James Goldston, Executive Director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, leads a discussion on strategic litigation in a world of rising authoritarian regimes. Maina Kiai, 2019 Sorensen Center Scholar-in-Residence, participates with commentary on advocacy and movement building.

Goldston is a leading practitioner of international human rights and criminal law and has litigated several groundbreaking cases before the European Court of Human Rights and United Nations treaty bodies, including on issues of counterterrorism, racial discrimination, and torture. The Justice Initiative represents individuals and groups before domestic and international courts and tribunals around the world, seeking not only to vindicate individual claims, but to establish and strengthen the law’s protection for all.

Kiai is the Sorensen Center’s 2019 Scholar-in-Residence. He is a prominent Kenyan human rights lawyer who served as the first-ever United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to assemble and associate. He now leads a new Alliances & Partnership initiative at Human Rights Watch and is co-founder of InformAction in Kenya.

The Sorensen Center’s “Critical Voices: From Local to Global” speaker series features extraordinary leaders from around the world discussing groundbreaking issues.

Suggested reading materials:
James A. Goldston, “The Value of Strategic Litigation Amidst Rising Illiberal Democracies,” Open Global Rights, November 20, 2018
James A. Goldston, “Court Judgments Are Shaking Political Foundations – and Upholding Rights,” Open Global Rights, September 14, 2017