A Closer Look | The Legitimate Poor : Legal Empowerment

Legal empowerment, the process through which the poor and excluded can gain access to the law, will be key to ending poverty, says a recent report issued by the UN. Nearly 2/3 of the earth’s population, 4 billion people, are living outside of the rule of law and the security and opportunities it provides. Without access to the legal system, these individuals cannot stand up for their personal or economic rights or interests.

For example, the Economist points out that exclusion from the rule of law “begins with the lack of official recognition of… birth: around 40% of the developing world's five-year-old children are not registered as even existing.” A Foreign Policy blog about the Worst Places to Be a Woman gives the examples of Haiti, where rape (though widely believed to only be applicable for victims who were virgins) was only recently criminalized, and of Sierra Leone, where laws allowing women to inherit property and laws criminalizing wife-beating were created (with questionable intent to enforce) only a year ago. Finally, the report gives the example of India, where “99 percent of the country’s 10 million street vendors are forced to work illegally. Instead of being protected by the law, they are excluded from it.” Creating laws that protect the rights of citizens is, of course, an extremely important step, but these laws only affect people’s lives as much as the rule of law is respected.

To truly make an impact on poverty, investments in infrastructure, education, etc. must endure; legal empowerment is the adhesive that can allow development initiatives to stick. The report suggests “four pillars of legal empowerment”. The first is access to justice and the rule of law. The report claims that in India, “there are reportedly only 11 judges for every million people.” The other three pillars are property rights, labor rights, and business rights - all of which are necessary for the poor to be able to generate income and tangibly improve their situations.

The UN report says, “Poor people’s exclusion from the law is not just desperately unfair, it denies them an opportunity to improve their lives and it stunts the development of poor countries.” From a strategic, policy perspective, we must remember the importance of “legal empowerment” in the implementation of any development initiative; giving all people access to the rule of law will create opportunities for real progress in human rights and in the fight against poverty.