WINNIPEG, MB – Dr. Lloyd Axworthy, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Winnipeg will focus on the critical need to give the world’s poor access to legal protections such as property and labour rights when he addresses a judicial roundtable on Wednesday.
Axworthy, Canada’s former foreign affairs minister and member of the United Nations Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, will speak at a roundtable co-hosted by the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs Canada with The University of Winnipeg Global College and the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law. Participating in the roundtable are foreign visiting judges from Ghana, Jamaica and Peru as well as Canadian judicial administrators, international development practitioners, faculty, students and community leaders dedicated to legal empowerment. Legal empowerment is about making access to legal protection and economic opportunity the right of all, and not merely the privilege of a few. It is estimated that four billion people need access to land, income and identity.
WHO: Dr. Lloyd Axworthy – “Making the Law Work for Everyone”
WHEN: Wednesday, November 16, 2011
3:15 pm to 3:45 pm
WHERE: Convocation Hall, 2nd floor Wesley Hall
515 Portage Avenue
Journalists note: While Dr. Axworthy’s address is open to media, the balance of the roundtable is by invitation only. Interviews can be arranged prior to the roundtable from 12:30 to 2:30 pm with Justice Colleen Suche (Court of Queen’s Bench, Manitoba), Chief Judge Gerald Seniuk (Provincial Court of Saskatchewan) or the visiting judges.
BACKGROUND:
Four judicial roundtables on access to justice and legal empowerment are being held from November 14th to 21st at the University of Ottawa, The University of Winnipeg, the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon) and McGill University (Montreal), supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
In the evolving world of international development, judicial engagement is increasingly relevant. Development depends on markets and economic inclusion; it also depends on how laws are applied and legal institutions function and relate to citizens. These roundtables will provide visiting judges and Canadian participants with a range of opportunities to improve their understanding of the distinctions between law reform and legal empowerment in the context of access to justice.
In 2005, the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor brought together a group of thinkers and former senior government officials. Following extensive consultations, the Commission developed a comprehensive framework for legal empowerment, focusing on women, indigenous peoples and vulnerable groups, with four mutually reinforcing pillars: access to justice and the rule of law, property rights, labour rights and business rights.
Find out more about the United Nations Legal Empowerment of the Poor.
The University of Winnipeg’s Global College is an action-oriented, multi-disciplinary forum for Canadian and international students bringing students and community members into contact with local faculty, visiting scholars, local leaders and notable speakers from around the world to discover their role within the local and global community, our responsibility to protect and responsibility to act.
MEDIA CONTACT
Diane Poulin, Communications Officer, The University of Winnipeg
P: 204.988.7135, E: d.poulin@uwinnipeg.ca
