Clifford Chance and The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) have announced a global, multi-year partnership to promote equal access to justice for all in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.

User-friendly justice

SDG 16 aims to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. Under the partnership, Clifford Chance and HiiL will work closely to promote and develop user-friendly justice innovation at scale, with a special focus on Africa. Founded in 2005, the social enterprise HiiL has developed into a driver of justice innovation. It works in a number of countries, primarily in Africa and the Middle East, to facilitate innovations and innovations strategies, based on data, leading to what it refers to as ‘user friendly justice.’ The first goals and activities that Clifford Chance and HiiL will collaborate on include increasing the number of HiiL justice accelerators around the world and developing the social franchise model that underpins them, strengthening the Justice Entrepreneurship School, and, helping HiiL set up a justice innovation growth fund to support justice innovators. They also seek to grow the capacity of HiiL’s justice transformation labs to develop justice innovation strategies.

Access to justice

To achieve the goals, Clifford Chance will call upon its applied solutions' team, where the firm's legal expertise is combined with technology to solve complex client challenges and requirements to support and advise HiiL's SDG16.3 Legal Tech Alliance. Clifford Chance global senior partner, Jeroen Ouwehand, comments “HiiL shares our belief that technology and innovation play an integral role in all aspects of society and will be central to scaling improved access to justice across Africa and beyond.” Dr Sam Muller, ceo at HiiL added, “It is very significant that a renown and innovation driven law firm like Clifford Chance has become part of the shared commitment to access to justice for all.”