Access to Justice: courting empowerment

Inequality social, economic, and political inhibits the marginalized from accessing resources,
and consequently exercising their rights. Laws nominal equality is conflated with factual
equality, and economic and social deprivation that undermines access to human rights continues.
On the other hand, in India and other developing countries like South Africa, Ethiopia, Brazil, to
name a few, constitutional protection has been provided to the right to equality, and equal status
before the law. Constitutions in developing countries have given various social, economic and
environmental rights the status of fundamental or basic rights. Courts too have recognized the
existence of these rights. Yet, the impact of legal provisions on access to social and economic
rights remains to be seen.
In this course, the students will be given a background to the law and development movement,
and the development of the access to justice paradigm, which has more recently been adopted by
the World Bank. This course will lay the ground work for students to access the importance of
law and justice systems in delivering development.
Course structure:
1. Introduction to Law, Development and A2J.
a. What is development?
b. What is the role of law in development?
c. Did development lead to legal advancements?
d. What is A2J
Readings:
a. Polanyi, K. (1957) The Great Transformation, Beacon Press
b. UNDP Human Development Report 2005
http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/266/hdr05_complete.pdf
c. David M. Trubek and Marc Galanter, "Scholars in Self-Estrangement: Reflections
on the Crisis in Law and Development Studies in the U.S.A." 1974 Wisconsin
Law Review 1062-1102
2. Access to justice
a. Varying meanings
b. History international perspective
Readings
a. Friedman L., Access to Justice: Some Historical Comments,
b. Cappelletti and Garth, Access to Justice the Florence Justice Project, 1972,
Buffalo Law Review
c. Ralph Nader and Donald Ross, Action for Change, Penguin Books
d. Rosenberg G., 1991, HOLLOW HOPE, University of Colorado

e. Sudarshan R., Avatars of Rule of Law and Access to Justice: Some Asian Aspects
3. Western formal justice systems
a. What prompted the establishment of these systems
b. Why do they function well in certain settings?
Readings:
a. Menkel-Meadow C., 2004, From Legal Disputes to Conflict Resolution and Human
Problem Solving: Legal Dispute Resolution in a Multidisciplinary Context, Journal of
Legal Education
b. Menkel-Meadow C., Roots and Inspirations: A Brief History of the Foundation of
Dispute Resolution, THE HANDBOOK OF DISPUTE RESOLUTION, Michael L. Moffitt &
Robert C. Bordone eds., San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 2005
4. Role of culture in disputing
a. Culture and disputing
b. Failure of transplantation
Readings:
a. Moore S.F., CERTAINTIES UNDONE: FIFTY TURBULENT YEARS OF
LEGAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 1949-1999, The Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), p. 95.
b. Richard Abel (1982), The politics of informal justice
c. Fitzpatrick P. (2002), The mythology of modern law,
d. Koch K, (1978) Access to Justice: An anthropological perspective in Access to
Justice, eds. Cappelletti and Garth, Vol. IV.
5. Budgeting justice systems
a. Comparison of financial allocations
b. Litigation policy
c. Legal aid and legal representation
Readings:
a.
b.
c.
d.

Chowdhury R., (2012), Missing the Woods for the Trees, NUJS Law Review.
Robinson N., The Indian Supreme Court and its Benches, 2013
National Litigation Policy http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=62745
Ministry of Law and Justice, Annual Reports

6. Public Interest Litigation: Courts and policy making

a. PIL in USA
b. Civil Rights movement
Readings

a. Kotz H. (1981), Public Interest Litigation: A comparative Survey, in Cappelletti

(1981) Access to Justice and Welfare State, Florence.
b. Richard Abel (1995), The Law and Society Reader
c. Cummings S., and Rhode D., Public Interest Litigation: Insights from Theory
and Practice Fordham Urban Law Journal, Vol 36., p.603
d. Jonathan R. Macey and Geoffrey P. Miller, Attorneys Role in Class Action and
Derivative Litigation: Economic Analysis and Recommendations for Reform,
University of Chicago Law Review
e. Miller A., Of Frankenstine Monsters and Shining Knights: Myth, Reality, and the
Class Action Problem
f. Laura Nader (1993), Controlling Processes in the Practice of law: Hierarchy and
Pacification in the Movement to Re-form Dispute Ideology, Ohio State Journal on
Dispute Resolution, Vol 9 (1), p.1
7. PIL in India
a. Baxi U., Taking Suffering Seriously,
b. GALANTER, Marc & Jayanth K. KRISHNAN (2003-2004) Bread for the Poor:
Access to Justice and the Rights of the Needy in India , Hastings Law Journal,
Vol.55, pp.789-834.
c. KRISHNAN, Jayanth Kumar (2001-2002) Public Interest Litigation in a
Comparative Context, Buffalo Public International Law Journal, Vol.20, pp.19100
d. Krishnan J., (2003) Social Policy Advocacy and the Role of Courts in India, 21
American Asian Review 91
8. PIL in South Africa, China
Readings
a. Palmer M., and Chao XI (2009), China in Hensler D.R, Globalisation of Class
Action Annals
b. Gloppen S. (2011), Litigating Health Rights: Can courts bring more justice to
health?
c. Pieterse M. (2004), Coming to Terms with Judicial Enforcement of SocioEconomic Rights, 20 S. African Journal on Human Rights 383.
d. Balme S., Ordinary Justice and Popular Constitutionalism, in Building
Constitutionalism in China, eds. Balme S., and Dowdle M., p.179
9. Alternate Disputing Mechanisms
a. Individualization
b. Collectivization of diffused interests
c. Impact on redress options
Readings:
a. Bedner and Vel (2011), An analytical framework for empirical research on Access
to Justice, Law Justice and Global Development.

