Pacta sunt servanda.
Practice area · VIII
Human rights, international justice and strategic litigation
When a State deprives a person of liberty without a fair trial, inflicts ill-treatment, threatens expulsion or extradition, imposes silence, attacks reputation or strikes at property, the domestic legal order may close: national courts endorse, defer or fail to provide redress. Strategic litigation then consists in moving the case to the forum where the law can still take effect. International human rights law opens, where the conditions of jurisdiction and admissibility are met, avenues that the domestic order has been unable, or unwilling, to make effective. The European Court of Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Committee, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the special procedures, the Inter-American Court and Commission on Human Rights, the African Court and Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, as well as certain specialised regional courts, do not review a case in the abstract: they take up a situation, characterise it, and give it a reach that domestic law had neutralised.
Strategic litigation therefore does not begin with a norm: it begins with a situation. It reconstructs the facts, identifies the violation, chooses the forum, articulates the universal and the regional, organises the evidence, anticipates admissibility and turns a violation suffered into procedural, institutional and remedial leverage. Command of the positive obligations of the State, of victim status, of the exhaustion of domestic remedies, of interim measures and of the national margin of appreciation is not a matter of rhetoric: it constitutes the very architecture of the defence. The norm never precedes the situation: it is its legal translation. The forum never precedes the strategy: it is its instrument.
The person deprived of liberty
Arbitrary detention, incommunicado detention, unfair trial, judgment in absentia
Physical integrity under threat
Torture, ill-treatment, non-refoulement, extradition into danger
Voice, property and the environment
Expression, press, religion, privacy and the right to be forgotten, property rights, rights and climate
Strategic human rights litigation is not advocacy of principles: it is engineering, which reconstructs a situation, chooses the forum, and makes the law produce the effect that the national court refuses.
Identify your situation
Detention, trial, expression, property, climate: identify your situation
Eight points of entry, from the person in detention to the owner whose assets are frozen or the community exposed to environmental harm. The firm handles each in isolation, or several together under a single strategy.
A person is detained without a valid legal basis, incommunicado or on political grounds
Arrest without valid grounds, incommunicado detention, detention whose real motive is political. Objective: to have the deprivation of liberty characterised as arbitrary by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the competent bodies, on the basis of Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, without any outcome being guaranteed.
Weaponised proceedings target you: judgment in absentia, political persecution, opposition figure or leader removed
Proceedings whose real purpose is to remove a person, judgment delivered in absentia, conviction serving a political end, sentence of ineligibility, leader targeted for what he or she represents. Objective: to bring the violation of the right to a fair trial, guaranteed by Article 14 of the Covenant and Article 6 of the European Convention, and the protection of political rights, before the competent international forum.
A person is tortured or ill-treated in detention, or threatened with extradition into danger
Torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, conditions offending human dignity, or extradition to a country where the person faces a risk of torture. Objective: to secure a finding that an absolute prohibition, admitting of neither derogation nor balancing, has been violated, to invoke non-refoulement, and to obtain an interim measure suspending an imminent removal.
Journalistic, political or civil society speech is prosecuted or censored
Journalist prosecuted, defender obstructed, opposition speech criminalised under the guise of ordinary offences, source under threat. Objective: to defend freedom of expression and freedom of the press, guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention and Article 19 of the Covenant, on the grounds of necessity in a democratic society and the proportionality of the restriction.
A religious practice or institution is restricted or criminalised
Religious practice obstructed, rite restricted, religious institution targeted. Objective: to assert freedom of religion and worship, guaranteed by Article 9 of the European Convention and Article 18 of the Covenant, in its collective and ritual dimension, through a careful proportionality analysis.
Your privacy is violated, your reputation destroyed, information to be delisted
Unlawful surveillance, data leak, damaging publication, online reputation and outdated information to be delisted. Objective: to assert the right to respect for private life, guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention and Article 17 of the Covenant, and the right to be forgotten, including in its balancing against freedom of expression and its horizontal effect between private actors.
Your assets are frozen, seized or confiscated, your property interfered with
Asset freeze, confiscation, de facto expropriation, seizure without legal basis or beyond all proportion, interference with property in a political or sanctions context. Objective: to assert the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions, guaranteed by Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention, Article 21 of the American Convention and Article 14 of the African Charter, on the grounds of lawfulness, legitimate aim and proportionality.
