The Law
According to a new report from a UN commission, 2 in every 3 people (some 4 billion in total) are “excluded from the rule of law.” Around 40% of the developing world’s five-year-old children are not registered as even existing. Later, people will find that the home they live in, the land they farm, or the business that they start, is not protected by legally enforceable property rights. Even in the rare cases when they can afford to go to court, the service is poor. India, for example, has only 11 judges for every 1m people.
Because they are outside the rule of law, the vast majority of poor people are obliged to work (if they work at all) in the informal economy, which is less productive than the formal, legal part of the economy. According to the report, this is one of the main reasons why so much of humanity remains mired in poverty.
“The law poor,” The Economist