Participatory justice and mediation toward a new model of justice

This paper provides a brief description of the model of participatory justice that is emerging in Europe and in North and South American States. Participatory justice promotes new forms of conflict resolution, as does mediation, based on voluntariness and confidentiality, as well as the participation of all parties in the management of conflict. In 2010, Italian legislators introduced mediation as an alternative form of dispute resolution in civil and commercial matters in order to reduce the burden of the Courts. This reform has not been successful so far because Italian lawmakers have introduced mediation into the civil justice system without reforming the framework of its underlying principles.El presente artículo tiene como propósito realizar una breve descripción teórica sobre el modelo de justicia participativa que está surgiendo en Europa y en los Estados del continente americano. La justicia participativa promueve métodos alternativos de resolución de conflictos, como la mediación, caracterizados por la voluntariedad, la confidencialidad y la participación de todas las partes en la gestión de conflictos que las dividen. En 2010 los legisladores italianos introdujeron la mediación en asuntos civiles y mercantiles para reducir la carga de los tribunales. La reforma, sin embargo, no tuvo éxito debido a que los legisladores italianos establecieron la mediación sin armonizar sus principios con los del modelo tradicional de justicia

A Community-Based Participatory Action Research for Roma Health Justice in a Deprived District in Spain

Addressing health disparities and promoting health equity for Roma has been a challenge. The Roma are the largest disadvantaged ethnic minority population in Europe and have been the victims of deep social and economic injustices, institutional discrimination, and structural antigypsyism over many centuries. This has resulted in a much worse health status than their non-Roma counterparts. Current strategies based on ameliorative and top-down approaches to service delivery have resulted in paradoxical e_ects that solidify health disparities, since they do not e_ectively address the problems of vulnerable Roma groups. Following a health justice approach, we present a community-based participatory action research case study generated by a community and university partnership intended to address power imbalances and build collaboration among local stakeholders. This case study involved a group of health providers, Roma residents, researchers, Roma community organizations, and other stakeholders in the Poligono Sur, a neighborhood of Seville, Spain. The case study comprises four phases: (1) identifying Roma health assets, (2) empowering Roma community through sociopolitical awareness, (3) promoting alliances between Roma and community resources/institutions, and (4) building a common agenda for promoting Roma health justice. We highlighted best practices for developing processes to influence Roma health equity in local health policy agendas

Peace and Justice: Notes on the Evolution and Purposes of Legal Processes

This text of the inaugural lecture for the A.B. Chettle, Jr. Chair in Dispute Resolution and Civil Procedure at Georgetown University Law Center presents an intellectual outline (theory and practice) for a house of justice built on the foundations of Lon Fuller, the Legal Process school, Jurgen Habermas\u27 and Stuart Hampshire\u27s social philosophy about democratic processes, the floors of comparative processes, drawing on the work of political theorist Jon Elster and empirical work on legal and political processes and the ceilings of new processes, like consensus building fora, truth and reconciliation commissions and other combinations of legal and political processes. A model of different modes of human conflict resolution is outlined with differentiations of different forms of process (open/closed; plenary/committees; expert/naturalistic; constitutive/permanent/ad hoc). The article suggests a broadened view of what should be taught as legal process - beyond conventional civil procedure to many more forms of human legal and political processes. If process is the human bridge between justice and peace then we much teach about both kinds of processes - those seeking justice and those seeking peace; hopefully they can both be accomplished

