This dissertation examines the development of litigation and legal mobilization as constructive, participatory, strategic processes that have the potential to promote democratization and institution building in fragile democracies. Using Argentina and Bolivia as case studies, I show that the innovative use of strategic litigation and legal mobilization taking place in Latin America today holds significant promise for promoting social and institutional development in countries struggling with competing democratic and authoritarian impulses. A close examination of how local and regional permutations of strategic litigation play out at the intersection of law and politics in fragile democracies generates a more accurate, richer account of the relationship between law and democracy writ large, a relationship that has yet to be fully or properly theorized. / text

Peacebuilding efforts are ongoing around the globe today. However, in societies that have transitioned out of conflict and have a strong judiciary, potential exists to use innovative techniques to assist in those efforts. Termed divided societies, these countries which have conflict simmering under the surface may benefit from public interest litigation as a tool for peacebuilding in the region. As peacebuilding and public interest litigation share many of the same goals, litigation may be able to assist the society to more sustainably transition from a culture of conflict to a culture of peace. This paper details current scholarship on public interest litigation, peacebuilding, and post-conflict reconstruction, provides research findings of best practices for litigating from Northern Ireland and South Africa, and discusses the efficacy and limitations of public interest litigation as a tool for peacebuilding.

Som världens snabbast växande ekonomi står Kina idag inför en rad utmaningar, framförallt att lyckas förena ekonomisk tillväxt med hållbar utveckling. Samtidigt som miljontals människor har lyfts ur extrem fattigdom genom Kinas offensiva tillväxtpolitik har också miljön utsatts för stora påfrestningar till följd av den explosionsartade industrialiseringen som påbörjades för drygt tre decennier sedan. Länge överskuggade ekonomisk tillväxt alla andra intressen. Först på senare år har politiken i Kina svängt; statsmakten har i allt större utsträckning insett miljöproblemens allvar och företagit en rad viktiga juridiska reformer, till exempel genom införandet av Tort Law (2010) och grupptaleinstrumentet environmental public interest litigation (EPIL). Ett sätt att angripa Kinas växande miljöproblem är att främja civilsamhällets möjligheter att föra talan i domstol: där myndigheter brister, kan civilsamhället gripa in och kompensera för bristande tillsyn. För att gå till botten med Kinas miljöproblem måste dock den offentligrättsliga kontrollen bli starkare, men sådana politiska beslut och institutionella förändringar sker sällan över en natt. Fram tills dess fyller därför civilsamhället en viktig roll. Uppsatsen övergripande syfte är således att utreda och komparera civilsamhällets möjligheter att utkräva miljöskadestånd i Kina och Sverige, samt presentera förslag de lege ferenda. Frågan är högaktuell och flera stora förändringar är att vänta på miljöskaderättens område i Kina inom kort.

"It is against this backdrop of unsatisfacotry enforcement of fundamental human rights enshrined in the Constitution that the role of human rights NGOs in Ethiopia should come to the fore. Thus, apart from monitoring violations and conducting legal awareness programs, there is a need for human rights NGOs in Ethiopia to engage in public interest litigation with a view to facilitating the judical enforcement of fundamental rights representing those who, for various reasons, can not access courts. A number of reasons could be provided to justify why the South African system has been chosen for a lesson to Ethiopia. One reason could be the legal framework put in place to address issues of acces to justice in South Africa. Standing is a crucial question in any venture of public interest litigation. Section 38(d) of the South African Constitution entitles anyone acting in the public interest to approach a competent court and seek remedies when they feel that a fundamental right is infringed or threatened. This very liberal approach to standing is not common in many legal systems. For countries like Ethiopia where there is an extremely tight requirement of standing to institute civil proceedings in courts, such a liberal approach could be an inspiration. In addition to the guarantees given by the Constitution, in South Africa there exists a relatively advanced and dynamic system of subsidiary legislation that could facilitate the full utilisation of the constitutionally recognised rights of access to justice. More relevant to this dissertation are the human rights NGOs in South Africa that are engaged in human rights lawyering in general and public interest litigation in particular. Much could be learnt from the experiences of prominent human rights NGOs such as the Legal Resources Centre and Lawyers for Human Rights. In all, Ethiopia, where the activities of human rights NGOs have not yet gone further than the monitoring of violations and fragmented attempts of awareness raising campaigns, could indeed draw lessons from the South African experience in this regard. ... The study has five chapters. The first chapter deals with introductory matters such as objective, methodology and literature survey. In the second chapter, a working definition of the concept of public interest litigation, the rationale behind it, issues such as access to justice and locus standi will be discussed. The third chapter is devoted to the analysis of public interest litigation as employed in different legal systems. With a view to providing a broad perspective to the practice the cases of France, the United States and Canada are presented. However, the chapter will focus more on the Indian and South African systems, mainly because of the nature of the problems public interest litigation addresses in the two countries. There will be a fourth chapter dedicated to the examination of the existing legal and institutional framework in Ethiopia in light of the background presented in the previous chapters. The fifth chapter deals with the conclusion and recommendations aimed at pointing out the major lessons to be drawn to introduce public interest litigation in Ethiopia." -- Introduction. / Prepared under the supervision of Professor JR de Ville at the Community Law Centre, Faculty of Law, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2005. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

