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	Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere by Namati, Justice for All campaign   Today, more than 5 billion people do not have meaningful access to justice, highlight and Hina Jilani and Mary Robinson. (The Elders)   Today we are launching a new initiative for The Elders, championing access to justice for all. I want to explain why The Elders have decided to work on this issue. I want to show how it fits into the broader efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and build a world where human rights and dignity are universally respected.   The SDGs represent one of the great achievements of multilateral diplomacy in recent years. Together with the Paris Agreement on climate change, signed in the same year, they offer a clear pathway to progress, with clearly defined responsibilities and benchmarks by which to measure states progress towards implementation.   In today's troubled and turbulent times, when the forces of populism, isolationism and unilateralism are on the rise, it is vital that all of us who believe in the promise and the vision of the SDGs stand firm in their defence.   We know from today's geopolitical landscape, and we know from the lessons of history, that populism, isolationism and unilateralism are invariably the handmaidens of injustice.   When politics is driven by cynical self-interest; when classes, communities and nations are set against each other so the interests of the powerful go unchallenged; and when discrimination against women and minority groups is excused in the name of cultural tradition, this constitutes an assault on justice.   Justice is, in fact, at the heart of the UN's 2030 Development Agenda, which envisages a 'just, equitable, tolerant, open and socially inclusive world in which the needs of the most vulnerable are met'. World leaders acknowledged this when they signed up to the Goals in 2015. Our challenge today is to hold them to account.   Societies at every level of income and development are failing to ensure that everyone has equal access to justice regardless of income, gender, race or sexual orientation.   I was a member of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, and our report in 2008 found that more than four billion people lived outside the protection of the law, meaning that they did not have effective access to legal systems when they need them.   This has resulted in a continuing denial of the basic right to an effective remedy under the law. It is shaming to admit that, more than a decade on from that landmark report, the scale of the justice gap has worsened.   Today, more than 5 billion people do not have meaningful access to justice. This includes at least 244 million people living in extreme conditions of injustice - they are modern slaves, are stateless, or their countries or communities are riddled with conflict, violence and lawlessness. Such situations can have a devastating impact on individual lives, families, communities and the wider social fabric.   Lack of justice undermines state legitimacy, threatening social peace and stability. It also undermines human dignity and creates a moral vacuum that risks being filled by those for whom morality is subjugated to power, domination and enrichment.   Violence against women and girls is a colossal and grave injustice in itself, and is a symptom of wider contempt for individual and collective rights and freedoms. The Elders will put a particular priority on defending women's rights and protecting them from violence as we pursue our justice initiative.   We need greater and smarter investment in justice systems, which can have transformative impacts on societies, particularly when formal and informal actors work together.   We also believe that real progress in achieving access to justice for women, men and children, and the wider SDG agenda, can only be achieved with the full participation of civil society actors, and when measures are adopted to enable independent institutions and civil society to hold governments accountable and free from corruption.   As we embark on this new initiative, we are grateful for the support we have received from a wide range of civil society groups and activists who are working on the frontlines, often in circumstances of physical danger and political risk.   We want our voices to complement and amplify civil society voices; we stand in solidarity with you and will do all we can to make your voices heard when we meet heads of state, government officials and policymakers in countries around the world. http://bit.ly/2GgLIsz   http://theelders.org/news/access-justice-closing-gap http://www.theelders.org/programmes/access-justice http://www.walk-together.org/sparks-of-hope/ http://bit.ly/2H0hNFW http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs http://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement   * Multi-stakeholder Taskforce on Justice: http://www.justice.sdg16.plus/report http://www.justice.sdg16.plus   Jan. 2019   'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere'.   These words from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ring true today. Especially when justice defenders themselves are at risk.   Today, on MLK Day, Namati and the Justice For All campaign are launching a policy brief that offers recommendations on how governments, donors, and multilateral institutions can finance and protect grassroots justice defenders, and why these steps are crucial to achieving the promise of 'justice for all' in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).   Grassroots justice defenders do the work of legal empowerment. They support vulnerable groups to contend with complex, broken, or corrupt legal systems, and apply skills like negotiation, organizing, and advocacy to help people overcome injustice.   Despite mounting need, their efforts are under-resourced and often under attack.   