Publications
Read and download reports, handbooks, briefing papers, legal and policy submissions, and fact sheets from the Open Society Justice Initiative.
A Community-Based Practitioner’s Guide: Documenting Citizenship and Other Forms of Legal Identity
This guide provides instructions on how to establish a community-based paralegal program to help people document citizenship and other forms of legal identity.
June 2018Strengthening Pretrial Justice: A Guide to the Effective Use of Indicators
This guide proposes a methodical approach toward developing and deploying empirically based indicators to identify exemplary and problematic pretrial practices.
January 2016Presumption of Guilt: The Global Overuse of Pretrial Detention
Combining statistical analysis, first-person accounts, graphics, and case studies of successful reforms, this report is the first ever global survey of the damage done by unnecessary and arbitrary pretrial detention.
September 2014Justice Initiatives: Legal Empowerment
Eight case studies look at how legal empowerment projects can reduce poverty and help people realize their rights; with a forward by George Soros.
September 2013The Socioeconomic Impact of Pretrial Detention in Guinea Conakry
Three non-governmental organizations surveyed 105 adult pretrial detainees in two prisons to gather information on how their detention affected their socioeconomic position.
May 2013The Socioeconomic Impact of Pretrial Detention in Ghana
A report on the impact of pretrial detention in Ghana based on a survey of the experiences of 45 adults held in Kumasi prison.
May 2013The Socioeconomic Impact of Pretrial Detention in Sierra Leone
A report on the costs of pretrial detention in Sierra Leone, based on a random survey of 128 adults held in three prisons.
May 2013Joint Statement on Pretrial Detention in Africa
16 civil society groups called on the African Commission for Human and Peoples' Rights to work to end excessive use of pretrial detention.
October 25, 2011