O Brasil tem visto um forte processo de judicialização de sua vida pública. Hoje, a Justiça exerce um papel político importante no país, mas é marcada pela ineficiência na solução de disputas e cobrança de créditos. Críticas à expansão desse papel político são, pois, abundantes. Diz-se que (i) geraria instabilidade institucional e um ambiente hostil ao desenvolvimento (crítica institucional); (ii) produziria resultados ilegítimos (preferências judiciais substituiriam decisões majoritárias - crítica de legitimidade) e (iii) resultaria em ações inefetivas, pois o aparato das cortes não é adequado a resolver conflitos policêntricos e prospectivos (crítica instrumental). Este trabalho analisa o processo brasileiro de judicialização e os argumentos centrais da crítica instrumental. Sugere que ela refere-se a um modelo de direito e justiça que está em transformação. No modelo emergente, a justiça distributiva é reintroduzida na dinâmica legal e a administração de interesses sobrepuja, aos poucos, a tutela de direitos. Essas mudanças, mais a judicialização, levam a alterações importantes no processo judicial. Reconhecendo os problemas daí decorrentes, a tese sugere um caráter virtuoso desse novo contencioso de direito público emergente. Ele parece forjar um mecanismo de reforço de participação política que pode avançar a democracia e melhorar condições de igualdade política. / From democratization in the mid 80? on, Brazilian public life has been forced into an increasingly intense process of judicialization. Lack of confidence in representative institutions, a very open-texted charter of social and economic rights, an important political use of the Judiciary by the oppositions, and other related factors seem to be implicated in this. Brazilian justice holds today a considerable political power, but that is just part of a story. It is also astonishingly inefficient as a services provider, and fails to respond to most of its dispute-solving and credit-enforcement functions. Criticism about the expansion of the political role of the Judiciary in this context is profuse. First, it is said to generate institutional instability, which in turn would bring out a hostile environment for economic growth. Second, it is said to be illegitimate, as far as politicized judges may often replace majoritarian decisions by their own. Third, it is said that litigation involving political issues and social reform tend to be erratic and ineffective, because the institutional designs of both courts and their processes are not adequate to regulate polycentric and prospective conflicts. This work puts Brazilian judicialization into context, and analyses the main arguments of the institutional capacity critique (which is called in here the instrumental critique). The author suggests that the instrumental critique refers to a certain model of law and justice that has been changing (both globally and in Brazil) since the end of the last century. In the emergent model, distributive justice is reintroduced into the dynamics of law, and the administration of diffuse interests slowly replaces the adjudication of individual rights as the paradigmatic activity of the Judiciary. Those changes in both law and justice, along with judicialization, are argued to have lead to other important changes in the design of the judicial process in Brazil. Despite the many problems related to those changes, the ending notes of this work point to a possible virtuous character of the new Brazilian public law litigation. As stated herein, this litigation seems to be creating a participation-reinforcing device that in the long run may foster democracy and political equality.

Ce travail étudie l’affirmation de la « culture des droits » dans le contexte népalais, en explorant le rapport triangulaire qui relie les associations locales, le discours international sur les droits humains et la morphologie des transformations – sociales, normatives, institutionnelles – qui ont caractérisé l’histoire récente du Népal.L’enquête se fonde sur une ethnographie transversale des associations urbaines, qui traverse les différentes échelles territoriales où ces associations se mobilisent et les multiples registres sur lesquels elles opèrent (le social, le politique, le juridique). La première partie est axée sur le niveau micro-local du quartier et de la ville et concerne trois réseaux associatifs: les collectifs de mères, les associations pour le développement du quartier et les organisations des Dalit, les basses castes ; la deuxième porte sur les associations des minorités ethniques (ou « nationalités indigènes ») et sur celles des groupes parbatiya, les hautes castes des collines népalaises ; la troisième est consacrée à l'interaction entre justice et société civile au Népal, telle qu’elle émerge de l’analyse d’actions en justice introduites à la Cour suprême par des associations spécialisées dans la défense des droits humains.A partir de cette analyse, on cherche à dégager 1) les mécanismes à travers lesquels le discours sur les droits est devenu un langage hégémonique de formulation des revendications collectives et d’articulation des conflits sociaux ; 2) le rôle des associations de la société civile dans ce processus ; 3) l’impact de la culture de droits sur l’expression de l’éthique, des identités et des politiques locales, ainsi que sur le cadre normatif et constitutionnel du pays. / This dissertation examines the emergence of a culture of human rights in Nepal, by focusing on the triangular relationship between civil society organizations (CSOs), the international discourse on human rights, and the social, legal and institutional changes that have characterized the country’s recent history.The research is based on ethnographic work in the field of urban associations, at the various levels and across the various fields (social, political and legal) where they operate. My first part looks at the micro-local level of the neighborhood and city, through a study of three specific networks of associations: mothers’ groups, neighborhood development associations and Dalit (low-caste) associations. In a second stage, I focus on ethnic minority (or “indigenous nationality”) associations and on parbatiya (Nepali high caste of hill origin) groups. The third and final section of the dissertation is dedicated to the interaction between the judiciary and civil society in Nepal, as it emerges from an analysis of cases filed at the Supreme Court by associations specialized in the defense of human rights.The overall aim of this research is to identify: 1) the mechanisms through which the human rights discourse has asserted its hegemony, becoming the dominant medium through which collective demands and social conflicts can be articulated; 2) the role played by CSOs in this process, and 3) the impact of the culture of human rights on the expression of local ethics, identities and politics, as well as on Nepal’s legal and constitutional framework.