Environmental or climate harm threatens the rights of a person or a community
Pollution, hazardous project, a State's climate failings, exposure of a community or a business. Objective: to carry strategic human rights litigation into the environmental and climate field, through the positive obligations of the State and the justiciability of the right to a healthy environment, in conjunction with the field of business and human rights.
Opening of litigation
Protection is won through forum, evidence and speed, never through indignation alone.
An unfair trial is not an end: it is the opening of international litigation.
Strategic diagnosis
Warning signs and aggravating factors
Certain indicators show that the situation no longer calls for ordinary handling, but for a crisis architecture. These signals are not sufficient to characterise the case in law; they warrant a rapid, confidential and structured mapping.
Warning signs
- Arrest without a clear legal basis or prolonged pre-trial detention.
- Judgment in absentia, political conviction or targeted ineligibility.
- Extradition or removal to a State where torture or unfair trials are documented.
- Restriction of journalistic, religious, political or civil society speech.
- Serious damage to reputation, surveillance, data leak or outdated information.
- Domestic time limits expiring or domestic remedies manifestly ineffective.
Aggravating factors
- Absence of any strategy linking domestic defence, regional forum and United Nations mechanisms.
- Late application after time limits have expired or the measure has been enforced.
- Medical, procedural or contextual evidence not assembled in time.
- Forum poorly chosen in the light of the State's ratifications, reservations or declarations.
- Public communication not coordinated with the litigation strategy.
Mistakes to avoid
- Pleading a norm before having characterised the situation.
- Applying to an international forum without verifying admissibility.
- Awaiting the final decision when an interim measure is required.
- Transmitting sensitive documents without a secure channel.
- Confusing humanitarian emergency, litigation and diplomatic mobilisation.
Situation 1 · Arbitrary detention
Arbitrary detention, when liberty is denied
Deprivation of liberty without legal basis, incommunicado detention, political motive: the situation is characterised at the international level before it is brought before whichever forum the State has left open.
Deprivation of liberty without legal basis
A person is arrested and held in detention without any valid legal basis, at times incommunicado, at times for a motive that nothing states openly but that everything points to: their activism, their opinions, their office. The domestic court upholds the measure or defers its review indefinitely. International law characterises this situation: detention is arbitrary where it has no legal basis, where it punishes the exercise of a freedom, or where the guarantees of a fair trial are disregarded to such a degree that the deprivation of liberty is stripped of any lawful character. Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 5 of the European Convention set the standard.
The opinion of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention examines individual cases and issues an opinion on the arbitrary nature of the detention, assigning it to one of its categories: absence of legal basis, punishment for the exercise of rights, grave violation of fair trial guarantees, discrimination. The opinion is not an enforceable decision, but an authoritative UN characterisation, one that can be invoked before the State and in other forums and that opens the way to the regional and universal avenues. The firm documents the situation, characterises it and brings it before this mechanism.
The architectural question: choosing the forum that is genuinely open
Characterisation is not enough: the situation must still be brought before a forum that is genuinely accessible, and this is where legal engineering parts company with advocacy. Direct individual access to the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights requires a declaration by the State under Article 34(6) of the Protocol: some States have never deposited it, others have withdrawn it. Where it is lacking, the route runs through the African Commission, in Banjul, and through the UN mechanisms, namely communications to the Human Rights Committee and petitions to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Mapping ratifications, declarations and reservations, State by State, is the decisive preliminary step: a poorly chosen forum is time lost that the situation cannot afford.
Arbitrary detention is not challenged solely under domestic law, which has upheld it: it is characterised at the international level, then brought before the forum that the State's ratifications still leave open.
Situation 2 · Fair trial and judicial persecution
Fair trial and judicial persecution
Weaponised proceedings, judgment in absentia, opponent sidelined, business leader targeted: the framework of fair trial and political rights dismantles the construction and identifies the forum.
Weaponised proceedings
Criminal proceedings are not always what they claim to be. Where, by their target, their timing and their outcome, they seek to remove a person from public life rather than to try an offence, they tip over into judicial persecution. Its hallmarks are the judgment rendered in absentia, without the person having been able to mount a defence, and the conviction coupled with a bar on standing for office that deprives them of any political future. The right to a fair trial, guaranteed by Article 14 of the Covenant and Article 6 of the European Convention, supplies the framework for dismantling this construction: independence and impartiality of the tribunal, rights of the defence, presence and adversarial proceedings, presumption of innocence.
