My weekend at the Edinburgh World Justice Festival

Saskia Read, Edinburgh local group member

This weekend I decided to escape the rain and cold and check out some of the events at this year’s Edinburgh World Justice Festival.  Now in its 5th year of running, this year’s festival, titled “A world in crisis – what’s the alternative” promised a range of events that would not only be about raising the issues, but more importantly, would be focusing on possible solutions towards positive change.  Sounded good like a good way to spend a weekend.

Friday night’s event looked at some of the recent positive developments in Bolivia and Venezuela in their attempt to address issues of social, economic and environmental injustice.  One successful initiative that was discussed was the ‘Mission Barrio Adentro’ in Venezuela, which has seen the building of local health centres within poor neighbourhoods and the arrival of tens of thousands of Cuban healthcare workers bringing free healthcare to the poor.  The Latin American theme continued into Saturday’s discussions, where WDM’s Kirsty Wright joined the Bolivian Ambassador in presenting Cochabamba: the People’s Agreement, the Bolivian alternative to last year’s failed climate talks in Copenhagen.  One of the questions raised in the discussion with the audience was whether or not it was counterproductive for Bolivia to be sticking to its guns in terms of the extent it was prepared to compromise with regard to international targets for cutting emissions - but as the Bolivian Ambassador put it, the answer is can only really be no, because for many people in the global South, “it’s a matter of living or dying”. 

Sunday was to do with all things financial – and whether it was possible to make money work for a better world.  After a short introduction, where we watched some of the participating organisation’s campaign videos, we split into different groups for the afternoon’s workshops.  I opted for a session run by Jesse Griffiths of the Bretton Woods Projects, where, among other things, we had a look at the link between the financial crises and the deregulation of the currency markets.  Not having that much prior knowledge on the subject, I did find it quite hard to get my head around some of the issues – luckily, however, there were others much better versed in the subject and an energetic discussion followed.

So all in all, did the Edinburgh World Justice Festival meet its promise to provide events which stimulated positive discussions towards change as opposed to simply highlighting the problems?  Yes, and what was also good to see, was that it wasn’t just the familiar faces, who had chosen to come along and get involved.  Speaking to couple of folk who were there, some said it was the first time they had ever come to something like this, which shows that these kinds of events do work in engaging with the public.  Good stuff.

The audience diligently ignore the camera and concentrate on the talk - well done delegates!