Books & Monographs

Description: Study Focuses on Police Stops of Minorities in Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain New York, April 19, 2007—The Open Society Justice Initiative today released a new book examining ethnic profiling by police in Europe. Ethnic profiling is a violation of fundamental human rights norms, but this widespread practice is little understood and concrete data are scarce. "I Can Stop and Search Whoever I Want"—Police Stops of Ethnic Minorities in Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain fills major gaps in what is known about ethnic profiling by police—a practice that has not been expressly outlawed by any European government. Using quantitative data as well as interviews with police officers and ... Read on

Description: Timap for Justice Delivers Legal Aid to Rural Poor in Sierra Leone Freetown, Sierra Leone and Washington, DC, October 24, 2006—The groundbreaking non-governmental organization Timap for Justice received a three year, $879,000 grant today from the World Bank to provide justice services in Sierra Leone, one of the world's poorest countries. Timap for Justice, co-founded by the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Sierra Leonean National Forum for Human Rights, is a pioneering organization training and deploying paralegals in the country's rural areas. In a nation with five million people and only 100 lawyers, the need for their services is acute. Timap's paralegals address justice ... Read on

Description: Survey Shows Discrimination and Inconsistency Still Widespread London, 28 September, 2006—A comparative study on access to information in 14 countries finds that transitional democracies outperformed established ones in providing information about government activities. Bulgaria, Romania, Armenia, Mexico, and Peru did better in answering citizens' requests for information than France and Spain. The book, Transparency & Silence, published today by the Open Society Justice Initiative and available online at <"link"> documents how various countries did—or did not—honor the right of access to information. In analyzing over 1,900 requests for ... Read on

Description: Non-Slavs Over Twenty Times More Likely to Be Stopped than Slavs Moscow, 13 June 2006 — A groundbreaking report released today finds that riders on the Moscow Metro who appear non-Slavic are over twenty times more likely to be stopped by police than those who look Slavic. Riders who appear non-Slavic make up less than five percent of all Moscow Metro patrons but account for over half of all people stopped by the Moscow Metro police. The finding is contained in Ethnic Profiling in the Moscow Metro, a new report produced by the Open Society Justice Initiative and JURIX, a Moscow-based constitutional law NGO. "This is the most extreme ethnic profiling ever measured," said James ... Read on

Description: BUENOS AIRES, December 12, 2005 — Indirect censorship and government manipulation of the media is rampant in Argentina, according to a report released today from the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Association for Civil Rights. Buying the News: A Report on Financial and Indirect Censorship in Argentina, exposes the many subtle yet powerful ways in which government officials wield influence over Argentina's media—from the misuse of government advertising to the exertion of private pressure on reporters and editors. Such violations of media independence often go unexposed and unpunished. "The government's efforts to suppress editorial autonomy have had a pervasive chilling ... Read on

Description: Legal Remedies for the Resource Curse A Digest of Experience in Using Law to Combat Natural Resource Corruption New York, September 6, 2005 — The Justice Initiative today released a report assessing the availability of legal remedies for addressing corrupt practices in the natural resource industries. Legal Remedies for the Resource Curse is a digest of practical experience in using law to combat corruption across jurisdictions. When resource extraction companies can obtain oil, diamonds, gold, coltan, timber, and other natural resources through covert contacts with unaccountable government officials, the losers are the people in the communities where the wealth ... Read on

Description: Myths of Pretrial Detention in Mexico Para la versión en español favor de leer abajo. New York, April 13, 2005—The Justice Initiative today released the English language edition of a study on pretrial detention in Mexico, which finds that the number of people imprisoned before trial in Mexico doubled in ten years without any discernible impact on crime rates or the public's sense of security. The paper, "Myths of Pretrial Detention in Mexico," is the first in a series challenging popular perceptions about crime and imprisonment to be published by the Open Society Justice Initiative. The series forms part of a multi-pronged effort to highlight the excessive use of ... Read on

Description: INDICATORS OF DEMOCRATIC POLICING Johannesburg, January 25—A new handbook for assessing police performance in countries undergoing democratic transition was released yesterday. The police that we want: A handbook for oversight of the police in South Africa, by David Bruce and Rachel Neild, is published by the Johannesburg-based Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in association with the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, and the Open Society Justice Initiative. The publication offers an outline of democratic policing—that is, the behavior and techniques appropriate to police in a democratic setting. The book includes a set of indicators designed to assess democratic ... Read on

Description: Budapest, November 23, 2004—The Open Society Justice Initiative published today a handbook to aid civil society groups in tracking election campaign finances and exposing corruption. Monitoring Election Campaign Finance: A Handbook for NGOs is the most systematic effort to date to bring together and digest the range of campaign finance monitoring experience gained in recent years. Corrupt electoral campaign financing—whether by private donors or government incumbents commandeering state resources—is damaging not only to the electoral process, but to democracy itself. Political finance regulations, intended to create a level playing field for electoral competition, are often ... Read on

Description: The Justice Initiative has released its Activities Report 2003, a comprehensive overview of work underway or completed in its first year of operations. Featuring introductions by Hon. Patricia M. Wald, Chair of the Board from October 2002 to February 2004, and James A. Goldston, Executive Director, the Report provides information on the six areas of Justice Initiative engagement - national criminal justice, international justice, freedom of information and expression, equality and citizenship, anticorruption, and legal capacity development - on four continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Please click on the icons for the report in pdf format, in its entirety, or section by section. ... Read on

Description: On January 27-29, 2003, the Open Society Justice Initiative convened a workshop in Moscow focused on combating discrimination in Russia. At the meeting, Russian human rights organizations and lawyers explored with experienced human rights advocates from other countries comparative strategies for challenging racial, ethnic and gender discrimination in Europe, South Africa and the United States, and discussed how best to address discriminatory practices in Russia. Full text of the workshop report and separate articles by Michelle O'Sullivan, Luke Clements, Reginald Shuford, Yonko Grozev, James A. Goldston, Branimir Pleše and David Strupek as links/files in MS Word and pdf format. The ... Read on