Dmitry Magonya, Managing Partner of ART DE LEX, joins the Poverty, Empowerment, and the Rule of Law Working Group of the International Bar Association

The Working Group’s activities are aimed at preparing initiatives to develop legal means for ending poverty. Many people throughout the world live on the verge of or in poverty, and, to a large extent, this is determined by the institutional environment that has developed in a particular country. What can lawyers do to change this situation? (Ending Poverty: the Role of Lawyers).

In many respects, the Working Group’s activities are associated with the Millennium Development Goals being implemented under the auspices of the United Nations. Indeed, one of the UN’s main objectives today is specifically ending poverty and eliminating the institutional conditions under which poverty occurs. The rule of law as well as equal access to the legal system and qualified legal representation are certainly within the professional responsibility of the legal community.

Peter Maynard, former chairman of the Public and Professional Interests Division of the IBA, heads the Working Group whose members include Nobel laureates Muhammad Yunus and Paul Sreenan; Akira Kawamura, former president of the IBA; as well as representatives from the international and national law firms of various countries and continents. ART DE LEX is honoured to represent the experience of Russia and the CIS in the area of socio-economic activity of the state and society in fighting poverty and eliminating the conditions under which it occurs. One of the Working Group’s objectives is to prepare and conduct a wide-ranging discussion on this matter during the upcoming IBA Annual Conference-2013 to be held in Boston (http://www.ibanet.org/Conferences/Boston2013.aspx).

ART DE LEX law firm, which has successfully set up a number of professional practices to provide legal support to businesses and its clients in Russia and in other countries, is traditionally active in social causes, takes part in expert and law-making groups and provides pro bono legal services in the areas of culture and education.