For most people in rural South Africa, traditional justice mechanisms provide the only feasible means of accessing any form of justice. These mechanisms are popularly associated with restorative justice, reconciliation and harmony in rural communities. Yet, this ethnographic study grounded in the political economy of rural South Africa reveals how historical conditions and contemporary pressures have strained these mechanisms’ ability to deliver the high normative ideals with which they are notionally linked. In places such as Msinga access to justice is made especially precarious by the reality that human insecurity – a composite of physical, social and material insecurity – is high for both ordinary people and the authorities who staff local justice forums; cooperation is low between traditional justice mechanisms and the criminal and social justice mechanisms the state is meant to provide; and competition from purportedly more effective ‘twilight institutions’, like vigilante associations, is rife. Further contradictions are presented by profoundly gendered social relations premised on delicate social trust that is closely monitored by one’s community and enforced through self-help measures like witchcraft accusations in a context in which violence is, culturally and practically, a highly plausible strategy for dispute management. These contextual considerations compel us to ask what justice we can reasonably speak of access to in such an insecure context and what solutions are viable under such volatile human conditions? The book concludes with a vision for access to justice in rural South Africa that takes seriously ordinary people’s circumstances and traditional authorities’ lived experiences as documented in this detailed study. The author proposes a cooperative governance model that would maximise the resources and capacity of both traditional and state justice apparatus for delivering the legal and social justice – namely, peace and protection from violence as well as mitigation of poverty and destitution – that rural people genuinely need.

In international law, as in any other legal system, respect and protection of human rights can be guaranteed only by the availability of effective judicial remedies. When a right is violated or damage is caused, access to justice is of fundamental importance for the injured individual and it is an essential component of the rule of law. Yet, access to justice as a human right remains problematic in international law. First, because individual access to international justice remains exceptional and based on specific treaty arrangements, rather than on general principles of international law; second, because even when such right is guaranteed as a matter of treaty obligation, other norms or doctrines of international law may effectively impede its exercise, as in the case of sovereign immunity or non reviewability of UN Security Council measures directly affecting individuals. Further, even access to domestic legal remedies is suffering because of the constraints put by security threats, such as terrorism, on the full protection of freedom and human rights. This collection of essays offers seven distinct perspectives on the present status of access to justice: its development in customary international law, the stress put on it in times of emergency, its problematic exercise in the case of violations of the law of war, its application to torture victims, its development in the case law of the UN Human Rights Committee and of the European Court of Human Rights, its application to the emerging field of environmental justice, and finally access to justice as part of fundamental rights in European law.

This volume elaborates on the EU report A Human Security Doctrine for Europe, adding an engaging discussion of international legal consequences and operational demands in the European Union’s quest for domestic security. Introducing the concept of “Human Security from Below,” the editors highlight how people in war-torn countries have no choice but to create their own security arrangements. But such structures, surprisingly, are not unique to war zones, the contributors reveal—human security initiatives from below occur in even the most stable Western countries. Arguing that human security as a concept only makes sense if it covers both foreign and domestic policy concerns, The Viability of Human Security offers concise insights on this largely neglected topic.

Around the world, access to justice enjoys an energetic and passionate resurgence as an object both of scholarly inquiry and political contest, as both a social movement and a value commitment motivating study and action. This work evidences a deeper engagement with social theory than past generations of scholarship.

This book examines the question of whether justice or security is the primary virtue of 21st-century society. The issue of enhancing security without undermining justice – managing risk without undermining the rule of law – has always been problematic. However, recent developments such as new counter-terrorism measures, the expanding scope of criminal law, harsher migration control and an increasingly pronounced concern with public safety, have posed new challenges. The key element of these contemporary challenges is that of membership and exclusion: that is, who is to be included within the community of justice, and against whom is the just community aiming to defend itself? Justice and Security in the 21st Century brings together researchers from various academic disciplines and different countries in order to explore these developments. It attempts to chart the complex landscapes of justice, human rights and the rule of law in an era when such ideals are challenged by increasing demands for efficiency, effectiveness, public safety and security. This edited volume will be of much interest to students of critical legal studies, criminology, critical security studies, human rights, sociology and IR in general.

Accessing human rights and justice mechanisms is a pressing issue in global politics. Although an understanding of justice is inherent in broad human rights discourses, there is no clear consensus on how to develop adequate means of accessing them in order to make a difference to people’s lives. Further, expansions of the boundaries of both human rights and justice make any clear and settled understanding of the relation difficult to ascertain. This volume tackles these issues by focusing on the dilemmas of accessing and implementing human rights and justice across a range of empirical contexts while also investigating a range of conceptual approaches to, and understandings of, justice, including issues of equality, retribution, and restoration, as well as justice as a transnational professional project. The contributors, representing a range of disciplinary backgrounds and diverse voices, offer empirical examples from Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Tunisia, and Uganda to explore the issues of accessing and implementing human rights and justice in conflict, post-conflict, and transitional settings. This work will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, human rights, international criminal justice, and conflict response.

This book considers how access to justice is affected by restrictions to legal aid budgets and increasingly prescriptive service guidelines. As common law jurisdictions, England and Wales and Australia, share similar ideals, policies and practices, but they differ in aspects of their legal and political culture, in the nature of the communities they serve and in their approaches to providing access to justice. These jurisdictions thus provide us with different perspectives on what constitutes justice and how we might seek to overcome the burgeoning crisis in unmet legal need. The book fills an important gap in existing scholarship as the first to bring together new empirical and theoretical knowledge examining different responses to legal aid crises both in the domestic and comparative contexts, across criminal, civil and family law. It achieves this by examining the broader social, political, legal, health and welfare impacts of legal aid cuts and prescriptive service guidelines. Across both jurisdictions, this work suggests that it is the most vulnerable groups who lose out in the way the law now operates in the twenty-first century. This book is essential reading for academics, students, practitioners and policymakers interested in criminal and civil justice, access to justice, the provision of legal assistance and legal aid.