Made2Measure

This is the third in a series of posts exploring the three international models of justice system performance measurement and management: (1) the EU Justice Scoreboard , (2) the Global Measures of Court Performance , and (3) the CourTools . Law and justice scholars lament the spotty evidence linking rule of law and justice programs with development outcomes like economic growth, human rights, sound governance, and poverty reduction. A key cause of the evidence gap is the lack of emphasis on building in-country or domestic performance measurement and management in favor of third-party evaluations. All three international models, more or less, promote increased attention and investment in performance measurement and management – the regular and continuous monitoring, analysis, and use of performance information -- by justice officials and their institutions and justice systems themselves, not by third parties .   Capacity for performance measurement   is the ability of count...

In his 1993 book The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition, the social scientist and renowned management thinker Peter Drucker argued that there are no underdeveloped countries. The same thing can be said about a country’s justice system including courts and other justice institutions.   There are only “undermanaged” countries and justice systems. Management creates social and economic development.   Wherever there are only capital and other resources (inputs), there can be no development.  Management is the process of getting people together for joint behavior to accomplish desired goals using available resources efficiently and effectively to produce desirable outputs and outcomes. Management is the driver; development is the consequence.   Economic and social development is a matter of human energies, Drucker writes, and the inspiration and mobilization of human energies is the job of management.    The last link in the causal c...