O Brasil tem visto um forte processo de judicialização de sua vida pública. Hoje, a Justiça exerce um papel político importante no país, mas é marcada pela ineficiência na solução de disputas e cobrança de créditos. Críticas à expansão desse papel político são, pois, abundantes. Diz-se que (i) geraria instabilidade institucional e um ambiente hostil ao desenvolvimento (crítica institucional); (ii) produziria resultados ilegítimos (preferências judiciais substituiriam decisões majoritárias - crítica de legitimidade) e (iii) resultaria em ações inefetivas, pois o aparato das cortes não é adequado a resolver conflitos policêntricos e prospectivos (crítica instrumental). Este trabalho analisa o processo brasileiro de judicialização e os argumentos centrais da crítica instrumental. Sugere que ela refere-se a um modelo de direito e justiça que está em transformação. No modelo emergente, a justiça distributiva é reintroduzida na dinâmica legal e a administração de interesses sobrepuja, aos poucos, a tutela de direitos. Essas mudanças, mais a judicialização, levam a alterações importantes no processo judicial. Reconhecendo os problemas daí decorrentes, a tese sugere um caráter virtuoso desse novo contencioso de direito público emergente. Ele parece forjar um mecanismo de reforço de participação política que pode avançar a democracia e melhorar condições de igualdade política. / From democratization in the mid 80? on, Brazilian public life has been forced into an increasingly intense process of judicialization. Lack of confidence in representative institutions, a very open-texted charter of social and economic rights, an important political use of the Judiciary by the oppositions, and other related factors seem to be implicated in this. Brazilian justice holds today a considerable political power, but that is just part of a story. It is also astonishingly inefficient as a services provider, and fails to respond to most of its dispute-solving and credit-enforcement functions. Criticism about the expansion of the political role of the Judiciary in this context is profuse. First, it is said to generate institutional instability, which in turn would bring out a hostile environment for economic growth. Second, it is said to be illegitimate, as far as politicized judges may often replace majoritarian decisions by their own. Third, it is said that litigation involving political issues and social reform tend to be erratic and ineffective, because the institutional designs of both courts and their processes are not adequate to regulate polycentric and prospective conflicts. This work puts Brazilian judicialization into context, and analyses the main arguments of the institutional capacity critique (which is called in here the instrumental critique). The author suggests that the instrumental critique refers to a certain model of law and justice that has been changing (both globally and in Brazil) since the end of the last century. In the emergent model, distributive justice is reintroduced into the dynamics of law, and the administration of diffuse interests slowly replaces the adjudication of individual rights as the paradigmatic activity of the Judiciary. Those changes in both law and justice, along with judicialization, are argued to have lead to other important changes in the design of the judicial process in Brazil. Despite the many problems related to those changes, the ending notes of this work point to a possible virtuous character of the new Brazilian public law litigation. As stated herein, this litigation seems to be creating a participation-reinforcing device that in the long run may foster democracy and political equality.

The South African Constitution in section 27(1)(c) obligates the state to develop a comprehensive social security system. It affirms the universal right to access to social security, including appropriate social assistance for those unable to support themselves and their dependants. It orders the state to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of these rights. The underlying normative commitment of social security is the improvement of the quality of life of the population by promoting economic or material equality. Social security ensures that all citizens have a stake in society and that each individual has an incentive to contribute to the development of the commonwealth. It plays a crucial role in the lives of communities and families viewed in the context of social transfers which provide broader development objectives and tackles income poverty transfers. The objectives of this study are threefold. Firstly, it examines the extension of social assistance coverage to the indigents in South Africa. Secondly, it looks at the legal mechanisms employed by courts and government in order to improve the social security rights of the poor in South Africa. Thirdly, the research investigates the possible reform and trends in India and Brazil with the aim of improving South Africa’s system of social security. For the avoidance of doubt, the law evaluated in this work is at 15 September 2015. / Jurisprudence / LL. D.