New Directions in Justice Reform

This paper elaborates new directions in justice reform under the World Bank’s Updated Strategy and Implementation Plan on Strengthening Governance, Tackling Corruption (Updated Governance and Anticorruption (GAC) Strategy.) On March 27, 2012, the World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved an Updated Governance and Anticorruption Strategy. As part of the preparatory process, several companion pieces were developed to inform the Strategy as regards specific areas of governance important to the Bank’s development mandate. This paper, New Directions in Justice Reform, was developed as one such companion piece to the Updated GAC Strategy. The Strategy commits the Bank to putting in place a revised approach to strengthening justice systems, which it defines as a critical element of any country’s institutional system. New Directions in Justice Reform constitutes the Bank’s first institution-wide approach to justice reform, and as such introduces the revised approach to justice reform to which the Bank is committed under its Updated GAC Strategy.