Legal empowerment for local resource control

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FIGURE 4. MUTUALLY REINFORCING LEGAL TOOLS
through use of complex language and procedures. While this may be the
case in many instances, much depends on what type of legal processes are
used and how. Where emphasis is on building local capacity among
beneficiaries to engage with legal processes, rather than on pursuing legal
avenues on their behalf but without their full involvement, empowerment
is a more likely outcome than disempowerment. Building local capacity
does not necessarily require hiring professional lawyers: it can be done
(perhaps even more effectively) through training of community trainers and
use of para-legal tools – particularly those tools emphasising “demystifying
the law” and making it accessible to illiterate people (e.g., on “literacy for
empowerment” and “legal literacy camps”, see above, Box 3).
On the other hand, legal and para-legal tools do not address power
asymmetries rooted in economic, social, cultural and political relations –
the left-hand side of Figure 1. This exposes the limitations of what legal and
para-legal tools alone can achieve. It also highlights the possible tension
between legal principles and extralegal factors.
International human rights treaties and most national constitutions state
the principle of equal protection before the law. This means that legal
entitlements must be protected regardless of the power exercised by their
holder. On paper, this principle differentiates legal from political processes,
as in the latter the extent to which competing interests are taken into