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	Justice should be included in the Post-2015 Development Goals by Namati & agencies   Appeal to the Member States of the United Nations- Justice Should be Included in the Post-2015 Development Goals.   We, the undersigned, submit this respectful yet urgent call to the Member States of the United Nations to declare now that justice, the rule of law, and legal empowerment are essential principles in the new global development framework.   Around the world, billions of people live without the full protection of the law. They are unfairly driven from their land, denied essential services, extorted by officials, excluded from society, and intimidated by violence. Their lack of legal protection is a source of repression and an affront to human dignity.   Legal empowerment means giving all people the power to understand and use the law to secure justice and meet basic needs.   In the decades since the 1950s, when paralegals in South Africa began helping an oppressed people resist apartheid, legal empowerment has challenged systems and traditions that entrench inequality and has grown into a global movement.   Today, grassroots legal advocates in the Philippines are helping farmers participate in nationwide agrarian reforms. In Argentina, shantytown residents are pursuing legal remedies to bring clean water and other essential services to their communities. Similar endeavors, some of great scope, some modest, are unfolding worldwide.   For legal empowerment to succeed, individuals must live in societies dedicated to justice and governed by the rule of law.   The rule of law is defined by three principles: First, the law is superior to, and thus binds, the government and all its officials. Second, the law must respect and preserve the dignity, equality, and human rights of all persons.   To these ends, the law must establish and safeguard constitutional structures necessary to build a free society in which all citizens have a meaningful voice in shaping and enacting the rules that govern them.   Finally, the law must devise and maintain systems to advise all persons of their rights, and it must empower them to fulfill just expectations and seek redress of grievances without fear of retaliation.   Where legal empowerment efforts take hold, the results are visible and quantifiable. Women in Bangladesh who challenge the practice of illegal dowries are reporting greater cash savings.   Due to the work of community-based paralegals, grievances in Liberia are being resolved more equitably, resulting in greater food security. Prisoners in Kenya have returned to jobs and families after successfully appealing their sentences.   Affirming that justice, the rule of law, and legal empowerment belong in the framework for global development requires no great shift. The United Nations and many member states have already recognized the importance of the rule of law and legal empowerment in the UN Millennium Declaration, in the findings of the Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP), and in two General Assembly resolutions.   Additionally, the UN Development Programme, the World Bank, and UN Women all support legal empowerment programs in many parts of the world.   The Global Legal Empowerment Network was formed in 2010 to implement the CLEP’s goal of using legal empowerment to advance development. As members and allies of that network, we advocate a post-2015 agenda with justice, the rule of law, and legal empowerment as its guiding principles.   The Report of the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons (HLP) on the Post-2015 Development Agenda places strong emphasis on justice and the rule of law in recognition that these principles not only “help drive development,” but also “have their own intrinsic value.” The HLP report offers a platform on which the world should build.   By concentrating on five priorities—access to information, legal identity, rights to land and property, legal participation, and legal services—the new framework can ensure that no one is left behind.   Access to Information: People should know about the laws and regulations that govern their lives, particularly those concerning essential services.   States should commit to disseminating simple and clear statements of law and policy. They should also grant people an enforceable right to information to ensure that laws and regulations are implemented effectively.   Illustrative Target: Guarantee the public’s right to information and to access government data.   Legal Identity: Without state-issued identity documents, individuals may not be able to open a bank account, obtain a mobile phone, or secure the goods and services necessary to work and save for their families and their future. Government should ensure that access to legal identity is universal.   Illustrative Target: Ensure no one suffers from a lack of secure legal identity.   Rights to Land and Property: Approximately three billion people around the world live without secure rights to what are often their greatest assets: their lands, forests, and pastures.   Increasing demand for land is leading to exploitation and conflict. Giving communities the power to manage their land and natural resources would reduce poverty and promote sustainable development.   Securing property rights for all individuals, including women, is necessary to improve financial stability and personal safety.   