[PDF] Legal Empowerment In Practice eBook

Author : Sahar Maranlou
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 277 pages
File Size : 34,32 MB
Release : 2015
Category : Law
ISBN : 1107072603

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A critical and in-depth analysis of access to justice from international and Islamic perspectives, with a specific focus on access by women.

Author :
Publisher : Lep
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 26,28 MB
Release : 2008
Category : Legal assistance to the poor
ISBN : 9789211262193

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The vast majority of the word's people lives outside the law and thus does not have a chance to better their lives and climb out of poverty. This causes national and global stagnation. The remedy for the exclusion is inclusion through Legal Empowerment of the Poor which is important economically, politically, socially, and morally. The Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (2005) was the first global initiative to focus on the link between exclusion, poverty, and the law, and was hosted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in New York. This first report of the Commission covers the following topics: making the law work for everyone; the four pillars of legal empowerment; legal empowerment is smart politics and good economics; agenda for change; and implementation strategies. The report is based on research, analysis and consultations in more than 20 developing countries, and encourages debates and discussions towards realization of Millennium Development Goals.--Publisher's description.

Author : Dr Dan Banik
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 50,87 MB
Release : 2013-03-28
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1409489310

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Despite providing society with a set of crucial services, large groups of workers in the informal economy are subject to exclusion and discrimination, and their lives are characterised by various types of vulnerabilities and deprivations that result from the denial of social, economic, political and legal protection. Although not new to the development vocabulary, the informal economy has received renewed attention in recent years largely due to the ILO's 'decent work' agenda and various efforts to promote 'legal empowerment of the poor'. With an explicit focus on labour rights, the book focuses on a nuanced understanding of the regulatory and operational challenges and dilemmas related to implementing the two approaches in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to analyzing structures and relations of power between the formal and the informal economies, the book critically discusses the work of governments, civil society organizations and the poor themselves to address the daily challenges of living in the informal economy.

Author : Liz Curran
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 340 pages
File Size : 15,76 MB
Release : 2021-04-19
Category : Law
ISBN : 0429602332

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How as a society can we find ways of ensuring the people who are the most vulnerable or have little voice can avail themselves of the protection in law to improve their social, cultural, health and economic outcomes as befits civilised society? Better Law for a Better World answers this question by looking at innovative practices and developments emerging within law practice and education and shares the skills and techniques that could lead to confidence in the law and its ability to respond. Using recent research from Australia, practice initiatives and information, the book breaks down ways for law students, legal educators and law practitioners (including judicial officers, law administrators, legislators and policy makers) to enhance access to justice and improve outcomes through new approaches to lawyering. These can include: Multi-Disciplinary Practice (including health justice partnerships); integrated justice practice; restorative practice; empowerment modes (community & professional development and policy skills); client-centred approaches and collaborative interdisciplinary practice informed by practical experience. The book contains critical information on what such practice might look like and the elements that will be required in the development of the essential skills and criteria for such practice. It seeks to open up a dialogue about how we can make the law better. This includes making the community more central to the operation of the law and improving client-centred practice so that the Rule of Law can deliver on its claims to serve, protect and ensure equality before the law. It explores practical ways that emerging lawyers can be trained differently to ensure improved communication, collaboration, problem solving, partnership and interpersonal skills. The book explores the challenges of such work. It also gives suggestions on how to reduce professional barriers and variations in practice to effectively, humanely and efficiently make a difference in people’s lives. The book builds essential skills and new approaches to lawyering for law students, legal educators, new lawyers and seasoned lawyers, judicial members and law administrators to equip them to better respond to community need. It looks at the law in context by also exploring the role of the law in improving the social determinants of health and socially just outcomes.

Author : Margaret Schuler
Publisher :
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 29,87 MB
Release : 1992
Category : Law
ISBN :

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With experiences and strategies from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, this book explores how legal literacy can empower women. It examines ways of promoting women's capacities to understand the law; to assert rights; and to change limiting definitions of gender roles, status, and rights.

Author : Vivek Hansraj Maru
Publisher :
Page : 27 pages
File Size : 26,56 MB
Release : 2015
Category :
ISBN :

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This paper reviews the World Bank's existing work in access to justice and suggests directions for further Bank engagement in this area. Access to justice efforts are grouped here into six categories: court reforms, legal aid, information dissemination and education, alternative dispute resolution, public sector accountability, and research. The paper is motivated in part by recent discussions of “legal empowerment;” a thread of inquiry that runs through the review is: how do World Bank efforts to increase access to justice affect the agency of poor people? The paper concludes with insights and recommendations that emerge from the Bank's experience. All justice reform interventions should attend to particularities of sociolegal context, should consider the specific justice needs of poor people, and should be planned not in isolation, but from a system wide perspective. Legal services and legal aid interventions should confront the challenge of scale, should consider alternative methods of service delivery, and should in some cases take care to maintain at least partial independence from the state. The use of noncourt dispute resolution mechanisms should be guided by the benefits achieved in cost, time, harmony, and fairness. Evaluations of access to justice programs should go beyond “headcounts” to demonstrate impact - on users of justice services as well as on society at large - and to weigh opportunity cost.

