In 2008, the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP), chaired by Madeleine K. Albright and Hernando de Soto, published its report Making the Law Work for Everyone. In this report, the CLEP argues ‘… that four billion people around the world are robbed of the chance to better their lives and climb out of poverty, because they are excluded from the rule of law’. The CLEP also develops ‘… a comprehensive agenda for legal empowerment encompassing four pillars that must be central in national and international efforts to give the poor protection and opportunities…: access to justice and the rule of law, property rights, labour rights and business rights’. In this special section, which is edited and introduced by Stephen Golub, the idea of legal empowerment of the poor in general, and the report in particular, is discussed by Dan Banik, Julio Faundez, Jan Michiel Otto and Matthew Stephens.