A blueprint of our learnings along the way as we build our work with community partners, that we believe it is important to share openly so we can all work to do better.
A variety of terms frequently pop up in discussions around using the courts to bring about social change. In this piece, we are exploring one such term that frequently comes up in the context of our work: “movement lawyering”, a term that has grown in popularity over recent years and has started to gain greater traction in Europe, including by institutions engaged in or supporting litigation work. But what does it mean?
As a fully remote team, our regular in-person retreats are a much-valued time to connect, strategise, and enjoy one another’s company. We had our second retreat of the year in the beautiful Northern Irish countryside last June, with our team and board meeting to spend the week together.
Before we can fix systemic injustices, we need to understand them. One of the key elements of our community-driven approach to strategic litigation that challenges climate, racial, social, and economic injustices is undertaking research to reveal how these injustices are experienced by marginalised communities across Europe. By design, our research methodologies recognise the interconnected harms of climate injustice, lack of access to justice, policing, racism, social unprotection and lack of freedom of movement.
What are we asking the court to do if they find in favour of our claim? As we develop litigation work with community partners, these considerations on the request for remedies will be a crucial part of the exploration process.
When litigating for change, all efforts can have impact and play a role in moving us towards the world we want to live in.
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