Author : Ineke van de Meene
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 28,94 MB
Release : 2008
Category :
ISBN : 9789087280406

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Annotation How law can aid development has been the focus of much recent discussion among development workers, scholars and policy makers. Indeed, reforms to improve poor people's access to justice and to promote their legal empowerment comprise the latest trend in legal development cooperation. This volume answers a number of basic questions about this new trend, such as access to justice and legal empowerment entail and its importance; the obstacles the poor and marginalised face in seeking justice and empowerment through the legal system; and the reforms proposed by these approaches to legal development co-operation. Furthermore, it outlines important considerations for policymakers concerning access to justice and legal empowerment reforms. This title can be previewed in Google Books - http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9789087280406.

Author : Paul Daniel Rivera
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 17,82 MB
Release : 2010
Category :
ISBN :

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Millions of dollars of international aid is given to developing countries each year to strengthen “rule-of-law” institutions. Led by institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the majority of international legal aid rests on the assumption that market and investment friendly legal systems - protecting foreign and domestic investment, property and contract rights - will spur economic growth that in turn, will “trickle down” to the poor in the name of poverty alleviation. However, even after over two decades of these institutional legal reforms, little evidence has emerged supporting the impact that these reforms have had on poverty alleviation. From the frustrations of international legal development practitioners who have witnessed the real gaps between this top-down institutional approach and poverty alleviation emerged the field of legal empowerment. A promising alternative, it is a bottom-up approach aiming to afford poor and disadvantaged populations legal advice and services under the belief that once knowledgeable about their legal rights, these groups may take more control of their lives and lift themselves from the strains of poverty. At the moment, a huge imbalance exists between the amount of funding given to institutional reforms and those given to legal empowerment type projects. This imbalance needs to change, but is seemingly troubled by a vicious cycle of funding logic. International aid institutions like the World Bank and the IMF hesitate to grant long-term development loans unless impact is shown or looks promising. This is usually determined by looking at the impact of short-term developmental loans, which often act as a preliminary indicator of a projects tangible impact or promise. Herein lies the fundamental tension such a short-term, impact-oriented approach has with legal empowerment, which is by nature, a long-term process. In fact, sustained funding is often a predicate to the success of a legal empowerment intervention. This is because legal empowerment targets the “users” of the law and not the institutions. Whereas institutional reform may often be perceived as a more attractive option because it can point to tangible results like how many courts have been built, how many cases have been adjudicated, and number of judicial officers trained, this is often indeterminate of who is using the judicial channels and for what purpose. It's possible that, for example, such cases actually involved wealthy corporations or individuals that disenfranchised the poor. In such cases, one must question whether poverty alleviation is really taking place. On the other hand, legal empowerment targets the poor and disadvantaged. It's a long-term process because it seeks to educate these groups of their rights from the ground-up and that demands patience. In addition, these groups face deeply engrained cultures and socio-economic barriers making impact that more challenging. Thus, short-term tangible impact is hard to measure, thereby leaving funding of legal empowerment projects to receive only a small portion of developmental loans given. In practice, however, it's often more desirable because it seeks to empower the poor and engrain within them a sustainable notion of rights and justice. Without this foundation that legal empowerment initiatives attempt to give rise to, these legal institutions cannot effectively alleviate property and inevitably, “courts are just buildings, judges just public employees, and constitutions just pieces of paper.” This paper examines this vicious cycle of funding logic and proposes that international lending institutions be mindful of legal empowerment's requirement for long-term funding even if short-term impact is unclear. This is because it may inevitably be a more viable solution to poverty alleviation than mere institutional reform. Part I of this paper begins by examining the philosophical differences between rule-of-law and legal empowerment. It continues by listing a common core of legal empowerment characteristics along with the methodology for measurement and evaluation. In Part II, this paper describes select legal empowerment studies funded by international banks and aid agencies. It attempts to illustrate how legal empowerment interventions are formulated and implemented, along with describing the impact or discoveries from those interventions along the way. Part III concludes by attempting to frame the current funding framework as applicable to legal empowerment as unrealistic and impractical. It provides some context to that position by identifying the cultural barriers to change and describes why other intangible information may be more valuable. Finally, it ends by describing the possible economic benefits of legal empowerment and how increased funding will only improve the quality of the research.