Publication: Law or Justice : Building Equitable Legal Institutions
Loading...
Files in English
465 downloads
Published
2005
ISSN
Date
2012-06-26
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
It is now widely accepted that the 'rule of law' is key to sustainable development. The different legal or rule-based systems in any given society underpin the institutions that govern both market and non-market interactions; they determine the distribution of economic, social and political rights and obligations affecting both economic and noneconomic relationships. They shape the regulation of market practices and the delivery of public services and the opportunities people have to take part in economic activity and generate fair returns. Legal institutions also provide mechanisms to mediate conflict resolve disputes and sustain peace and order. This belief in the importance of legal institutions is reflected in the emergence of Justice Sector Reform (JSR) as a central concern for many development agencies. This paper examines the way the relationship between law and development is currently conceptualized in development circles, and in particular how Justice Sector Reform has been pursued as a consequence.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Decker, Klaus; Sage, Caroline; Stefanova, Milena. 2005. Law or Justice : Building Equitable Legal Institutions. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9152 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Human Rights and Equitable Development: "Ideals", Issues and Implications(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005)This paper outlines areas of human rights law relevant to development and introduces perspectives on the nature of the relationship between the two fields. While it is clear that some progress has been made towards integrating human rights and development, it is clear that the two discourses remain distinct, and attempts to find commonalities and convergence between them face numerous issues in practice. A key question for both human rights advocates and development practitioners is how human rights standards can be maintained in the context of development practices.Publication Customary Law and Policy Reform : Engaging with the Plurality of Justice Systems(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005)The importance of building effective legal and regulatory systems has long been recognized by development professionals, yet there have been few programmatic initiatives that have translated empirical evidence and political intention into sustained policy success. Justice sector reforms have frequently been based on institutional transplants, wherein 'successful� legal codes (constitutions, contract law, etc.) and institutions (courts, legal services organizations, etc.) of developed countries have been imported almost verbatim into developing countries, without thought of the country�s social and cultural situation. Further, the fact that most developing countries have customary legal systems is often overlooked by development practitioners. Many governments, however, have tried to engage with customary systems in one way or another, with differing results. This paper brings customary systems into central focus in the ongoing debate about legal and regulatory reform. It analyses the ongoing challenges and critiques of customary legal systems and examines why, despite these challenges, engaging with such systems is crucial to successful reform processes. It examines the ways customary systems have developed in three African Countries?Tanzania, Rwanda and South Africa?and draws out some of the lessons of these experiences and the implications they have for policy reform initiatives.Publication Towards More Equitable Land Governance in Vanuatu : Ensuring Fair Land Dealings for Customary Groups(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-05)The regionally unique constitution of the Republic of Vanuatu provides that-all land in Vanuatu belongs to custom owners and their descendants and that the-rule of custom shall form the basis of ownership and use of land. Implementing this principle, however, after decades of land alienation by foreigners using alien laws has proven to be challenging. Concerns over actual and perceived problems of land alienation through leasing in Vanuatu triggered a national land summit in 2006, followed by an interim transitional implementation strategy and a national land review, all of which set the stage for a legislative and administrative reform agenda and served as a guide to short-and long-term assistance to the land sector. This note summarizes the research findings, prioritizes problematic issues for policy consideration, and offers practical for addressing these issues to ensure more equitable and therefore durable future lease creation and lease administration procedures. This study provides an estimate of how much of Vanuatu's land is currently under lease, where land has been leased and how it is being used, the duration of leases, and the extent of lease subdivisions as of December 2010.Publication Improving the Performance of Justice Institutions(World Bank, Colombia, 2011)This paper presents a selection of experiences from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in managing justice institutions which are the most relevant for performance improvement of their counterparts in Latin America. The scope of the paper is mostly limited to the courts, but comprises all types of courts: specialized courts as well as courts of general jurisdiction, civil as well as criminal and administrative courts, first instance as well as appellate and supreme courts. Issues of legal reform, judicial training, alternative dispute resolution or access for the poor are not considered in this paper. The first chapter provides an overview of the justice sector reform experience in Latin America over the last two decades, and how these reforms coincide with or follow OECD country trends. The second chapter outlines the context of the debates regarding the performance and quality of justice services in OECD countries prior to the 1990s. The third chapter discusses the transition from traditional justice reform approaches in OECD countries to the New Public Management (NPM) approaches that began in the 1990s. The fourth chapter presents five major cases of reforms in public expenditure, human resources, and organizational restructuring in the justice sectors of five different countries. The fifth chapter describes recent trends in OECD countries regarding quality controls in court service delivery which share approaches with the private sector. The paper concludes with some suggestions about areas where Latin American judiciaries may benefit from experiences of OECD countries.Publication Security and Justice Overview(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-03)The central theme of the 2011 World Development Report (WDR) is that violent conflict remains a constant threat to human rights, peace and sustainable development. While the nature of violent conflict maybe changing1 its negative impact on poor people in terms of rights violations, public health, forced displacement and diminution of life chances is the same. Critical to establishing peace and the necessary confidence between state and citizen is providing a sense of security, freedom from fear, and the protection of basic rights and entitlements. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship, overlapping and sometimes contradictory, between a range of approaches to security and justice in conflict affected contexts, and to place these efforts within a broader rule of law framework. This, it will be argued, greatly assists in addressing the kind of frictions and blind-spots that commonly exist in making the transition from violence to peace. The paper will then examine some of the instruments and approaches adopted by governments and international partners in addressing the kinds of stresses which result in violent conflict. Finally, it will examine the gaps in the international arena which continue to persist in this area of support. A series of security and justice-themed papers produced for the WDR 2011 outline in more detail the issues, approaches and lessons of the key components including: security, public security in peacekeeping settings, criminal justice, justice and administrative law, and transitional justice.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Unlocking the Power of Healthy Longevity(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-12)Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are among the major health and development challenges of our time. Every year, about 41 million people die due to NCDs. This makes up about 74 percent of all deaths globally, the majority of which are in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Countless more people live with NCDs every day. Yet, NCDs are largely treatable and preventable. The risk of developing NCDs and deaths from them can both be lowered with appropriate attention to prevention and treatment. However, weak health systems and limited access to affordable care and information, especially in LMICs, contribute to lapses in seeking and receiving appropriate and timely care. This compendium is a compilation of 18 chapters, each exploring a different but related topic in the nexus of NCDs, human capital, and productivity. It is based on a series of analytical work taken up by the World Bank to support the Healthy Longevity Initiative (HLI) - a collaborative effort between the World Bank, the University of Toronto, and key academic and development partners including the Harvard University and the University of Washington. The HLI presents one of a growing set of efforts to increase the urgency of policy response to NCDs across the world.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication The Changing Wealth of Nations(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-29)In this report, we update and extend the methodology developed for the previous CWON 2021 report to assess the economic value of non-wood ecosystem services from forests (Siikamäki et al. 2021). Like the earlier assessment, we develop a meta-analytic predictive model using regression and machine learning techniques to spatially estimate the value of the following three ecosystem services: (1) recreation, hunting, and fishing; (2) non-wood forest products; and (3) watershed protection (hereafter, “water services”). These values are produced using 0.1º by0.1º (approximately 10km by 10km) spatial resolution and then combined and spatially aggregated to estimate country-wealth from non-wood forest products. In addition, we develop an operational method to estimate the contribution of protected areas to the value of non-wood forest productions.Publication Digital Pathways for Education(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-08)This work aims to offer a strategic approach to policymakers when undertaking digital transformation reforms in education and skills development systems, with a focus on “how.” It builds on the World Bank education vision framework offered in realizing the future of Learning by unpacking the digital cross-cutting area of “Invest wisely in technology”, looking into how this may be done to maximize impact at scale for all. The authors promote cautious optimism and techno realism, clarifying how the education and skills sector can use digital technologies to its advantage by being proactive, strategic, and evidence-based, considering carefully why to use digital and in what conditions the existing and emerging technologies might be positively leveraged. It is widely recognized that one size does not fit all and that policymakers need to have a laser focus on learning, weighing in contextual needs, and purposefully using the next marginal investable dollar on digital solutions to fulfill education objectives equitably at scale for all. Along with policymakers in government who are the primary audience for this work, it is intended to enable dialogue and critical partnerships across industry, academia, researchers and multilateral, and World Bank staff to support and deepen our country engagements as countries increasingly expand the digital reach of public education services.Publication Inequalities in Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-17)The growing disparity between the rich and poor remains a critical challenge, affecting countries across all continents, irrespective of their per capita gross domestic product. This widening gap not only impedes efforts to eradicate extreme poverty but also hinders progress toward social justice and resilience-building. Rising inequalities pose substantial barriers to sustainable development, and it is within this context that this book, 'Inequalities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Multidimensional Perspectives and Future Challenges', contributes to ongoing debates, offering a comprehensive analysis of the current challenges and future perspectives of inequality on the African continent. Despite the intensification of calls for wealth taxation and inequality reduction, progress has been slow. A key challenge lies in creating a viable political path for implementing progressive taxation policies. Resistance from those benefiting from the current system often stalls efforts, making progress difficult. Moreover, reducing inequality requires mechanisms that address inequality at its roots. Policies targeting education, competition, financial market regulation, and industrial development all hold the potential to create equitable economic opportunities, ensuring access to credit, job creation, and more-balanced economic growth. Despite facing unique, profound challenges, Africa is often overlooked in these global discussions. This book seeks to place the continent’s issues of income inequality, unequal access to education and health care, climate vulnerability, and inclusive growth at the center of the conversation. The book further advocates for innovative policies, including competition reforms and bargaining frameworks that shift the balance between capital and labor. Given that inequality in Africa is deeply rooted in historical, economic, and institutional factors, a stronger focus on pre-distribution policies is necessary. These systemic changes can help reshape the conditions under which inequality emerges and persists. In addition to policy reforms, it is vital to strengthen the research and academic infrastructure that underpins the understanding of inequality. Equity concerns must be addressed within the scientific field, and African research capabilities must be bolstered. This volume, written in collaboration with the African Center of Excellence for Inequality Research, calls for a greater focus on empowering African researchers as part of a broader development strategy. By doing so, it aligns with the World Bank’s and the Agence Française de Développement’s commitment to supporting research as a critical tool for sustainable development.