Judicial Well-Being: From an ‘Unmentionable Topic’ to a Global Conversation

On March 4, 2025, the United Nations General Assembly voted to declare July 25 as the International Day for Judicial Well-being.¹ The day joins a calendar of just over 200 official UN international days — and only the second that relates to the judiciary (the first was International Day of Women Judges, March 10).² The resolution, led by the Pacific island nation of Nauru and co-sponsored by 70 countries, followed from the Nauru Declaration on Judicial Well-being³ — a statement of seven universal principles on the subject. The Nauru Declaration was drafted by an international committee of judges and experts and adopted at the three-day Regional Conference on Integrity and Judicial Well-being hosted by Nauru from July 23–25, 2024.⁴

It is nothing short of remarkable that the topic of judicial stress and well-being has achieved this level of global prominence and recognition. Despite the manifold intellectual and emotional demands of judicial work and the crossfire of stressors judges face on a daily basis — from punishing workloads and distressing case content, to volatile court users and hostile media and public commentary — the psychological impact of judicial work was, until quite recently, rarely if ever discussed, even among the judiciary. To quote Professor Terry Maroney of Vanderbilt University, a “persistent cultural script of judicial dispassion”⁵ and invulnerability has, for much of history, silenced any open conversation about the human dimension of judging. In Australia, where I am from, a judge from our highest court, Justice Michael Kirby, once described judicial stress as “an unmentionable topic.”⁶ This attitude prevailed throughout much of the world until the last few years.

Fast forward to 2025, and a near universal consensus among the General Assembly of nation states has emerged: Judicial well-being is important enough that it should be commemorated annually in an official international day.

Why are we talking about judicial well-being now?

Three factors have come together to elevate judicial well-being from a hidden and taboo topic to a global conversation. The first was the expansion of empirical research on the mental health and well-being of judges. Prior to the last decade, the entire body of international research directed to the nature, prevalence, severity, and sources of judicial stress comprised no more than 14 studies, mostly from the United States.⁷ Since 2015, this number has more than doubled, with large-scale studies undertaken in every continent, many adopting rigorous measurement techniques to enable credible comparisons with the legal profession, other professional groups, and the general population. Following are a few statistics from my own research in Australia:⁸

• On a widely used measure of psychological distress, 52.9 percent of judges reported levels of distress in the moderate to very high ranges, compared to 43.8 percent of barristers, 63.6 percent of solicitors, and 32.7 percent of the general population.
• On a validated measure of secondary traumatic stress, a staggering 30.4 percent of Australian judges scored in the range suggestive of likely post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (compared with the 12-month population prevalence of PTSD in Australian being 4.4 percent).
• On the World Health Organization’s scale for alcohol use and dependence, 30.6 percent of Australian judges reported “problematic” levels of drinking (on par with the Australian legal profession (32 percent) but dramatically higher than the general population (18.8 percent)).

These findings largely align with those of similar research from other parts of the world.

Perhaps the most impactful study was a world-first international survey undertaken in 2021–22 by the UN’s Global Judicial Integrity Network on the “linkages between judicial well-being and judicial integrity,” involving 758 judges from 102 counties.⁹ Almost all participants (97 percent) believed more prominence should be given to judicial well-being, 76 percent reported having insufficient time to maintain optimal mental and physical health, and 83 percent indicated that support for judicial officers was insufficient. In addition, national studies have now been conducted in several countries, including the United States¹⁰ and Australia,¹¹ that combine with the UN survey and the growing number of jurisdiction-specific projects to paint an increasingly consistent global picture of the psychological toll of judicial work, notwithstanding the deep and abiding sense of satisfaction and meaningful contribution that judges also experience in their roles.

The second factor that brought the judicial well-being conversation into the open was the COVID-19 pandemic, which mainstreamed conversations about stress and mental health throughout society, including the judiciary, and legitimized the sharing of personal struggles. As the pressure on judges increased in unprecedented ways worldwide and the use of online conferencing software became ubiquitous, international judges’ associations and judicial education bodies, including the UN’s Global Judicial Integrity Network,¹² hosted webinars on stress and resilience, inviting reflection on the personal impact of the work. Judges from jurisdictions where this topic had not previously been broached were able to participate either openly or anonymously in a global conversation on judicial well-being, learn about the research, and discover that they were not alone in the challenges they faced.