The regional forum, the avenue of challenge
Once domestic remedies have been exhausted without the violation being redressed, the route runs through the competent international forum: the European Court for the member States of the Council of Europe, the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights for Latin America, and the Human Rights Committee by way of individual communications. For Latin America, States parties to the American Convention come under the Inter-American Commission and then, where appropriate, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The choice of forum is determined by ratifications, admissibility rules and the exhaustion of remedies.
Opponents, candidates and business human rights
Judicial persecution does not strike only ordinary litigants: it targets figures chosen for what they represent. An opponent sidelined, a candidate barred from standing, an election deprived of its integrity through the elimination of rival candidates all engage the political rights guaranteed by Article 25 of the Covenant and Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention. A business leader prosecuted or detained under the guise of economic offences whose real motive is political falls within what may be termed business human rights, a strategic rather than an autonomous legal category: the protection of fundamental guarantees, namely detention, fair trial and reputation, where the target is singled out for their role rather than for the alleged act. The firm defends these figures on the terrain of human rights, in conjunction with the neighbouring fields of lawfare and immunities.
A fair trial cannot be re-run: its denial is challenged before the international forum which the domestic courts, having disregarded it, can no longer keep closed. Behind the formal measure, the forum brings the real purpose to light.
Situation 3 · Torture, ill-treatment and non-refoulement
Torture, ill-treatment and non-refoulement
An absolute prohibition that protects the person in detention and forbids their surrender to the State that threatens them. In the face of imminent removal, the interim measure is a matter of hours.
The absolute prohibition of torture
A detained person is subjected to torture, to inhuman or degrading treatment, to conditions that offend their dignity. The prohibition that protects them is absolute: it admits of no derogation, no state of emergency and no balancing against any interest of the State whatsoever. Article 3 of the European Convention, Article 7 of the Covenant and the Convention against Torture establish a protection that nothing can suspend. Having the violation established requires a rigorous evidentiary record: medical certificates, witness statements, reports by organisations and special procedures, documentation of the conditions of detention.
Non-refoulement, an extension of the prohibition
The same prohibition requires that a person not be surrendered to a State where they face a risk of torture. The principle of non-refoulement, which flows from the absolute character of Article 3 of the European Convention and Article 3 of the Convention against Torture, prohibits extradition or removal where there is a real risk of torture or inhuman treatment, as it does where there is a risk of a flagrantly unfair trial. When extradition or removal is imminent, the matter is decided in hours: the risk must be established, country by country and individual by individual, and the competent forum seised of it.
The interim measure, when removal is imminent
In the face of imminent removal to such a risk, the European Court may indicate an interim measure under Rule 39 of its Rules of Court, suspending removal for the duration of its examination; the UN mechanisms and the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights have equivalent arrangements for interim or precautionary measures. This is the instrument of urgency, the one that the Crisis Room activates without delay. The firm documents the risk, prepares the request and lodges it within the narrow window in which it can still take effect, without any outcome being guaranteed.
The prohibition of torture admits of no balancing: it protects the person in detention and forbids their surrender to the State that threatens them. In the face of imminent removal, the interim measure is a matter of hours.
Situation 4 · Freedom of expression and of the press
Freedom of expression and of the press
Journalist prosecuted, source under threat, whistleblower, opposition speech criminalised: the defence is conducted on the terrain of lawfulness, legitimate aim and proportionality.
Freedom of expression and the press
A journalist is prosecuted for their publications, a human rights defender obstructed in their work, opposition speech criminalised under the guise of ordinary criminal offences. Freedom of expression, guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention and Article 19 of the Covenant, protects debate on matters of public interest and the role of the press as public watchdog; restrictions are permissible only where prescribed by law, legitimate and proportionate. Its scope now extends to the protection of journalistic sources, whistleblowers and online expression. The firm defends repressed voices before the forums where the characterisation of the restriction is decided.
The criminalisation of speech and activism
Beyond the isolated case, the restriction of freedoms often proceeds from an apparatus: criminal laws tailored to reach a category of persons, vaguely defined offences invoked selectively, proceedings multiplied to exhaust the target. The response is not confined to defending the act prosecuted: it reconstructs the apparatus, demonstrates its purpose and brings the challenge, on the terrain of lawfulness and proportionality, before the competent forum.
