Microjustice Initiative
From MicroJustice
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General
The Microjustice Initiative is an NGO based in The Hague, The Netherlands. Its mission is to encourage the development and implementation of affordable and sustainable solutions to the problem of access to justice, for those living on the Base-of-the-Pyramid. It does this by initiating and supporting projects, exchanging knowledge, experience and best practices and by establishing relationships between stakeholders globally. See website
Organization
Values and strategy
The Microjustice Initiative aims to achieve its Mission by establishing relationships between stakeholders globally. You may wish to know more about, or contribute to, the Values to which the Microjustice Initiative adheres, as well as the Strategy and the Organization of the Microjustice Initiative.
Initiatives and Projects
The work of the Microjustice Intitiative is further organized in broader Initiatives which are compartementalized in Projects.
Workpackages: Work Looking for People
This page can also be seen as the market place linking activities to people. Many people support the Microjustice Initiative by taking care off one or more work packages. We have defined Work Packages that may be interesting for volunteers, for students wanting to write a Master Thesis, or for organizations that have budgets available for supporting this type of activities.
For instance, you may wish to contribute to writing texts for communication purposes, formulate new projects, develop ideas about fundraising, contribute to product development in one of the pilot projects, or be monitor for this wiki, and a thousand other things that have to be done.
Microjustice Who is who
On the Who is who page you will find information on the names and functions of the people working on Microjustice now. And the Contributions to Microjustice that were made by organizations are also visible.
What's going on
On the News and Events page, milestones that are reached, coming events, and other noteworthy issues that could be suitable for our newsletter can be shared.
Official website
The official website of the Microjustice Initiative is [1]. That is the primary venue for communicating with the outside world. If you feel texts, ideas, project information, or other info should be made available on this website, please contact: communications@microjustice.org nitiating and supporting Projects, is an important part of the Mission of the Microjustice Initiative. The page with an overview of all Projects is a good place to start if you want to know what work is being done and where help is needed to make Microjustice happen.
See, for instance, the pilot project Microjustice Bolivia, where Microjustice Facilitators help clients according to the principles of Microjustice and where Microjustice Products are being developed www.microjusticiabolivia.org. The Template Microjustice Program is a handbook that will be available in due time in order to support those that wish to develop a Microjustice Program. Other Microjustice Programs are in the process of being developed, for instance a cross border program in the republics of Former Yugoslavia.
Under the working name of MicrojusticeNormsandProcesses.com, the specifications for an interactive webplatform will be developed. This website will make norms (Objective criteria) and processes for common legal problems transparent for users and comparable across countries.
Roots and partners
Initial partners in the Microjustice Initative
The Microjustice Initiative was born at the end of 2006 following a conference organized by ILA in Madrid: Derechos para todos; is access to rights a luxury article? In the quest for developing a structural and sustainable system to enhance access to rights for all, the microjustice approach has been developed by ILA and Tilburg University combining field work and academic research in one product. A first pilot microjustice program in Bolivia has been set up since early 2007. ILA has an extended experience in field work in the post-conflict zones of the former Yugoslavia where it developed cross-border legal programs to help displaced persons reclaim their property and obtain birth certificates and other documents thus, enabling them to restart their lives. Here, the core ideas of local paralegal support and finding economies of scale were tried out in practice.
The academic roots can be found in the work of a group of researchers at Tilburg University working on dispute resolution system design. They developed concepts to diminish the transaction costs of legal processes, and to improve negotiations in the shadow of legal intervention, for instance in the areas of personal injury claims, family law, and consumer conflicts.
Extended cooperation
The Microjustice Initiative forms networks between many organizations who are active in the field of promoting innovative solutions to the problem of access to justice.
- Centre for International Legal Cooperation
- Hague Institute for the Internationalization of Law (Innovative Rule of Law Program and Rule of Law Network)
- International Legal Alliances
- Microjusticia Bolivia
- Organization of American States (Facilitadores Judiciales Program)
- Oxfam Novib
Ask questions
There is a page with frequently asked questions and preliminary answers to them. These questions are continuously being added to and the answers further refined. The idea of Microjustice and the information on this wiki easily lead to numerous questions. People help us by asking questions in Frequently Asked Questions section. We are glad to answer them.
