Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

A distinctive
feature of social and
cultural life at CMC

 

The Global Struggle for Environmental Justice

Thu, October 24, 2019
Dinner Program
Vivek Maru

Vivek Maru, founder of Namati which strives to lead innovations in legal empowerment, will describe the efforts of people directly affected by environmental destruction—small hold farmers in Sierra Leone, fisher people on the coast of India, families in an industrial zone of Baltimore—to exercise their rights. Offering lessons about law, power, and institutions that emerge from this work, he will weave a story about how these struggles are connected to each other, and to all of us.

Vivek Maru founded Namati in 2011 to grow the movement for legal empowerment around the world. Namati and its partners have supported cadres of grassroots legal advocates – sometimes known as “barefoot lawyers”– in ten countries. These advocates work with vulnerable people to protect community lands, enforce environmental law, and secure basic rights to healthcare and citizenship.

Namati convenes the Global Legal Empowerment Network, more than 2,000 groups from 160 countries who are learning from one another and collaborating on common challenges. This community successfully advocated for the inclusion of access to justice in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Maru is co-author of Community Paralegals and the Pursuit of Justice (Cambridge University Press). His TED talk, How to Put the Power of Law in People’s Hands, has been viewed over a million times.

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

Claremont McKenna College
385 E. Eighth Street
Claremont, CA 91711

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