Freedom of expression is not defended solely on the merits of the act prosecuted: it is defended on the terrain of the lawfulness, the legitimate aim and the proportionality of the restriction, where the characterisation is decided.
Situation 5 · Freedom of religion and ritual practices
Freedom of religion and ritual practices
Worship obstructed, rite restricted, institution targeted: a protection that is collective and ritual, subject to a careful proportionality analysis.
Freedom of religion and ritual practices
Freedom of religion and worship, guaranteed by Article 9 of the European Convention and Article 18 of the Covenant, protects belief as well as its collective and ritual manifestation. Ritual practices, such as ritual slaughter or ritual circumcision, may fall within the scope of freedom of religion and, depending on the case, of family life. Their regulation nonetheless calls for a careful proportionality analysis, taking into account the aims pursued, non-discrimination, the best interests of the child, public health and, in the case of slaughter, the requirements of animal welfare.
The collective and institutional dimension
Freedom of religion does not protect individual conscience alone: it guarantees the autonomy of religious communities and institutions, the wearing of religious symbols, conscientious objection and the collective exercise of worship. Restrictions, whether directed at a place, a rite, a garment or an organisation, are reviewed on the terrain of lawfulness, legitimate aim and non-discrimination. The firm acts for communities and institutions whose practice is obstructed, on this terrain of balancing.
Freedom of religion is defended in its collective and ritual dimension, through a proportionality analysis attentive to the aims pursued, to non-discrimination and to the competing interests invoked by the State.
Situation 6 · Private life, reputation and the right to be forgotten
Private life, reputation and the right to be forgotten
Surveillance, data, injurious publication, information to be de-referenced: a ground for offensive action, defended through the positive obligations of the State and the horizontal effect of rights.
Private life as a battleground
Private life, guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention and Article 17 of the Covenant, is no longer merely a shield against interference by the State: it has become a ground for offensive action. Unlawful surveillance, interception of communications, leakage or exploitation of personal data, publication injurious to a person's honour and standing: protection is not confined to the negative obligations of the State: it imposes positive obligations upon it, including the duty to protect the person against infringements committed by private actors, which legal scholarship describes as the horizontal effect of rights, or Drittwirkung.
Reputation and the right to be forgotten
Reputation is an interest protected under the head of private life. In the digital age, its defence proceeds through the right to be forgotten and de-referencing: having information that is inaccurate, outdated or disproportionate to its purpose removed from search results. The difficulty lies in a balancing exercise, conducted case by case, between the right to respect for private life and freedom of expression and information, guaranteed by Article 10. The firm conducts this balancing exercise, from the removal of a publication, through data protection, to de-referencing proceedings.
Evidentiary and procedural engineering
Reconstructing an infringement of private life calls for legal engineering: establishing the unlawfulness of the collection or dissemination, characterising the harm, identifying the party responsible, choosing between the domestic and the international route. Victim status, the exhaustion of domestic remedies and subsidiarity govern admissibility. The firm coordinates the domestic response, on data and reputation, with the international response where the State has failed in its positive obligations of protection.
Private life is no longer merely a shield: it is a ground for offensive action, on which reputation, data and the right to be forgotten are defended through the positive obligations of the State and the horizontal effect of rights.
Situation 7 · The right to property, possessions and confiscations
The right to property, possessions and confiscations
Asset freeze, confiscation, de facto expropriation: interference with possessions is challenged on the terrain of lawfulness, legitimate aim and fair balance.
The right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions
Asset freeze, confiscation, de facto expropriation, seizure without legal basis or disproportionate in scope: interference with property is often the instrument through which political or economic pressure is brought to bear. The right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions, guaranteed by Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention, Article 21 of the American Convention and Article 14 of the African Charter, protects natural and legal persons alike. It does not prohibit all interference, but subjects it to a threefold requirement: a legal basis, a legitimate aim in the general interest, and a fair balance between the interest pursued and the burden imposed on the owner.
The terrain of sanctions and confiscations
The protection of possessions overlaps directly with sanctions regimes and confiscation measures: an asset freeze, a restrictive measure or a foreign criminal seizure may also be challenged on the terrain of the right to property, by demonstrating the absence of a sufficient legal basis, disproportionality or the failure to strike a fair balance. The firm ties this angle to the field of sanctions and delisting and with that of investments and armed conflicts, where the interference with possessions is coupled with a sovereign dimension.