The third factor was judicial champions. In recent years, judges and retired judges shared a number of powerful and affecting testimonials about their personal experiences of psychological distress on the bench. For instance, in 2017, Karen Adam, a recently retired judge of Arizona’s Pima County Superior Court, published a moving piece titled “The price I paid for being a good judge.”¹³ That same year, David Heilpern, a longstanding magistrate in New South Wales, Australia, presented a keynote speech titled “Lifting the judicial veil: Vicarious trauma, PTSD, and the judiciary — A personal story.”¹⁴ Both judges eloquently described their gut-wrenching journey with vicarious trauma despite their best efforts to remain untouched.

Meanwhile judicial leaders began citing empirical research to speak out on the need for both destigmatizating judicial stress and systemic change to address it.¹⁵ It was becoming increasingly clear that judiciaries the world over are operating under significant and intensifying occupational stress, representing “a simmering occupational health and safety concern that demands action.”¹⁶ It was against this backdrop that work on the Nauru Declaration commenced. Justice Rangajeeva Wimalasena, president of the Nauru Court of Appeal and long-term advocate for judicial well-being since previous judicial roles in Fiji and Sri Lanka, championed the idea of formally bringing the issue of judicial well-being to the international stage.

How was the Nauru Declaration developed?

Drawing upon his networks, and with the help of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) Global Judicial Integrity Network, Justice Wimalasena convened a committee of judicial leaders and other experts from every continent and almost every time zone to work together on an international declaration of judicial well-being.¹⁷ Building upon the approach taken by the drafters of the now ubiquitous Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct and the Doha Declaration on Judicial Integrity, the committee set itself the ambitious task of distilling the well-being concerns and priorities of a large group of judges from widely different nations and cultures into a short yet comprehensive statement of universal principles. The intention was that these principles would be evidence-informed and practical, providing guidance to judges and judicial institutions worldwide on the key elements required for a systemic approach to judicial well-being.

Justice Wimalasena provided a starting point with his paper detailing numerous sources and impacts of judicial stress that he had observed over his career on the bench. This paper was circulated among the drafting committee, discussed, and elaborated upon over our first three online meetings. Judges from nations as different as Canada, Jamaica, Nigeria, Portugal, Singapore, Ukraine, and the UK shared stories and ideas about the drivers of stress in judicial work, and the contextual factors exacerbating or ameliorating it. What struck all of us over these early meetings was that, despite profound differences in social and political context, there was a commonality of judicial stress experience that united judges the world over. All judges spoke of high and increasing workloads, the stigmatization of stress and mental illness within legal professional culture, and the far greater impact that systemic and organizational stressors had on judges’ well-being over those arising from the intrinsic judicial tasks. The drafting committee was unanimous in its conviction that judicial stress, left unchecked, had profound implications for the administration of justice and the rule of law.

My role, as the psychologist and judicial well-being researcher on the drafting committee, was to review methodically the concerns and priorities of the judicial members, align them with the empirical literature, and find thematic throughlines in the disparate experiences and ideas to arrive at universal principles. This part of the process was more art than science and involved many days of sitting with the data, grouping and regrouping them into different themes and structures, until seven key ideas emerged that individually described something unique about the judicial well-being landscape and collectively encapsulated the breadth of topics the committee had raised. These seven ideas were rigorously discussed and debated among the drafting committee over our next four meetings. The choice of each word was tested, some ideas were amalgamated, and several new ideas were introduced, until we ultimately arrived at the final language for the seven principles of judicial well-being, each with commentary, that comprise the Nauru Declaration:¹⁸

1. Judicial well-being is essential and must be recognised and supported.
2. Judicial stress is not a weakness and must not be stigmatised.
3. Judicial well-being is a responsibility of individual judges and judicial institutions.
4. Judicial well-being is supported by an ethical and inclusive judicial culture.
5. Promoting judicial well-being requires a combination of awareness-raising, prevention, and management activities.
6. Judicial well-being activities must suit the unique circumstances and requirements of national jurisdictions.
7. Judicial well-being is enhanced by human rights.

In the tradition of other international judicial instruments, the seven principles were pronounced at a regional judicial conference on July 25, 2024, hosted by the Republic of Nauru and the UNODC and formally adopted by a delegation of judicial leaders in attendance. As discussed in the roundtable discussion that follows this article, to draft, by online committee, a universal statement on a highly sensitive topic, and to achieve consensus on the principles and the language across such a diverse group of judges, was an extraordinary feat — one that many of us who worked on it are enduringly amazed was accomplished. This declaration provided the basis and momentum for the International Day of Judicial Well-being resolution that passed just over seven months later.

