Justice normative change

Norm: Any law or regulation (e.g. bylaw, decrees) producing binding legal effects that could be formally approved by:

• Legislative or executive branches at the local, national, or regional level, or

• Supra-national governmental organization

• As a result of an agreement between States at the international level (e.g. treaties, conventions, covenants, at bilateral or multilateral levels).

Guidelines: they provide a framework to achieve a certain policy or legislation for ensuring their effective implementation, including a training curriculum for professionals directed related to the application of a norm.

Procedures: understood as the administrative definition of the organization of the roles, functions, skills, and working relationships, between several actors working in the same field or collaborating across different sectors. The procedure is often sequenced and codified in a document (e.g. protocol), which is generally only binding for the actors involved in its implementation.

Child-centred justice standards: several documents compile those standards (e.g. the Beijing Rules, the Havana Rules, the Riyadh Guidelines, the Guidelines for Action on Children in the Criminal Justice System, the Guidelines on Justice in Matters Involving Child Victims and Witnesses of Crime, Guidance Note - UN Approach to Justice for Children). The General Comments of the Committee on the Rights of the Child are also good sources for guidance in this regard (e.g. General Comment 24 and General Comment 27). 

Gender Justice Standards as applicable to children: please refer to Tdh Gender Justice Global policy document: Inclusive Child Justice with a Gender & Diversity Approach: Turning Challenges into Progress | Terre des hommes (tdh.org)

This indicator is not intended to measure the impact on children of the positive changes in the standards, laws, and/or policies that Tdh has managed to influence positively through the development of norms, guidelines, and policies. It aims at demonstrating the concrete results of Tdh's actions on executive and legislative processes.

• The official approval of legal reform and law enforcement documents is usually slow. This quantitative indicator does not capture only the end product but also all the efforts deployed by Tdh in terms of technical work on norms, guidelines, and procedures, even if not yet officially approved. Make sure to be specific about those efforts when reporting this indicator.

• The involvement of Tdh in law reform and law enforcement may vary a lot according to the context and many contextual factors may interfere positively or negatively in the development and adoption process. Make sure to highlight what was Tdh's direct contribution/influence in the process in your analysis.

• The end product might only partially be aligned with child-centred and gender justice principles.  Make sure that the analysis includes a reflection on the limits and strengths of the normative and guidance/procedures pieces of the work concerned.

• What are the limits and strengths of the normative piece of work concerned?

• What is the cause-and-effect relationship between the actions of Tdh and the positions of public authorities towards them?

To do this, a comparative exercise between the pre and post situations and the changes that the norm, guideline, or procedure are intended to create as expressed by those public authorities (i.e rationale of the document produced for instance if it is a document to align national legislation with international standards, national commitments made by the public authorities).

See references above.