported in efforts to ensure that po-lice and prosecutors are acting diligently in collecting evidence and fol-lowing up on cases, regardless of who the victim or claimant is.
An area in which there is a pressing research agenda starts from the WDR 2011’s thesis that justice is a central concept to be addressed in working in fragile States, alongside jobs and security, to examine what the concept of justice means in such diverse contexts and how it interplays with the multiplicity of fragile relationships that restrict sustained growth.
We need to better understand how development actors can address the no-tion of justice through the instituno-tions and communities in such societies.
We also need better data regarding what a country stands to gain by investing in its justice institutions – in comparison to, say, its health or education institutions. Justice certainly has intrinsic value in a society, but it would also be useful to be able to measure its economic benefit more precisely. There is a good deal that is known about the economic impact of justice institutions. Research makes it very clear, for example, that crime and violence have a significant negative impact on economies, and justice institutions are a necessary part of the effort to address crime and violence. A recent study demonstrates that courts through their power of judicial review of executive (in)actions can play a powerful role in ensur-ing that resources devoted to health and education are distributed to those who need them most. But how can a middle-income country determine when and in what amount to invest scarce resources in justice institutions?
There is need for a better understanding of the impact of investment in justice, as well as understanding of how justice institutions can most ef-fectively use the resources at their disposal.
The sort of development assistance needed to help justice institu-tions respond to the pressing justice needs in their societies may shift in response to changing demands for justice. It may be that knowledge – knowledge about justice reform methodologies and also about how to ana-lyse and work within local institutions, processes, and politics – will be needed more than financial assistance. Perhaps assistance in connecting people and ideas across justice institutions, private sector entities, NGOs, development actors, and local communities will take on higher im-portance.
The next decades may well present an opportunity for justice sys-tem institutions and the basic values inherent in those institutions to
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come a more mainstream, more explicit part of the development equation.
Whether that happens will depend in significant part on the strategic de-mands that people make on their governments – and also upon the ability of governments, private sector actors, civil society, academia, and devel-opment agencies to strategically pool knowledge and respond expertly to requests for institutions that ensure accountability, enforce rules fairly, and facilitate peaceful contests over rights and obligations.
5. Sources and Further Reading
Delivering Justice: Programme of Action to Strengthen the Rule of Law at the National and International Levels: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/66/749, 16 March 2012, available at http://www.unrol.org/
doc.aspx?d=3141, last accessed on 15 October, 2012.
Ginsburg, Tom, “The Future of Law and Development", in Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, 2009, vol. 104, p. 164.
Golub, Stephen, “What is legal empowerment? An Introduction”, in Ste-phen Golub (ed.), Legal Empowerment: Practicioners’ Perspectives, In-ternational Development Law Organization, Rome, 2010, p. 9.
“Making the Law Work for Everyone: Report of the Commission on Le-gal Empowerment of the Poor”, United Nations Development Pro-gramme, 2008, available at http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/
librarypage.html?q=making+the+law+work+for+everyone, last accessed on 15 October, 2012.
Perry-Kessaris, Amanda (ed.), Law in the Pursuit of Development: Prin-ciples into Practice?, Routledge-Cavendish, New York, 2010.
Sen, Amartya, “What is the Role of Legal and Judicial Reform in the De-velopment Process?”, in The World Bank Legal Review, 2006, vol. 2.
Stiglitz, Joseph E., More instruments and broader goals: Moving Toward the Post-Washington Consensus, The World Bank, Washington, DC, 1998.
Stiglitz, Joseph E., “Is there a Post-Washington Consensus?”, in Joseph E.
Stiglitz and Narcis Serra (eds.), The Washington Consensus Reconsid-ered: Towards a New Global Governance, Oxford Scholarship Online, Oxford, 2008.
Tamanaha, Brian Z., “The Primacy of Society and the Failure of Law and Development”, in Cornell International Law Journal, 2011, vol. 44, p.
209.
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Trubek, David M., “The ‘Rule of Law’ in Development Assistance: Past, Present, and Future”, in David M. Trubek and Alvaro Santos (eds.), The New Law and Economic Development: A Critical Appraisal, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 74.
Trubek, David M., “Developmental States and the Legal Order: Towards a New Political Economy of Development and Law”, LANDS (Law and the New Developmental State) Working Papers, 2010, available at http://www.law.wisc.edu/gls/documents/developmental_states_legal_orde r_2010_trubek.pdf, last accessed on 15 October 2012.
Trebilcock, Michael J. and Daniels, Ronald J. (eds.), Rule of Law Reform and Development: Charting the Fragile Path of Progress, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009.
“The World Bank: New Directions in Justice Reform”, The World Bank, Washington DC, 2012, available at http://www-wds.worldbank.org/ext ernal/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2012/09/06/000386194_2012 0906024506/Rendered/PDF/706400REPLACEM0Justice0Reform0Final.
pdf, last accessed on 15 October, 2012.
World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development, The World Bank, Washington DC, 2005, available at http://web.worldbank.org/
WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTWDRS/0,,conte ntMDK:23080759~pagePK:478093~piPK:477627~theSitePK:477624,00.
html , last accessed on 15 October 2012.
World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security and Development, The World Bank, Washington DC, 2011, available at http://web.world bank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTWDR S/0,,contentMDK:23252415~pagePK:478093~piPK:477627~theSitePK:4 77624,00.html, last accessed on 15 October 2012.
World Development Report 2012: Gender, Equality and Development, The World Bank, Washington DC, 2011, available at http://econ.world bank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTWDR S/EXTWDR2012/0,,menuPK:7778074~pagePK:7778278~piPK:7778320
~theSitePK:7778063~contentMDK:22851055,00.html, last accessed on 15 October 2012.
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