Why should the international community care about judicial well-being?

The UN describes international days as “occasions to educate the general public on issues of concern, to mobilize political will and resources to address global problems, and to celebrate and reinforce the achievements of humanity.”¹⁹ It would be fair to ask why, of all pressing global issues, the UN and the international community should concern themselves with the well-being of judges. Shouldn’t judicial stress remain a private matter that judges deal with individually within their home jurisdiction? This is a question that anyone who grapples with the issue of judicial well-being confronts at some point. And, as I discuss in the roundtable, there are cogent reasons for holding that view.

However, it must be remembered that judicial well-being is not only, or even principally, about the subjective health and happiness of judges. It is inextricably linked to judicial integrity and the administration of justice. As the commentary on Principle 1 of the Nauru Declaration states:

Judicial well-being is essential for individual judges’ occupational health and sustainability, for court users’ experience in court, for the quality of justice, and ultimately for public confidence in the courts. As such, judicial well-being warrants attention and investment commensurate with other institutional priorities, such as access to justice, the upholding of judicial values, judicial training, and judicial efficiency.

So how exactly does a lack of judicial well-being potentially undermine the functioning of the judiciary? There is a wealth of research in psychology on the impact of stress on human behavior and decision-making and upon which I elaborate during the roundtable. This research suggests that unacknowledged and unmanaged judicial stress will increase the likelihood of dysregulated and impulsive judicial behavior as well as compromised judicial decisions.²⁰ In the UN’s global survey, judges most frequently reported the following negative consequences resulting from diminished well-being:²¹

• Overall poor performance
• Procedural errors and errors in judgment
• Decreased ability to stay open and be receptive to submissions
• Indifference to the rights of the parties
• Tendency to be biased or resort to stereotyping
• Impatience, irritability, and anger

Taking the psychological research and judges’ own reflections together, a clear link between judicial well-being and the functioning and legitimacy of judiciaries in society emerges.

The importance of a well-functioning judiciary to a stable, democratic society can scarcely be overstated. As we know, in any democracy, the judiciary represents the third branch of government, coequal and independent of both the legislative and executive branches. It is responsible for interpreting laws made by the former and reviewing the decisions and actions of the latter. Oversight of the executive branch by the judiciary is a democracy’s strongest bulwark against absolutism, corruption, and the misuse of government power. Fundamentally, the judiciary is the institution that upholds the rule of law. And, as the preamble to the Nauru Declaration observes, the institution of the “judiciary is made up of human beings — individual and independent persons appointed to judicial office; therefore, the judiciary is fundamentally a human system, dependent upon the collective human capacities and faculties of individual judges.” In many parts of the world, judges are reporting that the pressures on the courts are escalating. To quote an Australian chief justice, Andrew Bell, in a recent speech:

Our judges and magistrates can only be stretched so far. And overstretched they are, both in terms of numbers and resourcing. The pool of their undoubted goodwill and physical and emotional capacity is not infinitely deep. . . . The nature of an essential service is that society could not function without it. So it is with the courts.²²

No individual or system can sustain high and increasing pressure without showing signs of distress and impaired functioning. This is the context in which the UN and the international community are now taking a keen interest in judicial well-being.

What does this mean for judges?

Will this international acknowledgement really improve the working lives of judges and the quality of justice they deliver? The only honest answer is, of course, we will have to wait and see. On its own, an annual day to recognize judicial well-being would not be of great consequence. The global support and study that led to its enactment coupled with the attention and activity it has already inspired, however, shows the day’s potential to ensure that judicial well-being remains a core part of a robust and sustainable justice system.

To close, I share a brief reflection from Victor Reyes, a judicial educator and retired judge from the Tenth Judicial District of Colorado, in a recent public webinar on the International Day for Judicial Well-being:²³

I get very emotional about this because I wish that these conversations would have been had when I was a judge — because my life would have been a lot healthier . . . if I had been in a position to recognize the impact of the job on me as a human being. What you have done, and I commend you so much for this, is that you have given judges a voice. As I go through every part of that declaration I can hear judges from around the world saying these things, because I have been blessed enough to do trainings with judges in different parts of the world and this is what they talk about. . . . We are not alone. This is an international issue. Judges around the world are recognizing it. . . . And as we raise the awareness, we lower the stigma.

