Enhancing Access to Justice Through Donor-Led Legal Aid Initiatives: International Normative Framework, Practical Approaches, and Some Findings from the Field

As an objective in international legal cooperation, interventions with the aim to enhance access to justice are a relatively new phenomenon that has famously been described as the ‘legal empowerment alternative’ which goes ‘beyond the rule of law orthodoxy’. Generally speaking, while traditional approaches primarily aim at promoting the rule of law ‘top–down’ by strengthening state structures and capacities, access to justice projects take a ‘bottom–up’ approach focusing on the empowerment of ‘users’ of justice systems. The overarching theory of change behind this approach is that empowered citizens are better able to participate in decision-making processes at the grassroots level, helping build greater trust and confidence in the justice system and public institutions, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected situations. Focusing on the provision of legal aid services, this article outlines the international normative framework, depicts the various practical approaches, and reflects some findings resulting from a recent evaluation commissioned by the German Federal Foreign Office on its engagement in enhancing access to justice, drawing from examples in Palestine, Ukraine, and Pakistan.