3(A). What is strategic litigation?

Strategic litigation is a method that can bring about significant changes in the law, practice or public awareness through taking carefully-selected cases to court. The clients involved in strategic human rights litigation have been victims of rights abuses that are suffered by many other people. In this way, the strategic element of such litigation focuses on an individual case in order to bring about broader, systemic change.

Progress can be made on the right to live in the community via strategic litigation. However, litigation cannot operate in isolation. Strategic impact is significantly more likely when litigation operates as part of a broader set of activities including policy advocacy, capacity-building of NGOs, and public awareness campaigns. Together, these tools can comprehensively tackle a specific issue through a multifaceted approach. Litigation can be a source of remedies and ensure that case law at the national level is informed by international human rights standards. It can be used in both common law systems, where judge-made law is much more common, and in civil law jurisdictions, where it can play a persuasive and interpretive role.