IBA Annual Conference Toronto 2025
2 Nov - 7 Nov 2025
Session information
The eradication of extreme poverty and hunger: the challenge for the global legal profession and every practising lawyer
Wednesday 5 November (1115 - 1230)
Committee(s)
Poverty and Social Development Committee
(Lead)
Description
The UN Millennium Goal One, dealing with eradicating extreme poverty, is a soft law of international law. It represents the public interest worldwide. States are obligated under International Law to make good faith efforts to comply with it. Similarly, lawyers and the legal profession are ethically obliged to promote law reform that furthers the public interest. Therefore, the legal profession and lawyers must advocate for law reform and practise law to promote UN Millennium Goal One. The focus of this session will be on the practical ways in which lawyers can integrate UN Millennium Goal One into their legal practices. Thus, the panel will discuss how to empower the most vulnerable through promoting and seeking the achievement of UN Millennium Goal One through advocacy, reform, and practice.