Legal Empowerment: An Integrated Approach to Justice and Development

Legal empowerment is about strengthening the capacity of all people to exercise their rights, either as individuals or as members of a community. It’s about grassroots justice—about ensuring that law is not confined to books or courtrooms, but is available to everyone.

This paper looks at common features of legal empowerment work, discusses potential development impact, provides examples of interventions and achievements, and briefly sets out the approach taken by Open Society Foundations.