Peace and access to justice as a human right: Evaluation of SDG 16 and its relationship with alternative justice in Mexico

Abstract

The American Convention on Human Rights establishes that the right to access justice effectively includes political and socioeconomic elements that are related to institutions that exercise effective jurisdictional protection and to non-jurisdictional authors who also exercise alternative justice that must be effective. Alternative Justice through Alternative Conflict Resolution Methods, makes access to justice citizen-friendly and resumes the essential precepts and purposes of justice, such as peace, prompt and effective justice and social well-being. The general objective of this article is to analyze how alternative justice contributes and converges with the global goals set by the UN in its SDG 16, as well as evaluating the indicators of compliance with the aforementioned goals in the Mexican territory. This study has a qualitative approach, which uses a non-experimental design, based on the bibliographic analysis technique. Based on the review of the legal framework, the literature and different reports issued by international, national centralized and decentralized organizations, it was concluded that Mexico, like many countries in the region, has suffered a significant setback in terms of peace indices in its society, in the same way as the institutions in charge of dispensing justice, present deficient numbers in terms of their ability to manage conflicts in society; However, I also observe the finding of significant progress in alternative justice as a method that contributes to the criteria established by SDG 16.