Justice: What we need in a post-2015 world

“Look around us”, instructed the village chief in Small Sefadu, a tiny community in the eastern reaches of Sierra Leone and home to some of the country’s biggest diamond mines. Together we survey the scene: a cratered dirt road is punctuated by burned-out houses, which is a signature reminder of the marauding rebels who took over the town during Sierra Leone’s 11-year civil war. Teenage boys, some of them former child soldiers, loiter listlessly on a veranda across the road. None have a job. No street lights and no other services exist. “This is the country’s breadbasket—the diamonds come from here—but we get no benefit”, the chief tells me. “Do you think the law can help us?”