Aid funding towards justice has decreased by 40% in 4 years; the funding that does exist tends to go to top-down approaches rather than bottom-up.   Meanwhile, civil society space is shrinking. In 2018, 321 defenders in 27 countries were targeted and killed for their work, the highest number on record. Two-thirds of Global Legal Empowerment Network members report that they were threatened for carrying out frontline justice work.   This new policy brief is an essential tool for anyone who wants to change that. Written in close consultation with partners and Network members, our community argues that without investing in legal empowerment and securing the safety of its champions, 'justice for all' will remain empty rhetoric, leaving the majority of the globe without access to justice.   Recommendations to address financing challenges include: ensuring investments in legal empowerment don't curtail the independence of justice defenders; tapping into sector-specific sources of funding in areas like land, environment, and health.   Recommendations to address protection challenges include: Protecting grassroots justice defenders from intimidation, harassment, and murder; prohibiting lawsuits whose main purpose is to harass justice defenders.   Governments must ensure that justice flows not only to the strongest, richest, or most powerful, but to everyone. Justice defenders help make that happen. It's high time world leaders recognize that with both words and action.   http://namati.org/news/new-brief-makes-case-to-fund-protect-justice-defenders/ http://www.justiceforall2030.org/ Visit the related web page
	Billionaire fortunes grew by $2.5 billion a day last year by Oxfam International   Jan. 2019   Billionaire fortunes increased by 12 percent last year - or $2.5 billion a day - while the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity saw their wealth decline by 11 percent, reveals a new report from Oxfam today. The report is being launched as political and business leaders gather for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.   'Public Good or Private Wealth' shows the growing gap between rich and poor is undermining the fight against poverty, damaging our economies and fuelling public anger across the globe. It reveals how governments are exacerbating inequality by underfunding public services, such as healthcare and education, on the one hand, while under taxing corporations and the wealthy, and failing to clamp down on tax dodging, on the other. It also finds that women and girls are hardest hit by rising economic inequality.   Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said: 'The size of your bank account should not dictate how many years your children spend in school, or how long you live - yet this is the reality in too many countries across the globe. While corporations and the super-rich enjoy low tax bills, millions of girls are denied a decent education and women are dying for lack of maternity care'.   The report reveals that the number of billionaires has almost doubled since the financial crisis, with a new billionaire created every two days between 2017 and 2018, yet wealthy individuals and corporations are paying lower rates of tax than they have in decades.   Getting the richest one percent to pay just 0.5 percent extra tax on their wealth could raise more money than it would cost to educate the 262 million children out of school and provide healthcare that would save the lives of 3.3 million people.   Just four cents in every dollar of tax revenue collected globally came from taxes on wealth such as inheritance or property in 2015. These types of tax have been reduced or eliminated in many rich countries and are barely implemented in the developing world.   Tax rates for wealthy individuals and corporations have also been cut dramatically. For example, the top rate of personal income tax in rich countries fell from 62 percent in 1970 to just 38 percent in 2013. The average rate in poor countries is just 28 percent.   In some countries, such as Brazil, the poorest 10 percent of society are now paying a higher proportion of their incomes in tax than the richest 10 percent.   At the same time, public services are suffering from chronic underfunding or being outsourced to private companies that exclude the poorest people. In many countries a decent education or quality healthcare has become a luxury only the rich can afford. Every day 10,000 people die because they lack access to affordable healthcare.   In developing countries, a child from a poor family is twice as likely to die before the age of five than a child from a rich family. In countries like Kenya a child from a rich family will spend twice as long in education as one from a poor family.   Cutting taxes on wealth predominantly benefits men who own 50 percent more wealth than women globally, and control over 86 percent of corporations.   Conversely, when public services are neglected poor women and girls suffer most. Girls are pulled out of school first when the money isn't available to pay fees, and women clock up hours of unpaid work looking after sick relatives when healthcare systems fail.   Oxfam estimates that if all the unpaid care work carried out by women across the globe was done by a single company it would have an annual turnover of $10 trillion - 43 times that of Apple, the world's biggest company.   'People across the globe are angry and frustrated. Governments must now deliver real change by ensuring corporations and wealthy individuals pay their fair share of tax and investing this money in free healthcare and education that meets the needs of everyone - including women and girls whose needs are so often overlooked. Governments can build a brighter future for everyone, not just a privileged few', added Byanyima.   http://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/620599/bp-public-good-or-private-wealth-210119-en.pdf Visit the related web page
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