Proof of the interference and reparation
Reconstructing an interference with possessions requires establishing the existence of a protected possession, at times of a legitimate expectation, the attributability of the interference to the State, and the extent of the harm. Victim status and the exhaustion of domestic remedies govern admissibility; reparation, whether restitution or compensation, is what is ultimately at stake. The firm builds the evidentiary case before the application is lodged, without any outcome being guaranteed.
The right to property does not prohibit interference: it subjects it to lawfulness, legitimate aim and fair balance. It is through this framework that an asset freeze, a confiscation or a de facto expropriation is challenged.
Situation 8 · Human rights, the environment and the climate
Human rights, the environment and the climate
Pollution, high-risk project, a State's climate failure: through indirect protection and positive obligations, environmental harm becomes an enforceable violation.
The environmental and climate turn in human rights
International human rights law has taken up the environment and the climate. Environmental degradation, exposure to pollution and the failure of a State to prevent a serious risk now engage protected rights: life, physical integrity, private life and the home, by way of indirect protection. The progressive recognition of a right to a healthy environment and the growing justiciability of climate obligations open up a new field of strategic litigation, in which the situation of an individual or a community is translated into an enforceable violation.
The positive obligations of the State
The strength of this litigation lies in positive obligations: the State is not merely bound to refrain, it must prevent, regulate, inform and protect against environmental harm, including harm arising from private activities. Where it stands by or tolerates the harm, its inaction becomes a violation. The European Convention and the Covenant, read as living instruments through evolutive interpretation, supply the framework; the treaty bodies and the regional courts refine its scope.
The link with businesses and communities
Environmental human rights litigation converges with the field of business and human rights: a community's exposure to a high-risk project, harm to resources, liability along a chain of activities. The firm takes on these situations in conjunction with the Business and Human Rights cluster, on the terrain of the positive obligations of the State as on that of the due diligence expected of economic actors, without any outcome being guaranteed.
The environment and the climate no longer lie outside human rights law: through indirect protection and positive obligations, environmental harm becomes an enforceable violation, for an individual as for a community.
Forums and mechanisms
The forums and mechanisms available
Not an abstract norm, but the concrete arenas in which the situation can still produce an effect. The Inter-American Court and Commission on Human Rights, the African Court and Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the ECOWAS Court of Justice constitute distinct areas of expertise, separate from the European Court and the UN bodies, among them the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
European Court of Human Rights
Individual application against a member State of the Council of Europe, after exhaustion of domestic remedies, and interim measure under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court where removal or an imminent risk so warrants. The forum for situations falling under the European Convention.
UN Human Rights Committee
Individual communications under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, for the States that have accepted it: a universal quasi-judicial forum on detention, fair trial, torture and fundamental freedoms.
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Examination of individual cases and opinion on the arbitrary nature of the detention, assigned to one of its categories. An authoritative UN characterisation, not enforceable but capable of being relied upon before the State and in other forums, regional and universal alike.
United Nations Special Procedures
Special Rapporteurs and working groups on torture, the independence of judges and lawyers, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and the situation of human rights defenders: urgent appeals and communications, available in an emergency and over the long term alike.
Inter-American Court and Commission on Human Rights
A distinct area of expertise. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights receives the petition, may adopt precautionary measures as a matter of urgency, and may then refer the case to the Inter-American Court for the States that have accepted its jurisdiction. This case law stands out for its boldness, for so-called transformative reparations going beyond compensation, and for a rich practice on enforced disappearances, unfair trials and political rights. The forum for situations arising in Latin America.
African Court and Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
A distinct area of expertise. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, in Banjul, receives communications and adopts provisional measures; the African Court may be seised directly by an individual only where the State has deposited the declaration under Article 34(6), which several States have never deposited or have withdrawn. Within West Africa, the ECOWAS Court of Justice offers a further, separate avenue, with direct individual access and no requirement of prior exhaustion of domestic remedies, often the swiftest. The African Charter has features of its own: peoples' rights, duties, non-derogability.
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
A substantively rich field. The Committee monitors the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, whose scope covers health, housing, work, social security, education and cultural rights. For the States that have accepted the Optional Protocol, it examines individual communications; it sheds light on social justice and the positive obligations of the State where civil rights find their economic and social extension.
