Developing an SDG Target that puts people at the heart of legal frameworks

Experts from UCL Laws have helped to define the UN’s SDG Target on civil justice and have provided guidance on ways to measure progress towards people-centred justice systems across the world.

Professor Pascoe Pleasence (UCL Laws) and colleagues have played a pivotal role in developing one of the Targets for SDG 16, which promotes peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development and the provision of justice for all. Target 16.3 calls on countries to ‘Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all’. 

“To meet this target, countries must develop justice systems that consider the needs of the people they are designed to serve,” explains Professor Pleasence.  

To help them achieve this, Professor Pleasence has advised on and helped to develop clear guidelines and frameworks to enable countries to provide better access to civil justice, and mechanisms to measure progress. These include providing a framework for countries to carry out surveys that help understand people’s everyday legal problems and experiences of their local justice system. 

““We’ve defined a target indicator, which measures whether people who have civil legal problems can obtain legal advice, assistance, or representation, and ultimately resolve their problems.” 

In collaboration with colleagues at UCL and organisations around the world, Professor Pleasence has also developed guidance that emphasises the need for measures of civil as well as criminal law within global justice statistics. His guidance has been published in a chapter for the UN’s Handbook on Governance Statistics and in guidance published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Open Society Justice Initiative.  

“To help countries make progress towards equal access to justice for all, we’ve defined a target indicator, which was officially approved by the UN in March 2020. It measures whether people who have civil legal problems can obtain legal advice, assistance, or representation, and ultimately resolve their problems. This is vital if we are to meet human rights standards ahead of 2030,” Professor Pleasence says.