52
C.
LEGAL EMPOWERMENT, SOCIAL MOBILIZATION, AND
ADVOCACY
Note to community facilitators:
This sub-section introduces a number of key tools related
to legal empowerment, social mobilization, and advocacy.
The tools include:
Identifying appropriate forms of resource mapping
Community biodiversity registers
Participatory video
Photo stories
Audio interviews
Identifying relevant social media tools
E-learning modules on relevant legal frameworks
Legislative theatre
Principles for public participation in impact
assessments
With a foundation of endogenous
development and multi-stakeholder
partnerships, a biocultural community
protocol is brought to life through an
integrated
process
of
legal
empowerment, social mobilization, and
advocacy. Overall, this process aims to
empower communities to use legal tools
to tackle power asymmetries and take
greater control over the decisions and
processes that affects their ways of life
and territories and areas upon which
they depend.
As described in Part I: Section II/B1, the
law disaggregates the environment into distinct compartments. This directly conflicts with the otherwise
interconnected manner in which communities interact with their territories and areas. However, laws and
policies can be changed, as exemplified by global movements to realize the rights and responsibilities of
farmers, livestock keepers, fish workers, and forest peoples. With innovation and determination,
Indigenous peoples and local communities around the world are reimagining and recreating the law in
accordance with their worldviews, ways of life, and customary laws. In this sense, they are breaking the
regrettable legal tradition of either being ‘spoken at’ or ‘spoken for’. They are also proving that formal
training as a lawyer is not necessary to effectively engage with the law.
Legal empowerment is based on the twin principles that law should not remain a monopoly of trained
professionals and that alternative forms of dispute resolution (such as dialogues) are often more attuned
to local realities than formal legal processes. Ideally, the act of using the law becomes as empowering as
the outcome of the process itself. For example, a court victory that sets a legal precedent can be
supremely useful. However, a process driven by the community itself through internal organization and
strategic action will likely be far more powerful. Thus the potential of a biocultural community protocol to
bring about tangible change is dependent upon how the community undertakes processes of learning
about the law and how to interpret and use it, mobilizing social movements, and advocating for change.
Key Resources on Legal Empowerment
Biocultural Community Protocols and Conservation Pluralism (Jonas et al., 2010)
Making the Law Work for Everyone, Volume I: Report of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the
Poor and Volume II: Technical Reports (UNDP, 2008)
Legal Empowerment Working Papers and Legal Empowerment: Practitioners’ Perspectives (IDLO, 2010)
Traditional Justice: Practitioners’ Perspectives (IDLO site)
Legal Empowerment in Practice: Using Legal Tools to Secure Land Rights in Africa (Cotula and Mathieu
(Eds.), 2008)
Between Law and Society: Paralegals and the Provision of Justice Services in Sierra Leone and Worldwide
(Maru, 2006)
Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Resource Rights: A Basis for Equitable Relationships? (Posey, 1995)
Democratic Dialogue: A Handbook for Practitioners (Pruitt and Thomas, 2007)
Haki Network and Namati Network: Innovations in Legal Empowerment
Legal Empowerment of the Poor: International Applied Research Learning Network on Poverty and
Human Rights