What is more essential to human dignity than justice? Most countries have signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but there is a growing gap between principles and lived experience when it comes to justice in too many countries.

According to the World Justice Project, the rule of law has declined globally for the ninth year in a row. They report that improper government influence has undermined civil and criminal justice in most countries, and that systematic protections for the accused have steadily eroded. Amnesty International would add that there has also been a steep, broadly global decline in fair trial rights.

Can those trends be reversed? Our guest on this week’s New Thinking for a New World podcast episode is a British lawyer and activist who thinks not only that we must do better, but that we can do better. Alexander McLean founded Justice Defenders almost two decades ago in Kenya and now works in East Africa as well as the United States.

Listen as he shares his vision for a more just world—and defines how to get there. 

***

You can also find New Thinking for a New World on your preferred platform, including Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. 

---

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Alexander McLean is the Founder and CEO of Justice Defenders. He is passionate about justice, having trained as a barrister and magistrate. During a gap-year trip to East Africa, McLean fundraised to provide better health facilities and educate Ugandan incarcerated people about the law. After graduating from the University of Nottingham in 2007, he moved to Kampala, where he created a team of local and international staff and volunteers to develop the work of the African Prisons Project, now Justice Defenders. In the latter part of 2022, he spent time teaching at Grinnell College as well as in men’s and women’s prisons in Iowa.

He is a Senior TED Fellow, Ashoka Fellow, and UK Young Philanthropist of the Year. He appears in TIME’s 30 Under 30 Changing the World and ‘The Power List’, featuring Britain’s most influential people of African and African-Caribbean heritage.