Other United Nations treaty bodies
Beyond these bodies, the Committee against Torture, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and other committees receive individual communications for the States that have accepted this competence, and offer complementary angles on a single situation.
What the firm puts into practice
The method
A unified sequence, from the characterisation of the situation to the choice of forum, urgency, evidence and execution, conducted case by case under a single strategy.
01
Characterisation of the situation, not of the norm
Reconstructing the facts into enforceable categories: arbitrary detention within the meaning of the Working Group's categories, violation of the right to a fair trial, treatment contrary to Article 3, risk of refoulement. The situation is characterised before the norm is pleaded.
02
Choice of forum
Determining the forum, whether domestic, regional or universal, on the basis of the State's ratifications, the admissibility rules, the exhaustion of domestic remedies and the imperative of speed. To confuse the forums is to lose time that the situation cannot afford.
03
Urgency and precautionary measures
Where the risk is imminent, an interim measure under Rule 39 of the Rules of the European Court, urgent appeals from the special procedures, interim or precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights. The Crisis Room activates these levers without delay.
04
Building the evidentiary record
Gathering and ordering the evidence: documentation of the facts, expert reports and medical certificates, witness statements, reports by organisations and special procedures, a chronology establishing the real motive. The strength of the case is built before the application is lodged.
05
Coordinated deployment of the forums
Combining the universal and the regional, bringing a UN characterisation into dialogue with a regional application, harnessing reputational and diplomatic leverage. Forums reinforce one another when they are coordinated; they cancel one another out when they are pursued piecemeal.
06
Execution, reparation and follow-up
Securing the execution of the decision and the reparation due, and ensuring long-term follow-up with the State and the competent mechanisms, until the person's situation is effectively restored.
Expert work and strategy
Doctrinal expertise and overall strategy
Beyond the defence engagement, doctrinal authority placed in the service of the characterisation of situations and the choice of forums, together with a practice of expert witness work and professional opinion.
The engineering of human rights
Mastery of strategic litigation owes less to knowledge of the norms than to their engineering: knowing how to characterise a situation in enforceable categories, how to choose between competing forums, how to handle positive obligations, victim status, the exhaustion of domestic remedies, the national margin of appreciation, horizontal effect and indirect protection. This technique turns a violation suffered into procedural leverage, and it is this that decides the outcome long before the hearing. Human rights law is read as a living instrument, through an evolutive interpretation that the practitioner must know how to bring to bear on a concrete case.
Doctrinal authority in the service of the case
Engagements are led by Professor Ludovic Hennebel, Professor of International Law at Aix-Marseille University and elected Expert of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, whose academic work focuses in particular on the regional systems of protection, the European Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This familiarity with regional case law, the doctrine of the treaty bodies and the UN mechanisms informs the characterisation of situations and the choice of forums.
Deliverables and recipients
Applications before the regional courts and communications before the UN bodies, requests for interim measures, referrals to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Procedures, memoranda of legal characterisation, expert opinions for judicial or arbitral proceedings. This work may be intended for a targeted individual and their family, for an opposition figure, a journalist, a human rights defender or an exposed executive, for a community or an institution, a non-governmental organisation, a correspondent firm, an in-house legal department or a court.
The firm's value lies not in promising an outcome: it lies in turning a situation into leverage, through accurate characterisation, a well-chosen forum and the articulation, case after case, of the regional application, the UN communication and the emergency measure.
Effects obtained or sought
Anonymised results and effects sought
The firm does not publish named case studies. The confidentiality of its engagements is a non-negotiable condition. The results below are presented by category of effect obtained or sought in human rights and international justice matters.
UN characterisation of a detention as arbitrary
Referral to a UN mechanism resulting in an opinion characterising the detention of a prominent figure as arbitrary, opening the way to the regional forums and to diplomatic action. No outcome is ever guaranteed in advance.
Interim measure suspending a removal
Interim measure obtained to suspend a removal to a country presenting a real risk of torture or inhuman treatment, pending examination on the merits.
Regional application after a conviction in absentia
Application to the competent regional forum on fair-trial grounds, following a conviction handed down in the absence of the person concerned, under Article 6 and Article 14.
Urgent appeal by the Special Procedures
Communication triggering an urgent appeal by United Nations Special Rapporteurs concerning a detention, a threat or a restriction, bringing institutional pressure to bear as a matter of urgency.
