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Two worlds I spent years in two different worlds of justice - and they barely talk to each other. The first world: international criminal tribunals. The Yugoslav Tribunal. The early days of the ICC. A community of people doing genuinely important work, holding perpetrators of atrocity crimes to account. I was proud to be part of it. The second world: national justice systems. The everyday disputes over land, family, debt, and safety that shape the lives of billions of people,

We have something to fix You are a prime minister who has just been appointed. You are an about-to-be or newly appointed minister of justice, attorney-general, chief juistice, or chief prosecutor. You know of the work of HiiL, the World Justice Project and the Justice Action Coalition. You have read the 2023 OECD Recommendation on people centered justice systems and you came across its Toolkit. You deeply want the justice system of your country to change. You have formulated

Sam Muller Most justice systems in the world were designed for a society that no longer exists. They were built for paper files, physical courtrooms, formal procedures, and slow administrative rhythms. They assumed disputes were exceptional, that people had time and money to navigate institutions, and that the state would be the primary gateway to justice. That world is gone. Today, justice problems are constant, not episodic. They arise at work, online, in families, in housi

For decades, environmentalists and climate scientists have warned about the catastrophic consequences of the shrinking and erosion of the Amazon and Congo rainforests. Politicians have echoed and amplified the warnings, but have done little of consequence to slow the actual pace at which the rainforests are moving towards tipping points. The recent UN climate summit in Belem was supposed to change all that. However, it would take an unusually large dose of magical thinking to

We - Anja Mutsaers and I, just ended a two-day meeting of the Management Board of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna - the first physical meeting after our appointment in July. We will leave what’s in the board in the board, but share some impressions – which are purely our own and which cannot be attributed in any way to FRA and its work. Urgency More than anything: a sense of urgency, acuteness. As we were talking about the FRA strategy and planning, NATO Secretar

It was special to participate in the 10 th OECD Global Access to Justice Round Table, in Madrid. A BIG thank you to the OECD team and the team of the Spanish Ministry of Justice who pulled it together. Below, three reflections and a strategic conclusion. We’ve progressed! As someone who has been banging on about the need for people centered justice systems for almost 20 years, I am pleased and grateful to see where we stand. Back then, talk was almost entirely about better

Opinion by Jean-Pierre Kempeneers and Sam Muller• - Pubished first in Pass Blue - September 21, 2025 The world has entered one of its...

Pope Francis was a justice pope. Even a non-Catholic follower of Buddhism could see that. May he rest in peace. In October 2020, I was...