This volume is written in the spirit of a collaborative effort toward strengthening the rule of law at a time when the political and economic context is not favorable. In practice, it is the product of a conversation over a six-month period among practitioners and experts in the field of access to justice in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, and Tunisia. As a starting point, authors were asked to provide an analytical view of the status of the justice sector and the right to access justice in their countries by exploring three main dimensions of analysis: governance of the justice sector, supply of justice services, and demand for justice. It was agreed upon that the timeframe of the analysis should start post-2011, with particular emphasis on the disruptions brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the analytical work progressed, authors realized that as disruptive as it was, COVID-19 has been superseded in some national contexts by other major events, some of which constitute the majority of the analysis.

Overall, the value of the volume resides not only in its geographical coverage, as it includes an analysis of eight countries from the Maghreb and Mashreq, but also in the varied expertise in different legal fields, such as women’s rights, refugee rights, personal status law issues, and constitutional law. The result is a volume that provides a glimpse into different geopolitical realities and highlights different analytical dimensions of access to justice.