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Purpose: This research article aims to investigate the intersection of legal empowerment and the use of innovative tools to enhance the development of legal services in Ukraine, with a particular emphasis on the role of digital technologies in reshaping the legal landscape. Methods: The study employs a comprehensive approach, utilizing a combination of literature review, case studies, and empirical research to examine the current state of legal services in Ukraine and assess the impact of digital technologies on access to justice, legal service delivery, and legal innovation. Results and discussion: The findings highlight the potential benefits and challenges associated with the adoption and integration of digital tools in various facets of the legal profession in Ukraine, such as case management, legal research, client communication, and document automation. The discussion delves into the implications of these results for the future of legal services in the country. Implications of the research: The research offers insights that can guide policymakers, legal practitioners, and stakeholders in leveraging digital innovation to enhance the accessibility, efficiency, and effectiveness of legal services in Ukraine. It also underscores the importance of embracing technological advancements to address the evolving needs of legal service users. Originality/value: This article contributes to the existing literature by providing a nuanced exploration of the transformative potential of digital technologies in advancing legal services within the Ukrainian context. The research offers valuable perspectives on harnessing innovation to drive positive changes in the legal sector, ultimately benefiting both service providers and recipients.

The significance of access to education has, like women’s role in peacebuilding, previously been examined in various studies. However, the relationship between these two has rarely been touched upon. Particularly the discipline of Sociology of Law has been observed to discuss the topics in separate academic discussions. Hence, findings in accordance with my study have revealed that there is no research investigating whether access to education has an impact on global peace and security. In this thesis I have therefore approached the linkage between girls’ inclusion in education, and women’s participation in peacebuilding, while investigating if other factors could have an effect on gender equal peacebuilding, and hence, global peace and security. The thesis has followed the mixed-methods approach of an explanatory sequential design, allowing for a quantitative analysis to be nuanced by a qualitative examination. The quantitative segment has investigated the relationship between the indicators of school enrolment and female signatories through an OLS regression analysis. Based on this thesis’ main conceptual claim, I have argued that increased access to primary education among girls leads to higher chances of global peace and security obtained through gender equal peacebuilding. This claim has been assessed in a qualitative thematic narrative analysis, using narrative data from biographies about Agda Rössel and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The quantitative analysis has portrayed a positive relationship between school enrolment and female signatories, revealing that higher educational access might lead to increased inclusion among women in peacebuilding. Building upon these results, the qualitative analysis has confirmed the first established findings, but has claimed that access to primary education alone does not generate inclusion in peacebuilding. Instead, education might open for opportunities which, in collaboration with components such as external encouragement and i

Legal empowerment as a theoretical and practical concept has gained increasing attention in international development. Due to the shifting aid paradigm, caused by the rising of South-South cooperation, legal empowerment’s proposed bottom-up character has challenged the larger conventional top-down approaches to development that traditionally have dominated the development agenda. Nevertheless, studies examining legal empowerment have failed to analyse whether the concept is produced in a top-down setting and hence omitted possible power imbalances that the discourse might be hiding. By conducting a critical discourse analysis through applying postcolonial theory, the dissertation critically explores the concept on a sample of public policy documents by two of the largest legal empowerment donors, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The thesis analyses both how the donors approach the concept and how the discourse may distinguish in their approaches. Furthermore, it examines how power imbalances in the legal empowerment discourse might emerge from a Global North/South perspective. The study finds that the policies from both development banks do not discursively produce legal empowerment in significantly different ways, which moreover forswears the premise that the South-South development cooperation is to be essentially distinctive from the North-South cooperation. Furthermore, the both discourses were found to (re)produce postcolonial narratives that reduce the ‘subjects’ in the discourse into homogenous groups which could somewhat dispute the essence of the concept.

This research and evaluation report undertaken by Dr Liz Curran of the Australian National University (pro bono) looks at research over the two years of the life of a family violence project (with base line data collected in a First Phase Report in November 217) examining a Secondary Consultation (SC) service integrated with Training and Outreach program as well as capacity for strategic advocacy. The Consumer Action Law Centre project (with part funding from the Victorian Department of Justice & Regulation) aims to overcome barriers for people experiencing family violence identified in previous studies. The research findings (detailed in this report) are that legal assistance services, such as this one of the Consumer Action Law Centre, working with trusted community professionals (to whom people experiencing family violence are likely to turn) if done in a holistic, integrated and seamless, respectful way can enable credit & debt legal issues to be addressed in a timely, creative and effective way. It does this by breaking down barriers that exist to those needing legal help. The report provides some universal insights into the plight and impacts of family violence and ways for effective service delivery without ignoring the challenges for both individuals and a variety of services in providing critical support for victim/survivors of family violence and their family.