Illustrative Targets:   • Increase the share of women and men with secure rights to land and property.   • Increase the amount of land for which communities have secure tenure and decisions are taken through an open and accountable process.   Legal Participation: All persons are entitled to shape the laws and policies that affect their lives. Just as communities should govern their land and natural resources, people should have a voice in how services like healthcare and education are delivered. Participation should not be limited to elections every few years.   Citizens must have a role in shaping the fundamental, everyday work of their governments, which in turn have a duty to operate transparently and respond to the needs of their citizens.   Illustrative Target: Ensure the participation of citizens in monitoring essential services, including water, healthcare, and education.   Legal Services: Everyone should have access to fair, effective forums for resolving conflicts, for seeking protection from violence, and for addressing grievances with the state. Equitable administration of justice requires quality services from a broad range of institutions, including the police, the courts, administrative tribunals, ombudsmen, and customary authorities.   For people to have a fair shot when they approach those institutions, they need access to affordable legal aid services. Creative legal aid efforts, such as those that combine a small corps of public interest lawyers with a larger frontline of community paralegals, can seek effective solutions and engage the full range of justice institutions.   Illustrative Target: Ensure all people have access to justice institutions and legal aid services that are affordable, fair, and timely.   Civil society has a vital role in realizing all five of these goals. Public interest lawyers, paralegals, and other civil society actors have proven effective in helping people understand and use the law. In Jordan, advocates work with migrant women to recover salaries and passports unlawfully withheld by their employers. In Uganda, community based paralegals help communities to document their customary land claims, taking advantage of laws that were on the books but seldom used.   The new development framework offers an opportunity to scale up civil society legal empowerment efforts. Governments can provide financing via autonomous bodies like ombudsman offices or public legal aid boards if the bodies genuinely respect civil society independence.   Additional funding can and should come from international development agencies and foundations, as well as from client fees and contributions, however small, from those who receive legal services. A global fund for legal empowerment, moreover, could create a channel for multilateral cooperation.   There are practical ways to measure progress towards justice, and governments are making great strides in doing so. Ministries of justice already gather data on case volume and duration. National statistics offices often include questions about legal knowledge and legal access in their surveys.   But we can do even more. The High Level Panel calls for a data revolution driven by the new development framework. This opportunity must be seized to enhance data collection and analysis. Indicators can draw on diverse sources and can be adapted to country context. Data disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, and class can help governments to concentrate development efforts on those who need them most.   This opportunity to pursue what is right must be grasped. Deprivation cannot be defeated, nor can the threat of dispossession and exploitation be lifted, without legal empowerment.   The world must know at once the urgency of its own survival. Respect for life and human dignity must be a common belief; tolerance must be a common bond; and law and justice must be a common purpose.   We, the undersigned, thus call on the Member States of the United Nations to proclaim that justice, the rule of law, and legal empowerment belong in the new global development framework. The need is urgent. The potential is historic.   * Namati was established in 2011 to build the movement for legal empowerment around the world. http://www.namati.org/justice2015/ http://www.namati.org/entry/taking-stock-of-the-justice-2015-campaign/ http://www.namati.org/work/accountability-of-essential-services/ http://www.namati.org/work/community-land-protection-program/ http://www.namati.org/work/legal-aid-2-0/researching-community-paralegals/ http://www.namati.org/news/african-voices/ http://www.namati.org/news/middle-east-voices/ http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/democraticgovernance/focus_areas/focus_justice_law.html Visit the related web page
