Vance Center Places as Finalist in World Justice Challenge 2024

Credit: Erin Hoyt Photography/World Justice Project, 2024

“Every lawyer should care about judicial independence.”  

With these words, Vance Center Associate Executive Director Jaime Chávez Alor opened his presentation on the Vance Center’s judicial independence work at the 2024 World Justice Challenge.  

The World Justice Challenge, now in its fifth year, is a global competition designed to identify, recognize and promote good practices and high-impact projects and policies that effectively protect and advance the rule of law. This year’s event, which had the theme “The Rule of Law: Foundation of Democracy,” culminated with the selection of five winning organizations from among 30 finalists across five categories. 

The Vance Center’s ongoing project supporting judicial independence in Latin America was selected in the Justice Institutions category, along with five other finalists: YUCOM (Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, from Serbia), México Evalúa (Mexico), Free Courts Foundation (Poland), Kimpact Development Initiative (Nigeria), and Judicial Reform Foundation (Taiwan). 

Credit: Erin Hoyt Photography/World Justice Project, 2024

The Vance Center’s presentation opened with a look at how weak judicial independence leads to many other issues, including impunity, widespread corruption, criminalization of human rights defenders, attacks on media freedom and journalists; and damages investment opportunities, development, and equality.  

To illustrate some of the threats judges in Latin America face, Chávez Alor then shared an anecdote about Carlos Ruano, a Guatemalan judge who faced attacks after resisting pressure from other powerful members of the judiciary. The Guatemalan Association of Judges for Integrity (AGJI) took action to support him, but Judge Ruano was ultimately forced into exile, demonstrating why strong judicial associations are fundamental for judges’ ability to carry out their function and uphold justice. 

As the Vance Center began working more closely with the AGJI and other judicial associations in Latin America, it became clear that the judicial associations lacked the resources, staff, and time to reach their potential. At the same time, judges were disconnected from potential sources of support: organizations dedicated to strengthening judicial independence were often missing the perspective of the judges themselves, while many practicing lawyers were not aware of the issues affecting the judiciary in their countries, despite the direct impact a weakened judicial system could have on their own work.  

Chávez Alor described how these observations shaped the Vance Center’s approach to reinforcing judicial independence, which centers on directly supporting the efforts of judges to ensure they can conduct their work safely and with integrity, and using its expertise and global network to directly address these needs. 

Through this project, the Vance Center aims to: 

1. Enhance awareness of judicial independence across the legal community in Latin American countries and throughout the region,  
2. Assess a wider range of topics in judicial integrity reports to better capture and contextualize the constraints faced by judges, and 
3. Create links between individuals, organizations, and bodies that were previously not collaborating on this issue. 

Though the project is still ongoing, it has already yielded results as the associations have gained more public visibility, participated in international advocacy forums, and expanded their capacities, lending more legitimacy to their work to protect judicial independence. 

Credit: Erin Hoyt Photography/World Justice Project, 2024

The Vance Center was honored to be a finalist alongside so many outstanding organizations committed to protecting the rule of law, and for the opportunity to draw attention to threats to judicial independence before an audience of justice activists from around the world.