Trend Report | Part 1 - HiiL

Input papers reviewed legal information strategies of NGO’s in developing countries 37 and the
interdisciplinary literature on the impact of so-called objective criteria (guidelines for dealing with money
and other distributive issues). 38
Progress in monitoring and measuring access to justice has been triggered by justice research in social
psychology and various other disciplines, leading to major advances in understanding of the different
forms of justice that people value. 39 A collection of innovations in the justice sector and descriptions by
innovators of their experiences gave us many additional insights that are used throughout this report. 40
The HiiL networks of experts on the Rule of Law, and its yearly meetings, ensured access to many
promising approaches and invaluable practical insights in what works and what not.
This methodology has many limitations. We certainly will have missed many important insights and
innovations, in particular developments from countries that have to cross language barriers to the
English speaking community. The perspective is that of justiciable problems, and the basic finding that
these are generally solved by communication, negotiation and adjudication, using norms and oversight
by the community as additional means to find a solution. The report focuses less on criminal law. On
many issues, the evidence is limited, and more close to an educated guess from experts. We did not
dwell at length on the mechanisms of the formal legal system, and it may be that we oversaw some of
its strengths. One of the criticisms on drafts of this report has been that it covers to many issues. It may
be that we overestimated the importance of some of them.
But as the many different sources used and the length of the report suggests, there is little evidence that
basic justice care for everyone will become possible by one or few magical approach. What we suggest
after considering the evidence is that breakthroughs are possible through a gradual and collective
learning and innovation process. Learning by doing. Learning from doing and from research. Learning
across borders. Learning from other public services. Learning from setting goals and priorities and
working towards them systematically. Learning from making mistakes.
37 Verdonschot J.H. & Barendrecht M., “Providing Legal Information: What Do We Know About Effective Strategies”,
forthcoming
38 Barendrecht M. and Verdonschot J. H., “Objective criteria: Facilitating Dispute Resolution by Information about Going
Rates of Justice”, TISCO Working Paper Series, No. 005/2008; Verdonschot J.H. “Delivering Objective Criteria: Sources
of Law and the Relative Value of Neutral Information for Dispute Resolution”, TISCO Working Paper Series,
No.001/2009.
39 See publications in the journal Social Justice Research and the Special Issue on measuring and monitoring access to
justice of the Hague Journal on the Rule of Law Vol.3:2 (2011)
40 See the innovations displayed on www.innovatingjustice.com and the literature on justice sector innovation that is
accessible via the innovation tools and lab pages on this site.
HiiL Trend Report – Part 1: Challenges and Promising Approaches 25