Events

LAW, JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT WEEK 2020 | COVID-19 and Justice System Institutions

November 19, 2020

VIRTUAL

MULTIMEDIA

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As of November 5, 2020, the global cases of COVID-19 surpassed 48 171 563 including 1,226 241 deaths. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic will cost the global economy about $375 billion a month and predicts a cumulative loss over two years of over $12 trillion. The IMF also envisions the deepest global recession since World War II. The pandemic is disproportionately affecting the world’s poor (including women and vulnerable) who are the majority of the World Bank’s clients given its impact on their health, education systems, social safety nets and the justice systems.

Access to justice for women and vulnerable people is a continuing challenge in many of our member countries even prior to COVID-19. The justice sector institutions (courts, prosecutor offices and the police) are facing numerous challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and have devised interventions for ensuring the safety of and access to justice for women and other vulnerable groups. This panel will:

examine the impact of the pandemic on the justice sector institutions;
share information on the interventions devised by the various justice sector institutions to address these challenges;
assess the efficacy of these interventions in ensuring access to justice for the vulnerable, women (including victims of gender based violence and sexual exploitation and abuse) and the poor; and
provide some insights on the implications of these findings for the World Bank’s work.

SPEAKERS

The Honorable Lady Justice Lillian Tibatemwa-EkirukubinzaJustice Lillian Tibatemwa Ekirukubinza

Professor of Law and Supreme Court Judge, Uganda
Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza is a Justice of the Uganda Supreme Court. She holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark; an LL.M in Commercial Law from the University of Bristol, UK and n LL.B Honors Makerere University. She is a certified judicial trainer and an alumnus of various international judicial colleges. She has published extensively on law, including on gender-based violence and the criminal justice system and has been instrumental in introducing training on gender and human rights in the Uganda judiciary. Before joining the Judiciary, she served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Makerere University, the oldest University in East Africa where she was also a Professor of Law. She has also been a consultant for several international organizations on gender and human rights.

Professor Y.S. Lee

Director and Professorial Fellow of the Law and Development Institute and Visiting Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law
Professor Y.S. Lee is a lawyer, economist, and international relations scholar with internationally recognized authority in law and development and international trade law. He is currently Director and Professorial Fellow of the Law and Development Institute and Visiting Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law. He has also taught and conducted academic research at prominent universities throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia for twenty years. He graduated in economics with academic distinction from the University of California at Berkeley and received law degrees from the University of Cambridge (B.A., M.A., Ph.D). He has over one hundred publications in the areas of law and development, international economic law, and comparative law.

Professor Muna B. Ndulo

Professor of International and Comparative Law and Director of the Berger Legal Studies Program, Cornell University
Muna Ndulo is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of International and Comparative law at Cornell Law School, and the Elizabeth and Arthur Reich Director of Berger International Legal Studies Program, Cornell Law School. He was formerly Professor of Law and Dean of the School of Law, University of Zambia. Muna Ndulo is a graduate of the University of Zambia (LLB); Harvard Law School (LLM); Trinity College, Oxford University, (DPhil). He has extensive international and UN experience including having served as Legal and Political Adviser to the United Nations Observer Mission to South Africa-1992-1994 and as Legal Officer in UN Peace Keeping Missions in Kosovo, East Timor and Afghanistan. He has published extensively on law, constitution making, governance and foreign direct investments.

Sheila Braka Musiime (Moderator)

Chief Counsel, Africa and Middle East and North Africa, Legal Vice Presidency, World Bank
Sheila Braka Musiime is Chief Counsel for the World Bank’s LEGAM (Africa and Middle East and North Africa) Practice Group, covering East and Southern Africa and regional operations. She previously worked as Chief Counsel for the East Asia and Pacific Region, and on legal and policy issues across several other Regions and thematic areas in the World Bank. She went to law school in Uganda at Makerere University and completed a Master’s in Law at Harvard Law School, where she was part of the editorial team of the International Law Journal. Prior to joining the Bank, Sheila was in private practice at a commercial law firm in Uganda.