Exploring the Implications of New Global Goals for Access to Justice in the United States
Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute & National Center for Access to Justice at Cardozo Law School co-sponsor panel discussion with government officials and access to justice experts
New York, September 22, 2015 -- U.S. access to justice experts, advocates, and government officials will gather in New York City on Sept. 24 to discuss the potential implications of the new United Nations global justice goal on access to justice in the United States.
The event, co-sponsored by the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute and National Center for Access to Justice at Cardozo Law School, will take place as world leaders meet at the U.N. to adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a new universal agenda for eradicating poverty.
Goal 16 of the new Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs” or “Global Goals”) calls specifically on countries to “[p]romote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.” In doing so, it establishes an expectation that nations will create national indicators and report data that will measure their progress to increase access to justice.
“Goal 16’s explicit inclusion of access to justice is reflective of the increasing understanding that access to justice is essential to ending poverty and to securing human rights,” notes Risa Kaufman, executive director of the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute.
The United States, as part of a U.N. Open Working Group including many other nations, helped to draft the SDGs and has been a champion of Goal 16 throughout the process.
“Goal 16 is expected to have a substantial and real impact on government agencies, philanthropies, research institutes, and the nonprofit sector, including civil and criminal legal aid programs,” says David Udell, Executive Director of the National Center for Access to Justice at Cardozo Law School. “Goal 16 will draw increased attention to the performance of our civil and criminal justice systems. Within the United States, it has the potential also to draw increased resources to access to justice reform initiatives, research, and civil legal aid.”
The Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute and National Center for Access to Justice recently published a fact sheet on Goal 16 and its potential implications for access to justice in the United States.
Speakers at the September 24 event will include Tony Pipa, the United States’ Lead Negotiator for the Sustainable Development Goals; Peter Chapman, Program Officer on Legal Empowerment at Open Society Justice Initiatives; Maha Jweied, Deputy Director of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Access to Justice; Jennifer Smith, Executive Director of International Legal Foundation; and Udell. Kaufman will moderate the event.
Panelists will explore topics, including: the purpose of the SDGs and of Goal 16; the process for shaping indicators to track and promote access to justice globally and in the United States; the possibilities for data collection; the relationship between Goal 16 and the global access to justice movement; and the ways in which stakeholders can help to maximize the impact of Goal 16 to increase access to justice in the United States.
Skadden Arps will host the event at its Times Square office.
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The Human Rights Institute serves as the focal point of international human rights education, scholarship and practice at Columbia Law School, drawing on the Law School’s deep human rights tradition to support and influence human rights practice in the United States and throughout the world. Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, stands at the forefront of legal education and of the law in a global society, combining traditional strengths in corporate law and financial regulation, international and comparative law, property, contracts, constitutional law, and administrative law with pioneering work in intellectual property, digital technology, tax law and policy, national security, human rights, sexuality and gender, and environmental law.
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The National Center for Access to Justice is the national nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to achieving policy reform that helps people resolve their disputes pursuant to the rule of law in the United States justice system. NCAJ relies on data to ensure that the justice system is effective in affording people the opportunity to halt domestic violence, confront unlawful evictions, preserve the unity of families, obtain lawfully owed wages and job conditions, and have a fair opportunity to be heard in all civil and criminal proceedings. NCAJ is based at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University, founded in 1976 in New York City's Greenwich Village. Cardozo Law is known for its innovation in legal education, including establishing the Innocence Project, founding a pioneering program in alternative dispute resolution, hosting a nationally renowned program in intellectual property and information law, and establishing the Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights.
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