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voluntary code-of-conduct initiatives. They arepursuing important strategies for motivating improvementsin the performance of multinationalcorporations, and in encouraging businesses tobecome more sensitive to ethical consumer reactions.Such initiatives should be strengthenedand coherence between them promoted so as toavoid dangers of proliferation. Voluntary initiativesshould be seen as stepping stones for legalempowerment, rather than a means to avoid legalobligations.Mobilise donor countries to promote legal empowermentand decent work: Donor countries havemany opportunities to support legal empowermentand the inclusion of a decent work agendain regional and national strategies.Promote better understanding of costs and benefitsof legal empowerment through decent work:Expected benefits of reform from legal empowermentthrough decent work require further study,particularly their effects on productivity andprosperity. The costs of policy initiatives to startand sustain reform processes also need to be betterunderstood.Strengthen the statistical base for legal empowerment:Better national statistics and indicators onsize, composition, and contribution of the informaleconomy would improve visibility and facilitateplanning, particularly for formulating policiespromoting Legal Empowerment of the Poor.Recommendations to further developthe Global Social ContractThere is a tripartite consensus from employer,worker and government representatives on theneed for a formal and effective legal systemwhich guarantees all citizens and enterprises thatcontracts are honoured and upheld, the rule oflaw is respected and property rights are secured.This is a key condition not only for attractinginvestment, but also for generating certaintyand nurturing trust and fairness in society. 1 Thegrowing recognition of the need for labour rightsto catalyse employment creation in the informaleconomy, while protecting its workers, has led toan emerging global social contract; effectively,it is a broad agenda for reform and for empowerment.Labour rights, business rights, propertyrights and business rights, taken together, canform the basis of this new social contract.Five fundamental areas of action could underpinthe new social contract: (1) Strengthen identity,voice, representation and dialogue; (2) Strengthenquality of labour regulation and effectiveenforcement of fundamental principles and rightsat work; (3) Support application of a minimumpackage of labour rights for the informal economy;(4) Strengthen access to opportunities fordecent work, education, training and retraining,while combating discrimination to ensure efficientlabour markets, and (5) Support inclusivesocial protection.We describe the new departure in internationaldevelopment strategies, centred on the DecentWork Agenda, as a Global Social Contract andpropose that the Commission (or CLEP) furtherdevelop the concept by integrating access tojustice, property rights, labour rights and businessrights into a framework for Legal Empowermentof the Poor. Our proposals are firmly basedin the international human rights tradition, whichthe State, as primary duty bearer, is obliged toprotect and promote.Finally, we reflect on the words that form the conceptGlobal Social Contract. ‘Contract’ suggestsan emphasis on mutual responsibility. The state,for example, has a duty to protect, and citizenshave the right to protection. But there are obliga-134