JusticeMakers is an online community that shares intellectual capital and best practices in the field of criminal justice. The site connects passionate members of the criminal defense community, facilitates discussions, and hosts competitions that seed the most innovative proposals that seek to curb torture and legal abuse. In the coming months, we will also be introducing an online eLearning initiative.
A project of International Bridges to Justice, JusticeMakers seeks to unleash the collective energies of criminal defenders from around the world and realize the vast potential of international human rights legislation. JusticeMakers represents IBJ’s first programmatic foray into the online world and the platform upon which we hope to dramatically scale our impact. The online effort will be supported by a partnership structure that brings the website’s tools and wealth of knowledge to those living beyond the digital divide.
JusticeMakers hosts criminal justice innovation competitions that source and fund grassroots legal rights projects in a handful of communities around the world, while building bridges among legal aid advocates in disparate places.JusticeMakers launched in 2008 with a global competition that identified eleven “heroes of criminal justice,” who have received $5,000 in seed funding to implement their initiatives locally. The JusticeMakers team will share their stories, aspirations and challenges and position these heroes as the face of the larger criminal justice movement.
More recently, the JusticeMakers team has been enhancing the platform with a series of discussions about criminal justice facilitated by leading experts in the field, and a multimedia eLearning online training and Accreditation initiative for criminal defenders around the world.
Eight Affirmations
The following 8 Affirmations serve as the guiding principles of JusticeMakers and International Bridges to Justice. They are declarations of our commitment, our strength, and our motivation to come together to prevent torture and ensure justice for those in need.
We will not inflict injustice upon anyone; neither should we allow anyone to do so.
We believe that justice too long delayed is justice denied.
We will not live with dilapidated justice systems. We will repair our courts and detention centers, and work towards constructing working legal infrastructure at the earliest.
We will seize opportunities to build bridges between our colleagues in the justice system.
We will look after our own health and well-being, and that of our family.
We must come to see human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. We must use time creatively and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.
We will develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.
We will never lose our infinite hope.
International Bridges to Justice and JusticeMakers
International Bridges to Justice (IBJ) is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization that was founded in 2000 with a vision to end torture in the 21st Century and ensure the just implementation of criminal laws. IBJ's experience has shown that legal counsel at the earliest stages of defense can reduce instances of torture by as much as 80%. Thus, IBJ works with the public defender, or legal aid lawyer, to reinforce the protection for, and the individual dignity of, people facing unfair criminal prosecution in developing and transitional countries. IBJ's approach focuses on defender capacity building through trainings and resources, roundtable sessions bringing together key criminal justice stakeholders, and legal rights awareness campaigns. Since its inception, IBJ has pioneered this practical approach to human rights, and is now poised to catalyze legal transformation in countries worldwide. IBJ's funding partners include the Skoll Foundation, the United Nations Fund for Victims of Torture, Ashoka, and Echoing Green, among others.
IBJ is ideally positioned to run a program like JusticeMakers because of the way the online community complements IBJ's existing portfolio of criminal defense initiatives. Through the online community, discussions about criminal justice, JusticeMakers competitions, and online eLearning training curricula, JusticeMakers allows IBJ to reach countless more people with its message and programming.
JusticeMakers enables the cross-fertilization of participants' ideas with those of IBJ's program staff.
It provides a testing ground for criminal defense initiatives before they are brought to scale through IBJ's in-country programming.
JusticeMakers serves to map initiatives within the criminal defense sector, pinpointing those areas where IBJ could be adding value.
Finally, JusticeMakers helps source potential recruits for future country programs as IBJ takes its model to scale.
