Is There a (Human) Right of Access to Justice?

This chapter begins with a brief overview of human rights law in access to justice. I identify a pattern (access rights are typically understood as a specification of a right to ‘equality before the law’), three dimensions of evaluative concern (remedial efficacy, procedural safeguards, and agency in legal affairs) and specific duties of assistance (positive obligations, which Governments are under an obligation to fulfill) in access to justice. Then, the chapter considers four current challenges to the use of human right language and discourse in political justification and show their direct relevance to the field of access to justice. Neither one of these challenges, this chapter argues, should advise us to dismiss talk of access-rights altogether. Rather, this chapter argues that they point us to where political talk of access rights requires serious scrutiny and further supplementation.