On 16 February 2026, the Research in Public International Law Group welcomed Professor Helen Duffy (University of Leiden, The Netherlands) to deliver a talk on “Strategic Human Rights Litigation – and the case of Abu Zubaydah”. She shared her experience as a human rights litigator with over 30 staff and students (in person and online) on our LLB, LLM, and BTC programmes. In her presentation, she explored what “strategic human rights litigation” is, and importantly, what it is not. The discussion went far beyond a courtroom-focused view of wins and losses. Instead, it encouraged us to see litigation as one tool among many to promote social change, document history, and uphold human dignity.
What makes litigation “strategic”?
At its core, strategic human rights litigation is defined by its goal rather than the forum. It involves legal action pursued with aims that extend beyond the immediate parties and the narrow result of a single case. These goals may include clarifying the law, empowering communities, catalysing policy reforms, documenting truth or shifting public narratives.
Strategy influences how cases are constructed, the forums chosen, the timing, the parties involved, and how legal actions are integrated with advocacy, media, and community efforts. While strategic human rights litigation was once niche, it is now increasingly employed, with a growing number of claims and diverse judicial mechanisms. Yet, Professor Duffy also stressed its challenges: courts face attacks, judgments are not enforced, and the rule of law is being undermined.
Updating the lenses: time-lapse, wide-angle, high-definition
Professor Duffy, the founder of Human Rights in Practice, proposed three complementary ‘lenses’ for thinking about the impact of strategic litigation.
Time-lapse: Strategic impact can occur before, during, and long after a case concludes. Litigation processes can dignify survivors, organise communities, and shape public understanding. In Hadijatou Mani v Niger, the very act of testimony in a regional court was experienced by a former slave as empowering, making visible what had long been denied. Similarly, in Plan de Sánchez v Guatemala, a genocide case before the Inter-American Court, litigation mobilised a community around truth and reparations, even as social and everyday life needs (e.g., crops, health facilities) extended beyond what any judgment could deliver.
Wide-angle: Litigation is only one contributor to change. In Argentina, accountability for dictatorship-era crimes unfolded over years through multiple processes, from challenging amnesty laws to criminal prosecutions, all accompanied by documentation efforts, films, and social mobilisation. Law and society moved together.
High-definition: Impact is multi-dimensional and certainly not linear. Outcomes can include cessation of violations, reparations, legal and policy reforms, institutional strengthening, and the creation of a historical record. Sometimes, the most meaningful “result” is the articulation of truth in a public forum. One Hebron resident, repeatedly litigating land issues despite adverse prospects, captured this poignantly: “If they do nothing, I have a record… and what else can I do?” That record, he suggested, is itself a form of resistance and an archive of rights-based claims.
Case study: Abu Zubaydah and the CIA rendition programme
The case of Abu Zubaydah illustrates both the promise and the limitations of strategic human rights litigation in a context sadly marked by secrecy, transnational complicity, and enduring impunity. Following 11 September 2001, the United States operated a global system of “black sites” where individuals were detained and subjected to brutal torture.
Traditional avenues, such as criminal investigations in the US, were blocked. It is telling that the first court to acknowledge what happened to Abu Zubaydah was the European Court of Human Rights, which found Poland and Lithuania responsible for their roles in his unlawful detention and ill-treatment, recognising state complicity and ordering compensation. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention recognised his detention as arbitrary. Various mechanisms were employed. Although each was just a piece of the puzzle, together they revealed a system intentionally designed to evade the law.
Has this litigation “succeeded”? By conventional standards, the answer is sobering. Abu Zubaydah remains in detention; no one who designed or maintained that system, or tortured him, has been prosecuted. Yet, thanks to this litigation, the programme’s secrecy has been pierced. Compensation holds both symbolic and material significance. A detailed historical record now exists to inform public memory and future policy decisions.
Professor Duffy highlighted the interplay between law and other modes of expression, such as advocacy, journalism, and “artivism”. For Abu Zubaydah, whose voice is tightly controlled, artwork has become a means of communicating with the world. It serves as another reminder that justice extends beyond the courtroom and that storytelling is powerful.
Beyond the judgment: power, protest, and perseverance
If we steer away from a binary win-or-lose vision, we can better see strategic human rights litigation as a contribution to collective agency. Communities often know that a single case will not solve entrenched problems such as poverty, discrimination, and structural violence. Litigation can nonetheless name harms and acknowledge experiences. Strategic litigation is a tool which, combined with social movements, cultural work, and policy advocacy, can reframe debates, protect space for dissent, and sustain hope in difficult times. As two survivors put it, one a Gazan applicant at the European Court of Human Rights, another a torture survivor from Argentina – litigation can be “a form of resistance”, “a form of protest”, and a source of “courage to keep fighting”.
Strategic litigation and the call for reflective, impact-focused legal practice
Strategic human rights litigation serves as a reminder that the pursuit of justice is not merely a goal to be achieved, but rather an ongoing, dynamic process. It is characterised by its iterative nature, involving continuous refinement, and reflects our inherently imperfect humanity. As I listened to Professor Duffy, I was reminded that a couple of days earlier I delivered a lecture to our Year 2 LLB students on the Student Lawyer module, urging them to engage critically with the interrelationship between law and society, not only considering the broader impact that laws exert on society but also the influence of society on the law.