Global Strategic Litigation Council for Refugee Rights

The Global Strategic Litigation Council (‘the Council’) was founded in September 2021 to empower civil society to advance the rights of refugees and migrants through strategic litigation and legal advocacy. The Council helps advocates and organizations – including those with forced displacement backgrounds – share knowledge, collectively identify priorities, and execute litigation and legal advocacy strategies. In doing so, it aims to support the consistent and progressive development of international law relating to displacement worldwide. 

Today, the rights of people on the move – including more than 37.6 million refugees – are under attack around the world. Since its launch, the Council has connected over 500 litigators, refugee leaders, advocates, organizations, and academics from every continent of the globe working to defend and expand those rights.

The Council provides direct support to its members, including on matters such as litigation strategy, coalition building, legal research,  brief writing, sourcing expert reports, drafting/reviewing pleadings  and advocacy work. We also run capacity- building training, develop useful resources and run events and regional networks to build community amongst our members.

The Council also regularly intervenes on international law matters in courts across the world. For example, the Council filed a legal intervention (amicus curiae) in the Constitutional Court of Colombia on a case relating to the mass cancellation of citizenship documents of approximately 42,000 Colombian-Venezuelans. The Council also co-filed an amicus brief in the Mexican Supreme Court with the International Detention Coalition regarding Alternatives to Detention (ATDs).

In 2023 and 2024, the Council is co-convening a series of regional consultations to create knowledge-sharing and collaboration spaces and identify new strategic legal work to support. Each regional consultation is co-convened with members of the Council – NGOs working directly with refugees and migrants around the world. Following each consultation, the Council has established a regional network for members to continue to share knowledge and collaborate on their strategic legal work. To date, these regional networks exist in Africa, Central America & Mexico, Europe and South America, the Caribbean, and South Asia.

In 2024, we intend to keep building upon our core support offer of providing litigation and advocacy support, running training and events across our thematic priorities, and building community amongst our members. We also want to focus our efforts on expanding the Council’s regional capacity and networks and furthering our work on our newest thematic priority, Climate Displacement. Follow our LinkedIn and Instagram pages for the latest updates from the Council.

More information about the current work of the Council, upcoming priorities, and how you can get involved is to the left.

If you are an individual or organization that would like to become a member of the Council, please complete this form.