Full Description
How best to improve the position of the world's poorest people remains one of the major issues facing the human species. Empowering the poor requires more than simply a transfer of resources; it entails the creation of sound legal and political frameworks which specifically address the needs of the poor and vulnerable and hold political and administrative leaders accountable for policy failures. This book investigates the role that legal empowerment and rights (including human rights) can play in tackling poverty and enabling poor people in developing countries to take action to improve their positions. Original in focus, the book provides new information and knowledge and presents informative and useful case studies on sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Contents
Contents: Introduction, Dan Banik; Part 1 Conceptual Issues and Challenges: Rights, legal empowerment and poverty: an overview of the issues, Dan Banik; The political economy of legal empowerment of the poor, Arjun Sengupta; Legal empowerment as a new concept in development: translating good ideas into action, Mona Elisabeth Brøther. Part 2 Promoting Access to Justice in Developing Countries: Constitutionalism in an insurgent state? Rethinking legal empowerment of the poor in a divided Bolivia, John-Andrew McNeish; Rural poverty, legal activism and development in rural China, Susanne Brandtstädter; The access to justice challenge in Uganda, Donald Rukare; Legal empowerment and the right to food, Marc J. Cohen and Mary Ashby Brown. Part 3 Formalisation of Property Rights Revisited: Are Africans culturally unsuited to property rights and the rule of law? Some reflections based on the Tanzanian case, Hernando de Soto; Formalisation of land and housing tenure to empower the poor: simple nostrum or complex challenge?, Edward Robbins; The challenges of promoting legal empowerment in developing countries: women's land ownership and inheritance rights in Malawi, Asiyati Lorraine Chiweza; 'Not on our land!' Peasants' struggle against forced land acquisition in India's West Bengal, Kenneth Nielsen; Index.