Legal empowerment as a theoretical and practical concept has gained increasing attention in international development. Due to the shifting aid paradigm, caused by the rising of South-South cooperation, legal empowerment’s proposed bottom-up character has challenged the larger conventional top-down approaches to development that traditionally have dominated the development agenda. Nevertheless, studies examining legal empowerment have failed to analyse whether the concept is produced in a top-down setting and hence omitted possible power imbalances that the discourse might be hiding. By conducting a critical discourse analysis through applying postcolonial theory, the dissertation critically explores the concept on a sample of public policy documents by two of the largest legal empowerment donors, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The thesis analyses both how the donors approach the concept and how the discourse may distinguish in their approaches. Furthermore, it examines how power imbalances in the legal empowerment discourse might emerge from a Global North/South perspective. The study finds that the policies from both development banks do not discursively produce legal empowerment in significantly different ways, which moreover forswears the premise that the South-South development cooperation is to be essentially distinctive from the North-South cooperation. Furthermore, the both discourses were found to (re)produce postcolonial narratives that reduce the ‘subjects’ in the discourse into homogenous groups which could somewhat dispute the essence of the concept.

This article intends to contribute to the current academic and policy debate on the values of determining whether a particular human rights violation was caused by a corrupt behavior; and to defend a human rights-based approach to corruption, based on its added socio-legal values. With this purpose, it analyzes and compares the legal reasoning and socio-legal dynamics of three human rights court cases involving and not involving corruption. By applying a directed content analysis combined with a socio-legal interpretative technique, the study explores and compares the rationality and the values addressed in both corrupt and non-corrupt cases. The results reveal that there are interconnected and mutually reinforcing socio-legal values in applying a human rights lens to combating corruption: (i) it is an improvement towards the justiciability of economic and social rights; (ii) it is a change of paradigm from the insufficient criminal approach to a focus on the social harm; and (iii) it is a more satisfactory approach to the overlapping harmful effects of corruption and inequality. The combination of these values can be used as a legal empowerment strategy, with a particular social accountability dimension, in order to strengthen the disadvantaged, and fight the encroachment caused by corruption on the enjoyment of human rights, especially economic and social rights.

The study guides the reader through the legal framework relevant to explain access to justice and legal empowerment. It presents the voices of relevant actors that participate in the relation between access to justice and the process of legal empowerment. The major social contribution of this study is that it offers the opportunity to understand how people who obtain access to justice perceive their access. It is primarily a journey in the real world, giving policymakers, practitioners, and legal scholars a chance to connect law, policy, and society. Moreover, this study innovates in the application of a methodology mostly used in political science and sociology to a legal phenomenon. This application results in a unique description of the way laws, organizations, and individuals interact as a consequence of the submission of complaints.

It is important to examine parent advocacy programs to understand how they function in a society where there are many structural obstacles to those with little power. These programs can provide an impactful way to level out power imbalances. This case study examined through a lens of legal consciousness theory, power and empowerment theory, and the four capitals as developed by Bourdieu, the purposes and consequences of low-income Latina parents of children with disabilities participating in the LA-based Learning Rights Law Center’s TIGER parent advocacy program. The study specifically addressed how low-income Latina parents of children with disabilities are empowered through their participation in the TIGER legal advocacy program, and what examining the legal consciousness of TIGER parents can tell us about their empowerment. Semi-structured interviews with parents and TIGER staff, document analysis, and further observations, enabled in-depth analyses of the parents’ attitudes and views about special education law, the special education system, and the TIGER program. This study suggests that parents who attend the TIGER program go through a specific experiential process changing their legal consciousness and triggering a parallel empowerment process. Further, the study suggests a model for combining legal consciousness and legal empowerment theoretically and develops indicators to detect this. It also confirms that longer term advocacy programs benefit parents who can subsequently achieve outcomes for their children. The study also suggests that although the TIGER program can build a bridge between the law in action and the law in books through effective parent advocacy, it cannot change the hegemony of the law.

