Rule of Law Talk

In this episode, WJP speaks with Adalah, an independent human rights organization and legal center based in Haifa, Israel. Mellon-ACLS Public Fellow Joe Haley is joined by Dr. Hassan Jabareen, Adalah’s Founder and General Director. A noted scholar and lecturer on the legal status of Arab minorities in Israel, Hassan founded Adalah in 1996 to advance the cause of human rights, in general – and Arab-Palestinian rights, in particular – within the legal system of Israel. Under his leadership, Adalah has represented Palestinians in many landmark cases before the Israeli Supreme Court, including cases that impact Palestinians’ right to participate freely in electoral politics, their equal title to land and access to public resources, and the legal status of Arab-Israeli citizens and their immigrant family-members who have been displaced by conflict. Proving the adage that minority rights are human rights, Adalah has sought accountability for rights abuses at the hands of police and security forces, as well as equal protection for citizens who have been incarcerated or who are accused of crimes. Their list of accomplishments includes a library of academic publications on such topics as torture, forced displacement, and systemic discrimination within Israeli law – as well as a litany of successful advocacy campaigns designed to mobilize international institutions and spread awareness about real-time threats confronting ethnic minorities in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

When we spoke last year, political tensions within Israel had recently boiled over following the attempted eviction of a Palestinian family living in an East Jerusalem neighborhood known as Sheikh Jarrah. Weeks of mass protest within Jerusalem were followed by a cross-border exchange of airstrikes and rocket fire, resulting in numerous injuries and deaths. One month later, Israelis of all stripes took to the polls in an historic election that ousted the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister. Amidst the backdrop of these tumultuous events, Hassan struck a tone of cautious optimism regarding the progress of Arab equality as his country emerges from this latest round of political violence and the lingering global pandemic.

In this episode, Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow Joe Haley speaks with a team of implementers at WeSolve Philippines, a civil society organization working to build a culture of open data and transparent budgeting, starting with greater accountability for the expenditure of public funds on the response to COVID-19.

In honor of Law Day on May 1, our latest Rule of Law Talk conversation focuses on an exciting new civics education effort, the Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative, spearheaded by iCivics and dozens of other organizations and institutions, including the American Bar Association. WJP's Elizabeth Andersen is joined by the Executive Director of iCivics, Louise Dubé; the President-Elect of the American Bar Association, Reginald Turner; and an experienced high school civics educator from Nevada, Averill Kelley, who in addition to his work on the civics front lines, has worked with both the ABA and iCivics to support their work.

In this Rule of Law Talk podcast conversation, WJP’s Joe Haley speaks with the founder of LawPàdí, a legal empowerment platform. LawPàdí pairs a legal referral service with innovative approaches to legal education, such as street law clinics and automated chat bots, in order to help Nigerians resolve their most common civil justice problems. The conversation touches on the security ramifications of access to justice in the Sahel, anddives into measures of program impact, the role of legal self-help, the strategic use of data, and the importance of building public trust. Ultimately, Ibidapo-Obe shares his vision for a streamlined system of justice in Nigeria.

In this Rule of Law Talk podcast conversation, WJP’s Joe Haley speaks with the founder of Femmes et Droits Humains, a non-governmental organization working to include Malian women in the justice and peacebuilding process. The conversation addresses the cultural disparities confronting Malian boys and girls as these pertain to education and access to justice, the effort to educate women about their rights under international law, and the importance of building a women’s movement to resist theocratic rule. There is also a sobering discussion about the Malian government’s reliance on customary justice to address instability. Note: This interview took place in March 2020.

In this Rule of Law Talk podcast conversation, WJP’s Joe Haley speaks with the founder of tech startup Bankly, Tomiola Adejana. They met in the Hague, Netherlands, where Adejana had just been announced as the 2020 winner of the Innovating Justice Challenge, an incubator program run by the Hague Institute for Innovating Law. Their conversation explores Bankly’s strategy for using traditional networks to introduce digital finance to Nigeria’s “last mile.” They also discuss the strategic role of impact investment, the process of social entrepreneurship, and the regulatory challenges confronting a financial startup in Nigeria.

In the first Rule of Law Talk podcast installment for the Rule of Law Solutions Initiative, WJP's Joe Haley speaks with program officers from the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA-ROLI) and Association Temedt who are working to abolish the practice of descent-based slavery in Mali. The conversation revisits a successful two-year program, supported by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, which helped to raise awareness about descent-based slavery and obtain liberation and legal documentation for hundreds of victims. The discussion also touches the problem's historic roots, the difficulty of achieving legislative reform in the midst of a security crisis, and the importance of enlisting customary justice leaders.

World Justice Project Executive Director Elizabeth Andersen is joined by Christof Heyns, Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Pretoria and member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, to discuss the right of peaceful assembly. A new General Comment issued this week by the United Nations Human Rights Committee provides guidance on this topic at a critical moment, with protest movements on the rise across the globe, any many countries grappling with the appropriate response—something that has become even more complicated with the COVID-19 pandemic and public health restrictions on large gatherings.

Killian Dorier, Senior Program Associate for Engagement at the World Justice Project, is joined by Nikole Nelson, Executive Director of the Alaska Legal Services Corporation, and Walter Flores, Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Equity and Governance in Health Systems (CEGSS) to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected indigenous communities in the United States and abroad, and what this additional pressure on countries' rule of law systems means for them.

The winners of the 2020 WJP Anthony Lewis Prize for Exceptional Rule of Law Journalism— Pavla Holcová, Arpád Soltész, and Eva Kubániová—personify the principle quoted by their outlet, "Even if you kill a journalist, you can never kill a story."