	International Youth Day – corruption fighters in the making by Katinka Asplin Transparency International   Today is International Youth Day, and we’re celebrating the work of our youth activists around the world in their fight against corruption. These innovative and creative young activists show us that there are many ways to fight corruption and promote integrity.   1. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC   Through the “Lend me your wall” (Préstame tu pared) campaign, our youth group in the Dominican Republic spoke out against corruption – particularly the kind that goes unpunished. The campaign encourages members of the public to donate a wall of their house or office to anti-corruption street art.   2. HAITI   As part of Anti-Corruption Day 2013, our youth group in Haiti drew crowds with a specially choreographed anti-corruption dance.   3. HUNGARY   Members of our youth group in Hungary got into the rhythm of the Transparency International dance during a summer festival. In addition to the dance, the festival offered an interactive and fun way to learn more about corruption, freedom of information, whistleblower protection, political-party financing and public procurement.   4. INDONESIA   Fighting for a world free of corruption in Indonesia, where members of our youth group strive to be “berani, jujur, hebat”, or brave, honest and great. Find out more about how young people are fighting against corruption in Indonesia.   5. MOROCCO   Who says that there is only one way to fight corruption? Our youth group in Morocco takes a stand against corruption through taekwondo. Their performance was a central part of an art project that engaged youth in the fight against corruption.   6. PALESTINE   In Bethlehem, children stand up against wasta (favouritism) and corruption. Two hundred children participated in this street protest, demanding that the misusers of public funds be held accountable.   7. PANAMA   Our Fair Play campaign in Panama aims to promote transparency as a way to combat corruption. On Children’s Youth Day, we took the message into schools. These kids are corruption fighters in the making!   8. SENEGAL   You are never too young to stand up for what you believe in! In Senegal, children join the fight against corruption and help raise awareness of anti-corruption measures and integrity.   9. SOUTH AFRICA   In South Africa, our team spreads awareness of corruption. A youth activist hands out a flyer to a university student, informing him about the different ways to report his experiences of corruption to the organisation.   10. SOUTH KOREA   A youth volunteer from South Korea interviews citizens about their thoughts on corruption and integrity. She’s part of a region-wide project in which young people from four different countries surveyed their peers and adults to get their views on the state of integrity.   When it comes to fighting corruption, many young people are already making a big difference to the communities and countries they live in. But for those just starting out, the prospect of kick-starting a campaign, running a hackathon or planning a protest can be daunting. That’s why we created our new anti-corruption kit – offering 15 ideas for young activists, with step-by-step guidance on how to turn a plan into action.   Here are five ways young leaders in our movement are putting these tools into practice:   Follow the money – Brazil   Governments have vast sums of public money at their disposal and this can pose a serious corruption risk. By keeping tabs on government expenditure, young people can help shed light on how their country’s taxes are being spent and expose any abuses.   In Brazil, we helped a group of young villagers form an NGO of their own to monitor local government spending on water, education, health and infrastructure.   Tech solutions – Rwanda   The world is becoming more reliant on technology every day, and so too is the fight against corruption. Tech-savvy young people can help communities document their cases of corruption by developing reporting platforms via the web, hotlines or mobile apps.   At our hackathon in Rwanda, 33 local students and anti-corruption specialists came together to find practical tech-based solutions to the challenges some of our African chapters face in the anti-corruption field.   Comics and cartoons – Bangladesh   Comics are a powerful way of raising awareness about anti-corruption among young children, helping get complex messages across in a medium they can understand. Through a combination of images and text, comics can also help spark debate in the societies depicted – and be produced by those who have little or no access to advanced production methods.   In Bangladesh earlier this year, we hosted an exhibition of anti-corruption cartoons at a local school to promote integrity among young students.   Theatre and drama – Tunisia   Young people can get creative by taking their anti-corruption drive to the stage. Music, drama, poetry or dance can be used to empower citizens about societal forces which affect their lives as well as help them improve their own communities.   In Tunisia, we recently hosted a poetry slam and stand-up comedy session to mobilise young people around the upcoming elections and encourage them to register to vote.   Integrity camps – Lithuania   By hosting an integrity camp, young activists can inject fun into fighting corruption. Such events bring school or university peers together in an unconventional way to take part in outdoor activities and find lasting anti-corruption solutions.   In Lithuania, over 350 young anti-corruption activists from across the globe took part in our fifth School on Integrity, which equipped young leaders with skills to stand against corruption in their countries.   http://blog.transparency.org/2014/08/12/international-youth-day-corruption-fighters-in-the-making/ Visit the related web page
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