Bridging the "justice gap" requires a mechanism to connect the beleaguered rights holder with the distant duty bearer. Among the most powerful and promising bridges is strategic human rights litigation. This session focused on Open Society Justice Initiative’s global multi-year study of good practices which demonstrates the ability of marginalized communities to win unlikely victories. OSJI’s findings included that there is a growing demand for justice through litigation as a means to bridge the justice gap. Individual strategic litigation cases should not be viewed as win-lose situations, but instead as a process where cases brought can help to change the political climate and public opinion and increase opportunity for positive changes later on, and that in order to be effective, implementation of court decisions must happen. Other key takeaways from the session included strategic litigation’s important role in bringing about structural changes, the fact that law must play a role in consolidating open societies, and the recognition that courts are one of the few places where activists can directly challenge power.
Read the full summary for this working session.
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