See Related Article: The Global Landscape of Judicial Well-being: A Roundtable Discussion

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CARLY SCHREVER is a lawyer, psychologist, empirical researcher, and director of Human Ethos. She provides education, facilitation, advice, and individual therapy services to individuals and organizations within the judiciary and legal profession worldwide. In 2024, she worked on an international committee of judges to draft the Nauru Declaration on Judicial Well-being, a statement of universal principles to guide judicial well-being reform globally.

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1. G.A. Res. 79/266, International Day for Judicial Well-being (Mar. 4, 2025).
2. UN, List of International Days and Weeks, https://www.un.org/en/observances/list-days-weeks.
3. UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Nauru Declaration on Judicial Well-being (July 25, 2024) https://judicialwellbeing.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Nauru-Declaration-on-Judicial-Well-being.pdf.
4. See Rangajeeva Wimalasena, et al., The Nauru Declaration: A Milestone for Judicial Wellness, Judicature Int’l (2025), https://judicature.duke.edu/articles/the-nauru-declaration-a-milestone-for-judicial-wellness/ (describing the conference leading up to the creation of the Nauru Declaration).
5. Terry A. Maroney, The Persistent Cultural Script of Judicial Dispassion, 99 Calif. L. Rev 629 (2011).
6. Michael D. Kirby, Judicial Stress: An Unmentionable Topic, 13 Australian Bar R. 101 (1995).
7. See Carly Schrever, Where Stress Presides: Investigating Occupational Stress within the Australian Judiciary 45 (Dec. 2023) (PhD dissertation, University of Melbourne), https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/items/0e118021-1413-4e79-a780-f56696ca3e8e (describing the previous scholarly literature on the effect of stress on judges).
8. Carly Schrever, et al., The Psychological Impact of Judicial Work: Australia’s First Empirical Research Measuring Judicial Stress and Wellbeing, 28 J. Jud. Admin 141, 155, 161–62 (2019).
9. UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Exploring Linkages between Judicial Well-Being and Judicial Integrity 6 (Mar. 2022), https://www.unodc.org/res/ji/resdb/data/2022/exploring_linkages_between_judicial_well-being_and_judicial_integrity_html/Global_Report_Judicial_Well-being.pdf.
10. David Swenson, et al., Stress and Resiliency in the U.S. Judiciary, 2020 J. Prof. Law. 1 (2020).
11. Carly Schrever, et al., Preliminary Findings from a Large-Scale National Study Measuring Judicial Officers’ Psychological Reactions to their Work and Workplace, 36 Jud. Officer Bull. 53 (July 2024).
12. UN Office on Drugs and Crime, The Impact of Judicial Well-Being on Judges’ Behaviour and Judicial Integrity, YouTube (June 15, 2022), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnRpYwaiUc0.
13. Karen Adam, The Price I Paid for Being a ‘Good Judge,’ Nat’l Jud. Coll. (Apr. 20, 2017), https://www.judges.org/news-and-info/the-price-i-paid-for-being-a-good-judge/.
14. David Heilpern, Lifting the Judicial Veil: Vicarious Trauma, PTSD and the Judiciary – A Personal Story (Oct. 25, 2017).
15. See, e.g., Chief Justice of Victoria Anne Ferguson, keynote address at the National Wellness for Law Forum (Feb. 15, 2024); Chief Justice of New South Wales Andrew Bell, The Bicentenary of the Supreme Court and Its Significance (Jan. 31, 2024); U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel (ret.), Mindfulness and Judging, 101 Judicature 14, 14–15.
16. Carly Schrever, et al., Australia’s First Research Measuring Judicial Stress and Wellbeing: A Preview of the Findings, 92 Australian L.J. 855, 856 (2018).
17. See Regional Judicial Conference on Integrity and Judicial Well-Being, Draft Committee, https://judicialwellbeing.info/draft-committee/ (last visited May 15, 2025) (listing the members of the Nauru Declaration’s Draft Committee).
18. UN Office on Drugs and Crime, supra note 3.
19. UN, United Nations Observances, https://www.un.org/en/observances (last visited May 15, 2025).
20. Schrever, supra note 7 at 14–19.
21. UN Office on Drugs and Crime, supra note 3, at 1.
22. Bell, supra note 15.
23. Australian Catholic University, International Day for Judicial Wellbeing and its Global Impact, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Kh2awi1bA.