Challenge to an extradition entailing a risk of torture
Opposition to a request for extradition to a State with a documented record of torture, by demonstrating the individual risk and invoking the principle of non-refoulement.
Defence of a prosecuted journalist
Defence of the freedom of expression of a journalist prosecuted for his or her publications, on the grounds of the legality and proportionality of the restriction.
De-indexing and protection of reputation
Removal or de-indexing of inaccurate, outdated or disproportionate information, on the basis of the right to private life and its balancing against freedom of expression.
Environmental harm to the rights of a community
Action bringing environmental or climate harm within the field of human rights, through the positive obligations of the State and the indirect protection of private life and the home.
A selection of configurations handled
By category and without any identifying element. They illustrate the nature of the cases, not their outcome, and constitute neither a promise nor a guarantee of results.
The legal framework relied upon
Universal instruments, regional systems and UN mechanisms
The universal instruments, regional systems, non-judicial mechanisms and scholarship on which the firm's practice rests. Primary sources only.
01
Universal instruments
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: right to life (Article 6), prohibition of torture (Article 7), liberty and security (Article 9), fair trial (Article 14), private life (Article 17), freedom of religion (Article 18), freedom of expression (Article 19), political rights (Article 25); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its Committee (health, housing, work, social security, education); Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and their respective bodies.
02
Regional systems
European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court, including private life (Article 8), the right to property (Article 1 of Protocol No. 1) and indirect protection in environmental matters; American Convention, Inter-American Commission and Court (property, Article 21); African Charter, African Commission and African Court, subject to the declaration under Article 34(6); ECOWAS Court of Justice, with direct individual access, for the West African region.
03
Non-judicial mechanisms
United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and its opinions; Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteurs and working groups, urgent appeals and communications; Universal Periodic Review.
04
Scholarship and sources
Case law of the regional courts, general comments of the treaty bodies, scholarship on positive obligations, horizontal effect and environmental and climate justiciability. The references specific to each case file are verified before any use in litigation.
OHCHR · Special Procedures and arbitrary detentionECHR · HUDOCECHR · FactsheetsInter-American Court of Human RightsAfrican Court on Human and Peoples' RightsECOWAS Court of Justice
In human rights litigation, the situation and the forum decide everything. A detention, an unfair trial or a risk of removal taken up early, on a reconstructed and documented case file, are dealt with from a position of strength; addressed late, once time limits have expired and the fronts have scattered, they are defended from a position of weakness. The characterisation of the situation, the choice of forum and the urgency of protective measures are demonstrated case after case. The initial characterisation determines the outcome.
Frequently asked questions
Strategic human rights litigation: the essentials
From strategy to forum, from emergencies to situations: the answers follow the order of the decisions to be taken, that of a real case.
A method more than a subject matter: starting from a concrete situation, reconstructing it into enforceable legal categories, choosing the forum, whether domestic, regional or universal, where the law can still produce an effect, then articulating the litigation, emergency and institutional levers under a single strategy. It covers the full range of protected rights: liberty and detention, fair trial, physical integrity, expression, religion, private life and reputation, property, political rights, environment and climate.
That depends on the ratifications, declarations and reservations of the State concerned. Direct individual recourse to the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights requires a declaration under Article 34(6), which some States have never deposited or have withdrawn; communications before the Human Rights Committee require acceptance of the Optional Protocol. Nationality, by contrast, is irrelevant: the guarantees benefit every person within the jurisdiction of the State, whatever their nationality. This State-by-State mapping is the prerequisite to any choice of forum.
As a general rule, yes: an application to an international forum requires the prior exhaustion of effective domestic remedies. Exceptions exist, in particular where those remedies are unavailable, ineffective or unreasonably prolonged. Certain mechanisms are exempt by design: the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Procedures may be seised without prior exhaustion, and the ECOWAS Court of Justice offers direct individual access free of that requirement. Urgency may also justify a parallel application for protective measures.
The mechanisms can be combined, but rarely simultaneously. The rules on lis pendens in principle prohibit submitting the same matter to two international mechanisms of examination: the Optional Protocol to the Covenant excludes communications where the same question is already under examination before another international body, and many European States have, by reservation, extended that exclusion to matters already examined. Articulation is therefore a strategic choice: sequencing the applications, bringing a UN characterisation into dialogue with a regional application, and reserving each forum for the complaint on which it is strongest.
