About the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE)
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GAJE Mission Statement
GAJE is GLOBAL, seeking to involve persons from as many countries in the world as possible, avoiding domination by any single country, and especially committed to meaningful participation from less affluent countries, institutions, and organizations. GAJE is an ALLIANCE of persons committed to achieving JUSTICE through legal education. Clinical education of law students is a key component of justice education, but this organization also works to advance other forms of socially relevant legal education, which includes education of practicing lawyers, judges, non-governmental organizations and the lay public.GAJE Governance
GAJE membership is open to anyone in the world who is involved in justice education. To date GAJE has not charged membership dues. GAJE is governed by a Steering Committee consisting of two representatives from each of 8 regions of the world (one woman and one man) elected by the general membership at GAJE worldwide meetings, and at-large members appointed by the 16 elected representatives. The Steering Committee meets several times a year by email to direct work conducted by GAJE committees, working groups, and the General Secretary. With the exception of the General Secretary, who receives a modest honorarium, all GAJE work is currently conducted by volunteers. Click here for more information.GAJE Accomplishments
In the 12 years since its founding in 1996, GAJE has worked to promote justice through education by convening four worldwide meetings on justice education: in India (1999), South Africa (2001), Poland (2004) and Argentina (2006). These meetings were carefully designed to be accessible and affordable for persons from developing countries; delegates from every continent and over 50 countries have participated in one or more meeting. The fifth worldwide meeting will take place December 7-13, 2008 in the Philippines. GAJE has also organized regional conferences in Australasia (2002) and North America (2006) and co-sponsored the International Conference on the Future of Legal Education held in February 2008. GAJE operates a free email discussion forum for its members and publishes a newsletter in both English and Spanish every other month distributed by email and posted on the GAJE web site. These formal GAJE activities have facilitated a wide range of cross-national collaborations, including educational exchange programs, joint research projects, "train the trainer" workshops, teaching handbooks, curricular materials, and multinational co-authorship of books and articles.
The Justice Education Initiative
At the fourth worldwide GAJE meeting in 2006, held in Cordoba, Argentina, the membership directed the Steering Committee to expand GAJE activities beyond its existing successes in facilitating the exchange of information and informal collaboration by adding strategic initiatives to support and sustain the work of GAJE members to promote justice education in their own countries. In response the Steering Committee has strengthened the organization's operational capacity by giving greater authority to an expanded Executive Committee, by appointing a General Secretary, and by drawing on the GAJE membership to form working groups that have examined issues of legal structure and strategic development.
Having received the reports of those working groups, the GAJE Steering Committee has launched the Justice Education Initiative (JEI) to support the efforts of legal educators, community workers, students, lawyers, judges and civic leaders around the world to create and sustain legal education programs that promote justice.
The JEI is a three year project. Its goal is to develop accessible and practical resources for use in producing lawyers who are both competent and committed to work for justice in every setting where lawyers are found. The central strategy to achieve this goal is to focus on the institutions and processes that prepare persons to be lawyers, judges and legally-trained civic leaders and public officials. Underpinning this strategy is the recognition that law students and lawyers in training can themselves be valuable workers for justice during their time of preparation. In addition, law schools and other programs to prepare students for legal careers can also be resource centers for education of the community, for support of efforts by non-governmental organizations, for development of public policy, for law reform, and for continuing education of lawyers, judges, and public officials. GAJE will particularly encourage legal education institutions to partner with organizations that are based in and serve communities in particular need of justice education. Click here for more information.