My Contributions to the Panel on 'The Transformative Power of South-South Partnerships' at A4ID Annual International Conference - March 20, 2023.

On March 20, I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion on “The Transformative Power of South-South Partnerships” at the Advocates for International Development’s (A4ID) Annual Conference along with Fiona Darroch (Barrister At Law at Normanton Chambers & Director of Law at Protimos), Maitre Jo?lle Kabagambe (Deputy Director, Rwanda Bridges to Justice). The panel was moderated by Mr. Momo Turay (Country Director - UK Sierra Leone Pro Bono Network).

I spoke about the Importance of South-South Partnerships in relation to my own experience of engaging in south-south partnerships on ground as well as on the limitations of conducting pro bono legal work in global south jurisdictions when the legal experts are from the north.

I spoke about how Pakistan has much in common with both South Asian societies as well as Muslim countries within and outside of South Asia due to our shared histories, culture or religion that continue to inform our policies, positions, laws, rules, rights and relations in the society, particularly in context of women and their access to rights.

I shared the experience of partnering with Legal Aid Society and Musawah last year for a two-day workshop on property rights of women in marriage and upon divorce. Musawah is a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. It was launched in February 2009 at a Global Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The workshop discussed emerging jurisprudence from Muslim countries as regards matrimonial property rights of women that traditionally have had little or no ability to claim a stake in matrimonial home and were left vulnerable in case of divorce or dissolution of marriage.

Over 15 female lawyers from women in law initiative participated from all across Pakistan. These female lawyers were given an opportunity to be trained on how other Muslim countries have used a diversity of Islamic jurisprudence and Islamic legal tools and traditions in justifying the recognition of women’s contribution of labour and effort in building up matrimonial assets. In addition to that, the extensive comparative research done by Musawah of over 45 countries that have some form of codified or uncodified Muslim family law was shared and that enabled lawyers in Pakistan to understand how Muslim family laws can and have evolved to include fair and just provisions on matrimonial property.

This shared learning experience really enriched the scope and sphere of legal and Islamic arguments that female lawyers in Pakistan were then also able to adopt whilst representing their clients in Pakistan to make a case for women’s right to matrimonial property as well as to work on a draft bill proposing amendments to the Muslim Family Law Ordinance – the governing law in the field, to specifically cater to this right, so there is really is a lot to gain from shared contexts and this is the power of transformation from south-south partnerships.

I also spoke about the strategies for effectively engaging in partnerships to achieve sustainable change and the next steps of effectively working in international development using south-south partnership models particularly for purposes of UN Sustainable Development Goals.

I laid stress in the fact that Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot just be viewed as an aspirational standard that we are to move towards; we have to realize that until we do achieve them, the issues they highlight, including hunger, poverty, inequality etc are all lived realities of people and there are actual people and entire ecosystems that are being impacted as we speak, by development or policies that continue to be unsustainable and as a result they continue to infringe upon the rights of people making it more and more challenging to attain international development.

The fewer the people are able to enjoy, exercise and enforce their rights, the lesser the chances are that there is sustainable development; so a key indicator to achieve and assess sustainable change really lies in the ability of people to enjoy their rights such that it can be said that a given goal has been attained.

Where people don’t or cannot access their rights, the benefits of the best of the legislations cannot trickle down to them so people’s ability to access their rights should be at the heart of any strategies for development. This obviously begins with creating more awareness of the rights and avenues available, but we also need to think how the people can be supported beyond awareness when they look to enforce the rights, they now realise they have. I think it is very important to undertake gap analysis studies to see where the disconnect from rights and remedies is and how those gaps can be filled with cooperation.

For instance, do any legal aid and support mechanisms exist? Would legal expertise be accessible to people even in far flung areas? What happens when backlash from the community and family comes? Are there any mechanisms to support and develop agency of survivors who access their rights for them to be able to navigate and emerge successful from the backlash and the guilt and shame they experience upon asking for their legal rights?

Unfortunately, not all these questions have answers in law but south-south cooperation is not limited to legal support and it is important to supplement it with doctrinal, administrative, economic and other structures that can accommodate victims and survivors, who by accessing their rights may in their own way be contributing to the attainment of SDGs as legal precedents can have a lasting impact on rights and positions beyond individual cases.

? I think our strategies need to be more anthropocentric and reoriented towards people’s lived experiences and about empowering people, particularly those at the margins, and building relationships with them as stewards and stakeholders of SDGs, so as to include them in the processes of justice and development directly or via fair representation,

? On creating opportunities for increased interaction, shared learning, networking and exposure and,

? Building horizontal, inclusive and collective processes, enabling structures and institutions that are intersectional and locally contextualized that will lead to sustainable change and attainment of SGDs,

? Particularly in South Asia, we need to work on political conciliation among our countries to begin and create space for dialogue on key issues affecting us all as a region so that space for people to people, lawyer-lawyer, judges-judges, and community to community engagement can also be nurtured as right now everything positive and collaborative is at a standstill, we are not talking to each other in collaborative and constructive manner. I stressed that media, artists, civil society, activists, academia, technical experts, social media companies, political parties and their workers on all sides, have a huge role to play in this regard.

Over 250 participants joined live from over 40 different countries for this year’s A4ID’s annual conference.

At the close of the conference, A4ID CEO Yasmin Batliwala MBE announced the launch of the SDG 17 Legal Guide, a collaborative effort from lawyers working towards sustainable development who want to help engage and educate others in this pursuit. The legal guide is now available for all to read on the A4ID website. https://lnkd.in/erP9gAxG .