Advancing Public Health through Strategic Litigation

The law has a critical role to play in advancing public health, particularly for marginalized communities. Yet many countries have laws that undermine public health, do not offer sufficient protection, or are not adequately enforced.Strategic litigation is a test of the rule of law and its proper implementation. It contributes to both the construction and consolidation of the rule of law. It is a key tool for organizations and individuals seeking to ensure better public health outcomes.Advancing Public Health through Strategic Litigation presents six case studies from different parts of the world focusing on various health rights issues and the concerns of affected communities. These studies reveal lessons for practitioners interested in pursuing this work and for funders concerned about justice and health

A Positive Right to Protection for Children

Concepts that are useful in other areas of human rights break down in the context of children. Because children are dependent on adults for their development, they are an anomaly in the liberal legal order, which views negative rights as implying fully rational, autonomous individuals that can exercise free choice. This Article argues for a positive right to protection for children, rooted in dignity, by probing the problematic nature of the positive/negative rights duality and exploring alternate legal approaches to protecting children \u27s rights in both international and comparative law. The adoption of positive rights for children would help assure adequate protection, which the current American legal regime, as typified by the case DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, fails to do

Teaching Written Advocacy in a Law Clinic Setting

Written advocacy is a critical lawyering skill and vital component of student work in many clinics. This is certainly true in appellate advocacy and policy-based clinics, such as my own focused on human rights advocacy. Teaching written advocacy requires a deliberate and thoughtful pedagogy, just as with other aspects of clinical teaching. There is a rich literature on teaching legal writing, but only sparse discussion of its applicability in the fast-paced law clinic setting, where written products have real world consequences and need to be of high quality. This article delves into this literature and argues that written advocacy consists of three core components: writing strategically, writing logically, and writing with heart. Teaching written advocacy thus entails supporting students in shifting into a mindset of persuasive writing, strengthening argument coherence, and developing narratives that resonate with an audience. This article then proposes supervision and feedback methods to strengthen each core component, identifying lessons from the literature for the law clinic context, as well as engaging in self-reflection and assessment of techniques with which our Human Rights Clinic is currently experimenting

Assessing Legal Advocacy to Advance Roma Health in Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia

Across Europe, Roma suffer extreme marginalisation, negatively impacting their health. Many cannot access healthcare at all. For others, the health system is a hostile place. At the same time, good legal frameworks are in place to protect health rights, and there is increasing recognition of systemic violations experienced by Roma. Essential to building on this momentum and closing the gap between standards and implementation is Roma ability to conduct legal advocacy. Since 2010, the Open Society Foundations has supported Roma engagement in Macedonia, Romania and Serbia in the following advocacy strategies: i) legal empowerment, ii) documentation and advocacy, iii) media advocacy, and iv) strategic litigation. This article presents a framework developed to evaluate the effectiveness of these efforts and a baseline against which outcomes can be measured in a few years. The evaluation framework provides a qualitative assessment of Roma capacity, accountability for violations, changes in law and practice, and impact on communities. Findings reveal that that presently Roma lack knowledge of their rights and rarely challenge violations. Accountability in healthcare is practically non-existent. However, where legal advocacy has been used, violations decrease, and power dynamics shift. As healthcare becomes more responsive to communities, it also better serves non-Roma citizens