I have been familiar with FrontlineSMS since my days at The Asia Foundation, and in fact have thought about using that technology on many occasions for our projects. I love the idea, but it was still in the rather early stages of deployment then. I recently talked to Sean McDonald today about FrontlineSMS Legal, which builds on the original core Frontline to expand functionality for people in the legal world, in particular, as a SMS-based case management system of sorts. Legal is still in the early stages of development, but I can't wait till I can see a beta version to help test it, using the Microjustice field offices.
New Paper on 'What is Law and Development'
A good recent summary on the intersection of law and development. A parallel discussion to my previous post: 'Theories of Law and Development'
What is Law and Development? Mariana Prado (Toronto Faculty of Law)
ABSTRACT: Law & Development studies have been growing in the past few years, after having its death declared in the 1070s. There is, however, very little clarity as to what this field of study encompasses or whether it is a field at all. Under the label of Law & Development one can find a wide variety of studies, approaches, analyses and topics. Some studies focus on formal institutions, discussing how enforcement of contracts, protection of property rights, and an independent judiciary protect investors and improve economic growth in developing countries. Others have not focused on economic development, but instead on how laws to protect women from abuses in the family and to create quotas to guarantee their participation in the public sphere have been largely ineffective due to deeply embedded social norms and value that cannot be changed by legislation (at least not from one day to the next). Still others have criticized the Law & Development discourse as another source of imperialism and dominance that justify senseless legal transplants from the North to the South.
American Bar Association eLawyering Website
It's more than just a web presence- read the fundamentals of providing legal services over the internet, as well as innovative best practices (with a US-slant of course):
"How can I practice law over the Internet?" This web site will help you find answers to that question.
eLawyering is doing legal work - not just marketing - over the Web. Pioneering practitioners have found dramatic new ways to communicate and collaborate with clients and other lawyers, produce documents, settle disputes, interact with courts, and manage legal knowledge. ELawyering encompasses all the ways in which lawyers can do their work using the Web and associated technologies. Think of lawyering as a "verb" - interview, investigate, counsel, draft, advocate, analyze, negotiate, manage, .. - and there are corresponding Internet-based tools and technologies.
There are exciting initiatives underway now that deserve attention by all lawyers - present and future. While admittedly just a subset of the vast legal technology world, eLawyering and its lawyer-less analogs present fundamental challenges for our profession. There are great dangers, but also great opportunities for attorneys in the coming decade. To be successful in the coming era, lawyers will need to know how to practice over the Web, manage client relationships in cyberspace, and ethically offer "unbundled" services.
New Report on Customary Justice: Perspectives on Legal Empowerment
Leiden University and IDLO has partnered to produce a new report Customary Justice: Perspectives on Legal Empowerment. Very timely because customary legal systems have slowly gained importance over the last few years, and has usually been the first and last stop for justice for the poor and vulnerable.
Abstract:
This edited volume explores the relationship between traditional justice and legal empowerment. It discusses key aspects of traditional justice, including the rise of customary law in justice sector reform, the effectiveness of hybrid justice systems, access to justice through community courts, customary law and land tenure, land rights and nature conservation, and the analysis of policy proposals for justice reforms based on traditional justice. The volume was developed in partnership with the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Development of Leiden University and features articles by some ten leading authors, country specialists and practitioners working in the areas of traditional justice and legal empowerment. Top Human Rights Groups and Global Networks: A Primer
Microblogged from DevEx- one of my main sources of development information, on its list of what it considers to be the most renowned international organizations and networks focused on the promotion of human rights.:
The basic principles of human rights are ancient, but it’s only in the last 50 years or so that human rights organizations have begun to pop up. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations, includes education, health care, food and many other areas of focus for the international development community. It’s no wonder, then, that aid groups are increasingly framing their work in the context of human rights, whether they advocate for sex workers’ rights or help boost primary school attendance. Highlighting human rights can broaden the scope and appeal of global activism and advocacy campaigns – and it may help secure funding at a time it is increasingly difficult to come by.
Berkman Center Series 11 July 2011: Cultivating New voices, Approaches, and Audiences for national - and international - reporting in an era of global interconnectedness and shrinking news budgets
The Berkman Center will host a conversation about the challenges of reporting international stories to US and Global audiences. In an age of shrinking news budgets, American newspapers and broadcasters are producing less original reporting of international stories. And while gripping events like the Arab Spring capture the attention of the public, many important international stories fail to garner widespread attention. The challenges for international reporting are both ones of supply (who reports the news from around the world?) and demand (who pays attention?).
This conversation was inspired by Berkman Fellow Persephone Miel, whose work focused on how compelling narrative and context for international stories could make unfamiliar international news more accessible to American and global audiences. Her efforts to support and promote talented local, non-US journalists whose work has the potential for global impact, but who need to overcome significant obstacles to succeed, are continued through a fellowship established in her honor by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, in partnership with Internews. Journalists Fatima Tlisova (Voice of America) and Pulitzer Prize winner Dele Olojede will join Ethan Zuckerman (Berkman Center/Global Voices), Colin Maclay (Berkman Center), Ivan Sigal (Global Voices), Jon Sawyer (Pulizter Center) and the Miel family for a discussion and reflection on these questions, and on Persephone's work and the journalistic values she championed. URL: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/6927
New paper on Legal Institutions, Innovation and Growth
Legal Institutions, Innovation and Growth
ABSTRACT: We analyze the relationship between legal institutions, innovation and growth. We compare a rigid (law set ex-ante) legal system and a flexible one (law set after observing current technology). The flexible system dominates in terms of welfare, amount of innovation and output growth at intermediate stages of technological development - periods when legal change is needed. The rigid system is preferable at early stages of technological development, when (lack of) commitment problems are severe. For mature technologies the two legal systems are equivalent. We find that rigid legal systems may induce excessive (greater than first-best) R&D investment and output growth.
Google search for 'Microjustice' - June 2011
Form time to time, I google certain concepts just to see how much they have taken off. From a term nonexistent in 2005, 'microjustice' today has11.400 entries, the top few which are as follows:
- www.microjustice.org/
- www.odemagazine.com/doc/62/microjustice/
- www.microjusticeinitiative.org/
- microjusticeworkplace.net/
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