The European Court delivers judgments that are binding on the States of the Council of Europe. The Human Rights Committee adopts quasi-judicial Views under the Optional Protocol to the Covenant. The Special Procedures (rapporteurs, working groups) deploy urgent appeals and communications, without issuing any enforceable decision.
Preparing the first contact
Useful documents for an initial analysis
There is no need to send a complete file at the first contact. Certain elements make it possible to characterise the situation quickly.
- Identity document of the person concerned
- Domestic decisions rendered (judgments, rulings, orders)
- Arrest warrants and detention orders
- Notification of the charges or of the grounds for detention
- Medical certificates and reports relating to the treatment suffered
- Reports by non-governmental organisations and Special Procedures
- Evidence establishing a political or discriminatory motive
- Detailed chronology of the facts and of the proceedings
- Extradition or removal decision, where applicable
- Names of local counsel already instructed
- Known critical deadlines (hearings, expiry of appeal periods)
- Reputational or media exposure
The purpose of the first exchange is to assess the urgency and the relevance of an intervention. It does not, in itself, constitute a full opinion on the prospects of success.
Modes of intervention
Six ways of engaging the firm
For the targeted person and their family, for counsel already instructed, for judicial or arbitral proceedings, preventively, or for the organisation and the referring firm outsourcing specialist expertise.
01
Feasibility study for an application
Stand-alone service, upstream of any engagement: characterisation of the situation, mapping of the accessible forums (European Court, UN bodies, Inter-American Court and Commission on Human Rights, African Court and Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, ECOWAS Court of Justice), analysis of admissibility, time limits, exhaustion of remedies and advisability, delivered in the form of a written feasibility and strategy opinion. The safest point of entry before initiating proceedings.
02
Direct advice and representation
Full engagement for the targeted person and their family: characterisation of the situation, choice of forum, application or communication, request for interim measures, building of the evidentiary record, coordination of forums, monitoring of implementation.
03
Co-counsel, strategic reinforcement and targeted front
Alongside counsel already instructed, in France or abroad: expertise in international human rights law and steering of the regional and UN dimensions, or handling of a specific front (regional application, UN communication, arbitrary detention, interim measures, media and diplomatic dimension), without displacing lead counsel.
04
Expert support for referring firms and organisations
Opinions and expertise in international proceedings (regional applications, UN communications, arbitrary detention, Special Procedures), consultations and preparation of case files as confidential support, with attribution and the client relationship remaining with the referring firm.
05
Expert witness and professional opinion
Expert opinion on the characterisation of a situation under international human rights law, the available remedies, the case law of the regional courts and the UN mechanisms, for judicial or arbitral proceedings, with oral testimony available.
06
Monitoring, anticipation and prevention
Preventive arrangement for an exposed individual, opposition figure, journalist or institution: monitoring of risk signals, documentation ahead of a foreseeable arrest or proceedings, and preparation of an emergency application before escalation.
Contact by profile
Find the right point of entry
Depending on your profile, an initial confidential orientation discussion, without mutual commitment.
Detained person and their family
Arbitrary detention, incommunicado detention, unfair trial, ill-treatment of a relative.
Opposition figure or candidate
Judicial persecution, judgment in absentia, disqualification from public office, infringement of political rights.
Journalist or human rights defender
Prosecution, criminalisation of speech, obstruction of their work, procedural harassment.
Exposed executive
Targeting for political reasons, business human rights, detention, reputation.
Religious community or institution
Restriction of a religious or ritual practice, freedom of religion, non-discrimination.
Referrers: NGOs, lawyers, family offices, in-house legal departments
Human rights dimension of a case, co-counsel, confidential expert support and expert opinion.
Related practice areas
Continue within the firm's ecosystem
Human rights defence intersects with lawfare, INTERPOL and extradition, immunities, business and investigations. Related Praxis resources and Corpus entries.
Strategic litigation does not plead a rule: it reconstructs a situation, chooses the forum, and makes the law produce the effect that the domestic court denies.
A detention, a rigged trial, a dangerous extradition? Let us talk.
Detained person and their family, opposition figure, candidate, journalist, human rights defender, exposed executive, religious community, organisation or correspondent firm: from the moment you make contact, the firm examines the situation as a priority and may arrange an initial confidential orientation discussion, in order to assess the urgency, characterise the situation and identify the relevant options. The initial discussion entails no mutual commitment. In French, English and Spanish.