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DELIVERING RESULTS101© Reuterspoor. They do this through a wide rangeof processes and mechanisms, includingadvocacy and rights awareness-raising,law and redress mechanisms, legal literacy,legal aid, support to paralegals and supportto strategic litigation organisations.Legal empowerment initiatives havetherefore tended to focus on grassrootsactivities: on how individuals, with orwithout the support of legal professionals(particularly paralegals), and NGOs canuse local dispute-resolution mechanismsof different sorts to seek solutions to, andimmediate redress for, practical problemsand claims.However, other types of legal andjustice mechanisms can empower poorand marginalised people. Where supportis available, vulnerable people can asserttheir rights, individually or collectively,through an array of legal, horizontal andsocial accountability mechanisms, such aslitigation in high courts, administrativeredress mechanisms, ombudsmen andA farmer clears land for crops near a new residentialcompound in Hefei, China. The Communist Party plans togive farmers more property rights as part of a programmeof measures designed to reinforce the economyhuman rights commissions. These formsof legal mobilisation are able to forwardcollective interests and to combat structuralinjustice in order to (incrementally)transform structures of abuse, exclusionand discrimination.The transformational effect of legalempowermentThe use of the law and justice mechanismscan empower vulnerable people in threeconcrete ways, each with the potential tocontribute to the advancement of theirsocial and economic rights.First, through the process of usingthe law, people can develop the personalcapabilities, such as self-belief and selfworth,or awareness of rights and ofstructural discrimination, necessary tohave real choices and control over theirlives. This ‘power within’ is essential formarginalised people to challenge either theunder-provision or the unfair distributionof rights and resources.Second, legal action can help toconsolidate new progressive constitutionalrights. For example, strategic litigation bywomen’s legal organisations has resulted inlandmark gender equality cases in relationto women’s personal status, and inheritanceand property rights. Effective legal actionby civic organisations and networks hasalso changed government policy on theprovision and management of health,housing and water services. Throughsuch strategic litigation, individual claims,often about practical needs and interests,can lead to concrete gains for poor andmarginalised groups.Third, legal action can activate the state’sregulation and oversight of the provisionservices essential for the realisation ofESRs. The case brought by the TreatmentAction Campaign against pharmaceuticalcompanies in South Africa is a well-knowncase in health rights. As a result, theprice of essential antiretroviral drugswas reduced.Legal empowerment is by no means apanacea for closing the gap between rightson paper and rights in practice. Inadequatecapacity within the justice system indeveloping countries is one reason, but amore fundamental one is that legal actionis inherently political. Disputes about thelaw and entitlements are invariably aboutthe distribution of power and resourcesbetween individuals or groups – this isparticularly acute with respect to economicand social entitlements. In most countries,though to different degrees, powerfulgroups capture the law and legal processesand use them to protect their interests andthe status quo and to marginalise others.The Millennium Development Goalshave created an impetus behind certainESRs. Improving the legal agency of poorand marginalised people is one route toincrease the likelihood that these can berealised in a sustainable and equitableway during the next phase of globaldevelopment goals.GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT GOALS 2014