The Right to Development and Legal Empowerment of the Poor

Legal empowerment of the poor especially through legal protection of their property rights has recently been advocated as an essential ingredient of a comprehensive package to combat poverty. The formation of a High Level Commission for Legal Empowerment of the Poor by the United Nations in 2005 has given a strong impetus to this new movement. Many in the human rights community are suspicious, however, of the focus on property right because of the fear that the pursuit of this right might be inherently biased in favour of the rich and that it might even entail a sacrifice of other socio-economic and cultural rights. This paper attempts to provide a balanced view on this debate by arguing for two inter-related propositions. First, it shows that the call for the protection of property rights is entirely consistent with the human rights laws and principles as enshrined in the various covenants and treaties on human rights. Second, it makes the case that for the protection of property rights to actually lead to the legal empowerment of the poor rather than to strengthening the hands of the rich, the programme of legal empowerment must be embedded in an explicitly human rights approach to development such as the one embodied in the concept of the right to development.