This manual on human rights litigation presents the theory of strategic litigation through real case examples led by Dejusticia and The Legal Agenda. It aims to cover each step of the strategic litigation process, including how to select a case and its components, practical perspectives on the litigation itself, and the post-judgment phase.
This model is not intended to be prescriptive. Rather, it is a set of tools that is constantly evolving and should be improved through the lessons learned from each case. Since learning is central to this model, we encourage readers to continue expanding it with every new case they have the opportunity to work on.
The manual outlines ten key steps for a human rights litigation strategy:
- Identify the injustice to be addressed.
- Define the objective.
- Develop the legal strategy.
- Select the parties.
- Assess risks and resources.
- Gather evidence.
- Develop legal arguments.
- Build a communications strategy.
- Ensure that a victory is effective or make use of a loss.
- Evaluation and learning.