Strategic Litigation
Women murdered with systematic impunity for their killers. Protesters surveilled and tortured by police. Journalists jailed for speaking truth to power. With authoritarianism on the rise, we collaborate with local partners around the world to confront systematic abuses, often after all else has failed.
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United States Inflicts Egregious Physical Abuse On Asylum Seekers During Deportation Flights
This case seeks accountability for severe physical and mental harm that U.S. officials inflicted on Cameroonian asylum seekers during their immigration detention and deportation, including physical abuse, medical neglect, and improper use of a full-body restraint device called The WRAP.
United States Abuses Cameroonian Asylum Seekers Before Deporting Them Back To Persecutors
This pair of related cases seeks accountability for the delivery of Cameroonian asylum back to persecution and for their abuse during immigration detention and deportation flights, in retaliation for speaking out against unjust conditions of confinement.
Indigenous women victims of sexual violence, tortured by Mexican Army
When Mexico’s war on drugs turns on its most vulnerable: sexual violence perpetrated by members of the Mexican army against a 73-year-old Indigenous woman.
Justice Achieved in Cuban Dissident’s Death
Oswaldo Payá’s death in a suspicious car crash highlights the dangers for human rights defenders in Cuba.
This case is a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking documents related to policies and procedures governing conditions of confinement in the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility (BFDF).
This case is a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking documents related to the mass detention and expulsion of more than 15,000 people at the U.S. southern border in Del Rio, Texas in September 2021. The majority of those expelled were Haitian and other Black immigrants.
United States Holds Thousands In Prolonged Civil Detention Without The Chance To Ask A Judge For Freedom
This case seeks to affirm immigrants’ rights to U.S. constitutional protections against unjustly prolonged civil detention.
Renowned investigative journalist persecuted for exposing corruption and collusion in Brazil’s judicial system
Valente’s case exemplifies how a corrupt judiciary protects wrongdoers and perpetuates human rights violations.
United States Inflicts Cruel And Degrading Treatment On Transgender People In Immigration Detention
This case is a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking documents related to standards of care for transgender people in immigration detention.
Racial and Gender Discrimination In U.S. Citizenship Law Leaves Thousands at Risk of Deportation
This case seeks to affirm U.S. constitutional protections against racial and gender discrimination in U.S. immigration law.
United States Holds Thousands In Prolonged Civil Detention Without The Chance To Ask A Judge For Freedom
This case seeks to affirm immigrants’ rights to U.S. constitutional protections against unjustly prolonged civil detention.
Our Approach to Selecting Cases
Our litigation is “strategic” because we bring cases that represent broad and/or structural issues, cases in which successful outcomes create positive change throughout society, in addition to the relief delivered to a single client. With unique global experience before both the Inter-American and African human rights bodies, as well as the United Nations human rights system, we turn to these mechanisms with our partners to protect human rights and achieve justice for entire groups of people, even an entire country or region—often setting new international legal precedent to advance human rights.
Amicus Briefs
NIGERIA: ECOWAS COURT NAMES RFK HUMAN RIGHTS AMICUS CURIAE IN TWITTER BAN CASE
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AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF GUAPINOL DEFENDERS
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RFK HUMAN RIGHTS AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS SUBMIT BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF COLOMBIAN PROTECTION ACTION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS AND SOCIAL LEADERS
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Our Experts
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The Bolivarian regime has found a sinister way to keep dissidents in check: kidnapping their loved ones to scare them into submission and silence.
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Take Action: Stop Extreme Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill in UgandaStudents learn about the policy of perestroika, how President Gorbachev pursued this policy, and how these changes within the Soviet Union led to different relationships with other nations.
Learn MoreThe lesson uses interactive activities to explore the human rights at risk and the role of government in a public health crisis.
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