b. Grillo T. (1991), The Mediation Alternative: Process Dangers for Women, Yale
Law Journal, Vol. 100 p. 1545
c. Fitzpatrick P., The Impossibility of Popular Justice, in Sally Engle Merry & Neal
Milner, (eds.) (1993) The Possibility of Popular Justice, Ann Arbor: University
Michigan Press, pp. 453-474 (originally published in Social and Legal Studies, An
International Journal, Vol.1 (1992) pp.199-215
10. Technology and Access to justice
a. ICANN
b. Limitations of online disputing
c. New Frontiers for policy making
d. Limitations for developing countries
Readings
a. Katsh E., Online Dispute Resolution, Resolution?, in MOFFITT, Michael L &
Robert C. BORDONE (eds) (2005) The Handbook of Dispute Resolution, San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp.425-437.
b. Katsh E., and Wing L. (2007), Ten years of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR)
Looking at the Past and Constructing the Future, University of Taledo Law
Review, Vol 38 pp.19 46.
c. Aashit Shah, Using ADR to Solve Online Disputes, Richmond Journal of Law and
Technology, Vol. 10, Issue 3, p. 1.
11. Political embeddedness of disputing mechanisms limitations of social change by law
a. Trubeck M., and Galanter M., Scholars in Self Estrangement
b. Trubeck M. (2006), The 'Rule of Law' in development assistance: past, present,
and future in Trubeck M., and Santos A., The New Law and Economic
Development
c. David Kennedy (2006), The 'Rule of Law', political choices, and development
common sense, in Trubeck M., and Santos A., The New Law and Economic
Development
12. Law, Development and the State led economy
a. Economic growth approach and Dirigism
b. Developmentalism
c. Export led growth
Readings:
a. Atul Kohli, State Directed Economy, 2004
b. Cypher and Dietz, Chapters 1, 3, 5 and 9
c. Frug, Ideology of Bureaucracy in American Law
d. Kohli, A. (2004) STATE DIRECTED DEVELOPMENT, CUP, Part I on Korea
e. Prebisch, R. (1964) Towards a New Trade Policy for Development
13. Law and Development movement
a. State as a regulator

b. Legal Transplantation and economic growth

Readings:
a. Stiglitz, J. Whither Reform? Ten Years of Transition (World Bank Annual
Conference on Development Economics: Keynote Address 28-20 April 1999)
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/847971251813753820/6415739-1251814010799/stiglitz.pdf
b. Rittich K., Neoliberal Images of Legal Regulation and the State, in
RECHARACTERIZING RESTRUCTURING: LAW, DISTRIBUTION AND GENDER IN
MARKET REFORM, Kluwer Law International,
c. Sachs, J. Shock Therapy in Poland: Perspectives of Five Years, The Tanner
Lectures on Human Values, (1995) Vol. 16, University of Utah,
http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/about/director/documents/LecTanner0
494.pdf
14. Law and economics
a. Law as a means to efficiency
b. Courts as a forum for determining efficiency
c. Common Law vs. Civil Law
Readings:
a. Ugo Mattie (2005), The Rise and Fall of Law and Economics: An essay on judge
Guido
Calabresi,
Maryland
Law
Review,
Available
at:
http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/vol64/iss1/11
b. Zywicki TJ., and Stringham EP., Common Law and Economic Efficiency,
Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, Research Paper Series.
c. Posner R., 1981, THE ECONOMICS OF JUSTICE, Harvard University Press
d. Schmalbeck R., The Justice of Economics, Columbia Law Review, Vol. 83:
488.
e. Martin Shapiro (1981), A Comparitive and Political Analysis, Chicago University
Press
f. Nader L. (1983), A Comparative Perspective on legal Evolution, Revolution, and
Devolution, Michigan Law Review, Vol. 81(4)
15. HR and development
a. Courting legal rights
b. Constitutionalisation of social rights
Readings
a. Sen A., 1999, Development as Freedom, Anchor Books
b. Charles Epp, 1988, The Rights Revolution, University of Chicago Press
c. Ghai Y. and Cotterell J., (2010) Marginalized Communities and Access to Justice,
Routledge
d. Ghai Y. (2003), Public Participation Rights and Minorities, Minority Rights
Group International.