The Lawyer As Consensus Builder: Ethics For a New Practice

In this Article, I explore the roles of lawyers in alternative dispute resolution ( ADR ), including traditional roles in arbitration and new roles in mediation and facilitation. I also discuss how conventional ethics rules for lawyers fail to provide guidance and best practices for lawyers who serve in these new roles. State legislatures and professional associations, such as the American Arbitration Association ( AAA ), the Center for Public Resources Institute for Dispute Resolution ( CPR ), and the Association of Conflict Resolution, have adopted ethical codes for mediators and arbitrators. Select professional associations are also developing best practice guides for the provision of ADR services; however, the lack of clarity in the Model Rules is a serious problem. The failure of the Model Rules to recognize the role of lawyers in peacemaking, dispute prevention or resolution, and legal problem solving marks an absence in what is publicly recognized as among the most important roles a lawyer performs - that of a constructive lawyer. Furthermore, the Model Rules misrepresent the legal profession by assuming that representing clients in adversarial matters is the only role lawyers fulfill. Such an assumption fails to give adequate guidance to a lawyer who fulfills a broader, and perhaps, more significant role than that of a hired gun

Community Development: A Guide for Grantmakers on Fostering Better Outcomes Through Good Process

Focuses on participation and collaboration as major elements of processes that are effective. Provides examples of, and offers tools for overcoming, challenges to collaboration. Includes strategies and resources for evaluation and collaboration

Confronting Systemic Inequity in Education: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy

Each year, foundations pour in billions of dollars to support education, and yet, the education inequity crisis in this country continues. Philanthropy can be more effective at being part of the solution and finally bring access to quality education for all students. This report serves as an eye-opener to foundation leaders about the ineffectiveness of current grantmaking practices. It also encourages conversations within and among education grantmakers, and provides six helpful discussion questions

Victims and the sentencing process: developing participatory rights?

Recent years have seen a number of developments pertaining to the notion that victims should be afforded a ‘voice’ in the criminal justice system. The theoretical and structural parameters of the adversarial system are not, however, conducive to exercising such a role. For many, conferring procedural rights on victims jeopardises the due process rights of the accused, as well as the public nature of the criminal justice system. In light of the recent decision to roll out the ‘Victims' Focus Scheme’ across England and Wales, this paper explores a number of issues of principle that arise – not least the deeper policy implications of an apparent re-alignment of the normative parameters of the criminal justice system to incorporate the private interests of third parties

University-Community Collaboration for Climate Justice Education and Organizing: Partnerships in Canada, Brazil, and Africa

In the coming decades, countries around the world will face increasingly severe challenges related to global climate change. While the details vary from country to country, the impacts will be especially grave for marginalized people, whose access to food, potable water, and safe shelter may be threatened due to fluctuations in rainfall and temperature and to disasters related to extreme weather events. International strategies for addressing climate change are in disarray. The complicated financial and carbon-trading mechanisms promoted by the United Nations and other global institutions are far too bureaucratic, weak, internally inconsistent, and scattered to represent meaningful solutions to climate change. Already the housing, health, and livelihoods of marginalized people worldwide are being threatened by the ramifications of climate change. This means that the marginalized in every community, by definition, have expertise in how priorities should be set to address climate change. Their experiences, knowledge, and views must be part of local, regional, national, and international governance—including urban planning and housing, water management, agriculture, health, and finance policies.This research was supported by the International Development Research Centre, grant number IDRC GRANT NO. 106002-00

A Seat at the Table: Including the Poor in Decisions for Development and Environment

Presents case studies of the access to information, public participation, and justice for the poor in environmental decision-making processes and barriers, including issues of literacy, costs, risk, and cultural context. Makes policy recommendations

Scaling Up Deliberative Democracy as Dispute Resolution in Healthcare Reform: A Work in Progress

Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) denotes the problem of jointly localizing a moving platform and mapping the environment. This work studies the SLAM problem using a combination of inertial sensors, measuring the platform's accelerations and angular velocities, and a monocular camera observing the environment. We formulate the SLAM problem on a nonlinear least squares (NLS) batch form, whose solution provides a smoothed estimate of the motion and map. The NLS problem is highly nonconvex in practice, so a good initial estimate is required. We propose a multi-stage iterative procedure, that utilises the fact that the SLAM problem is linear if the platform's rotations are known. The map is initialised with camera feature detections only, by utilising feature tracking and clustering of  feature tracks. In this way, loop closures are automatically detected. The initialization method and subsequent NLS refinement is demonstrated on both simulated and real data