The study guides the reader through the legal framework relevant to explain access to justice and legal empowerment. It presents the voices of relevant actors that participate in the relation between access to justice and the process of legal empowerment. The major social contribution of this study is that it offers the opportunity to understand how people who obtain access to justice perceive their access. It is primarily a journey in the real world, giving policymakers, practitioners, and legal scholars a chance to connect law, policy, and society. Moreover, this study innovates in the application of a methodology mostly used in political science and sociology to a legal phenomenon. This application results in a unique description of the way laws, organizations, and individuals interact as a consequence of the submission of complaints.

It is important to examine parent advocacy programs to understand how they function in a society where there are many structural obstacles to those with little power. These programs can provide an impactful way to level out power imbalances. This case study examined through a lens of legal consciousness theory, power and empowerment theory, and the four capitals as developed by Bourdieu, the purposes and consequences of low-income Latina parents of children with disabilities participating in the LA-based Learning Rights Law Center’s TIGER parent advocacy program. The study specifically addressed how low-income Latina parents of children with disabilities are empowered through their participation in the TIGER legal advocacy program, and what examining the legal consciousness of TIGER parents can tell us about their empowerment. Semi-structured interviews with parents and TIGER staff, document analysis, and further observations, enabled in-depth analyses of the parents’ attitudes and views about special education law, the special education system, and the TIGER program. This study suggests that parents who attend the TIGER program go through a specific experiential process changing their legal consciousness and triggering a parallel empowerment process. Further, the study suggests a model for combining legal consciousness and legal empowerment theoretically and develops indicators to detect this. It also confirms that longer term advocacy programs benefit parents who can subsequently achieve outcomes for their children. The study also suggests that although the TIGER program can build a bridge between the law in action and the law in books through effective parent advocacy, it cannot change the hegemony of the law.

Domestic violence remains prevalent in Timor Leste and is widely considered a normal part of married life for Timorese women. Many women experience deep conflicts in how to respond to violence occurring within relationships that also offer love and children, and are typically at the centre of women’s social, cultural and economic lives. In this context, many see the option of seeking state help as demanding untenably high risks for uncertain overall gain, and fear it will ultimately entail even greater suffering for them and their children. While women who do seek help overwhelmingly turn to customary law systems, these operate within a patriarchal cultural framework that also produces and maintains wider community values of tolerance towards domestic violence. Within these processes, women often find themselves disempowered and dissatisfied with the outcomes they achieve, as they typically fail to recognise and address the violence or deter further abuse, resulting in human rights violations. Drawing on socio-legal tools of analysis, and through 110 detailed interviews with women who have experienced domestic violence and actors involved in customary law systems, this study argues that, despite their serious flaws, there is an urgent need for investment in reform of customary law systems to create an expanded menu of more effective options for women, to tackle the problem of domestic violence in Timor Leste. Using a feminist human rights analysis and critical anthropological theories of legal pluralism and cultural change, this study shows how a progressive realisation approach to reforming customary law norms and procedures by empowering women within customary processes and building on their protective aspects is not only justifiable, but also necessary and viable to better protect women’s rights and to discredit and change dominant attitudes towards domestic violence. While there is no standard script for addressing domestic violence or other manifestations of ge

The paper explored current approaches to legal aid and weather they effectively incorporate legal empowerment strategies for vulnerable women in Uganda. The conception and application of legal empowerment of the poor was analyzed from a capabilities perspective informed by “development as freedom” focusing on women. The study presented an investigation on how one can bring together the theoretical insights of legal empowerment with a study of current practices and perceptions of legal aid and legal empowerment in advancing women’s access to justice. By doing so it contributed to the broader discussion on the role of law and development in empowering disadvantaged and vulnerable people, as well as expanding their freedoms, as the link between legal empowerment and access to justice remains significantly unexplored within the capabilities approach. In particular the paper assessed legal aid from the perspective of rights awareness and rights enablement, key components of legal empowerment. Through the capabilities approach it uncovered that legal aid service provisioning plays a significant role in promoting legal empowerment and enhancing women’s capabilities to access justice. However at times they are treating symptoms in the legal sphere with limited reflection on how enhanced capabilities in access justice can create tradeoffs in other spheres.

