The Economic and Legal Empowerment panel at the World Justice Forum IV explored how civil society, government, and private actors can work in concert to empower vulnerable and poor citizens through a robust rule of law.
Panelists focused on modern methods of legal empowerment such as government programs that raise awareness of vulnerable citizens’ constitutional rights; safeguards and regulations that ensure access to justice; the right to counsel; and access to formal business and financial mechanisms. The discussion also highlighted innovative solutions to closing the gap between passing a law in the halls of parliament and the reality of that law as experienced by the poor.
Moderator
Zaza Namoradze, Director, Budapest Office, Open Society Justice Initative (Hungary)
Panelists
Yasmin Batliwala, CEO, Advocates for International Development (United Kingdom)
Stephen Golub, Lecturer, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley (USA)
The World Justice Project (WJP) is releasing microdata for the first time, drawing on data from the WJP EUROVOICES general population poll (“People’s Voices”). It features detailed, anonymized survey responses from more than 64,000 individuals living in 110 subnational regions across the 27 European Union (EU) Member States.
Mark your calendar! On October 28th, the World Justice Project will release the 2025 WJP Rule of Law Index®, our flagship measure of how the rule of law is experienced and perceived around the globe.
To strengthen global understanding of access to justice, the World Justice Project has developed the Global Legal Needs Survey (GLNS)—the first effort to collect comparable data on how people experience and resolve legal problems worldwide. Conducted in over 100 countries between 2017 and 2024, the survey captures the voices of more than 100,000 people, shedding light on the most common legal challenges, sources of help, and the real-life impact of justice problems.
On July 2, 2025, the World Justice Project (WJP) was honored to participate in the United Kingdom House of Lords Constitution Committee’s official inquiry into the rule of law. This invitation followed WJP’s written submission and marked an invaluable opportunity to support evidence-based policymaking in the United Kingdom.