Includes bibliographical references and index.

Rights, legal empowerment, and poverty : an overview of the issues / Dan Banik -- The political economy of legal empowerment of the poor / Arjun Sengupta -- Legal empowerment as a new concept in development : transforming good ideas into global action / Mona Elisabeth Brøther -- Constitutionalism in an insurgent state : rethinking legal empowerment of the poor in a divided Bolivia / John-Andrew McNeish -- Poverty, legal activism, and development in rural China / Susanne Brandtstädter -- The access to justice challenge in Uganda / Donald Rukare -- Legal empowerment and the right to food / Marc Cohen and Mary Ashby Brown -- Are Africans culturally unsuited to property rights and the rule of law? Some reflections based on the Tanzanian case / Hernando de Soto -- Formalisation of land and housing tenure to empower the poor : simple nostrum or complex challenge? / Edward Robbins -- The challenges of promoting legal empowerment in developing countries : women's land ownership and inheritance rights in Malawi / Asiyati L. Chiweza -- 'Not on our land!' : peasants' struggle against forced land acquisition in India's West Bengal / Kenneth Nielsen.