The paper explored current approaches to legal aid and weather they effectively incorporate legal empowerment strategies for vulnerable women in Uganda. The conception and application of legal empowerment of the poor was analyzed from a capabilities perspective informed by “development as freedom” focusing on women. The study presented an investigation on how one can bring together the theoretical insights of legal empowerment with a study of current practices and perceptions of legal aid and legal empowerment in advancing women’s access to justice. By doing so it contributed to the broader discussion on the role of law and development in empowering disadvantaged and vulnerable people, as well as expanding their freedoms, as the link between legal empowerment and access to justice remains significantly unexplored within the capabilities approach. In particular the paper assessed legal aid from the perspective of rights awareness and rights enablement, key components of legal empowerment. Through the capabilities approach it uncovered that legal aid service provisioning plays a significant role in promoting legal empowerment and enhancing women’s capabilities to access justice. However at times they are treating symptoms in the legal sphere with limited reflection on how enhanced capabilities in access justice can create tradeoffs in other spheres.

Land is an important asset and redistribution of land is a sensitive subject in Colombia. Land issues in Colombia are complex and include political, social and economic aspects. Due to an on-going conflict people are being denied access to land. In Colombia there are between 3.3 and 4.9 million internally displaced persons that have been deprived of land. In a country where many base livelihoods on land, displacement cause severe effects. With a new Victims’ Law introduced in 2010, the Colombian government intends to address issues of displacement. A case study method has been used to examine if redistribution of land can function in times of conflict. In order to answer the question we used a theoretical framework involving land redistribution, property rights and legal empowerment. In a context where land rights are being neglected and not protected, land redistribution faces challenges. The internal conflict have damaged the efficiency and reach of institutions, which hinders institutional reforms. When there are not sufficient institutions to assure implementation, reforms fall short.

Land is an important asset and redistribution of land is a sensitive subject in Colombia. Land issues in Colombia are complex and include political, social and economic aspects. Due to an on-going conflict people are being denied access to land. In Colombia there are between 3.3 and 4.9 million internally displaced persons that have been deprived of land. In a country where many base livelihoods on land, displacement cause severe effects. With a new Victims’ Law introduced in 2010, the Colombian government intends to address issues of displacement. A case study method has been used to examine if redistribution of land can function in times of conflict. In order to answer the question we used a theoretical framework involving land redistribution, property rights and legal empowerment. In a context where land rights are being neglected and not protected, land redistribution faces challenges. The internal conflict have damaged the efficiency and reach of institutions, which hinders institutional reforms. When there are not sufficient institutions to assure implementation, reforms fall short.

With around 3 million affected people, Colombia has the second highest number of internal displaced persons (IDPs) in the world after Sudan (ACNUR 2007). They are basically refugees inside their own country. One of the main problems of IDPs living in the cities is the difficulty to generate income that allows them to satisfy their basic needs. Looking to solve this problem, the government of Colombia implemented a program to support IDPs to start small businesses so that they can provide for themselves. The issue under focus in this research states: what is the role of legal empowerment in the policy of income generation for IDPs in Colombia? Legal empowerment is a practical concept and depends on its concrete application. For that reason I have made a case study. I have analyzed the program history and I also conducted semi-structured interviews with participants of this program, to obtain a complete understanding of how legal empowerment operates in development programs. After conducting this study I conclude that legal empowerment can contribute to people’s freedom, but it can also undermine it. It can enhance people’s freedoms when it fosters effective access to justice to protect fundamental rights, as I will show with the use of tutela in Colombia. However, legal empowerment can also be perceived as unnecessary, expensive and useless when trying to formalize the businesses of poor people working inside the informal economy.

With around 3 million affected people, Colombia has the second highest number of internal displaced persons (IDPs) in the world after Sudan (ACNUR 2007). They are basically refugees inside their own country. One of the main problems of IDPs living in the cities is the difficulty to generate income that allows them to satisfy their basic needs. Looking to solve this problem, the government of Colombia implemented a program to support IDPs to start small businesses so that they can provide for themselves. The issue under focus in this research states: what is the role of legal empowerment in the policy of income generation for IDPs in Colombia? Legal empowerment is a practical concept and depends on its concrete application. For that reason I have made a case study. I have analyzed the program history and I also conducted semi-structured interviews with participants of this program, to obtain a complete understanding of how legal empowerment operates in development programs. After conducting this study I conclude that legal empowerment can contribute to people’s freedom, but it can also undermine it. It can enhance people’s freedoms when it fosters effective access to justice to protect fundamental rights, as I will show with the use of tutela in Colombia. However, legal empowerment can also be perceived as unnecessary, expensive and useless when trying to formalize the businesses of poor people working inside the informal economy.