Working hand-in-hand with local women’s groups and using a data-driven approach, at Waging Justice for Women we fight for women and girls through strategic litigation. Our aim is to reform discriminatory laws and increase accountability for gender-based abuse.

Last month CFJ’s Co-Founder Amal Clooney announced an exciting collaboration with former First Lady Michelle Obama and philanthropist Melinda French Gates to support adolescent girls’ education, advance gender equality and help end child marriage. Amal was featured in a CNN documentary with Mrs. Obama and Ms. Gates on November 20^th.

“I am delighted to be partnering with two formidable champions of gender equality to coordinate and scale our efforts to combat discrimination against women and girls. But today, we see repressive regimes still able to crack down on women’s basic freedoms with impunity, and girls still fighting for their most basic human rights. And in too many places, women’s rights are in retreat. So, it is important that we remain committed to the goal of unshackling half the world’s population. I am honored to be working alongside Michelle and Melinda in advancing this work and excited about the tremendous potential for progress through our collaboration.”

During UNGA, Amal spoke alongside Melinda French Gates, Olivia Leland and a host of formidable female leaders at a powerful Co-Impact and Clooney Foundation For Justice event about ‘Women in Leadership and Law’ at the Ford Foundation. 

In our last newsletter we announced that the Clooney Foundation for Justice had filed a submission alongside local partners, Equality Now, and Tike Mwambipile, executive director of the Tanzania Women Lawyers’ Association, to challenge Tanzania’s policy of banning married and pregnant girls from school in a landmark case before the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Tanzanian Government has already u-turned, announcing a reversal of this discriminatory policy that impacts more than 1 in 4 girls of high school age in the country.

The Docket was created to help make justice for survivors of mass atrocities a reality. The Docket team gathers evidence to trigger prosecutions and civil actions against those involved in international crimes and represents victims in their pursuit of justice.

Ukraine: The Docket is continuing its war crimes investigation in Ukraine. Since the outbreak of war, we have carried out multiple field missions across Ukraine, combined with extensive open-source intelligence gathering and cutting-edge digital forensics analysis to collect evidence and identify perpetrators. We are in the process of filing our first cases in European jurisdictions, working with the survivors and families of the victims of unlawful killing, rape, and other crimes.

DRC: CFJ is representing victims in the proceedings against former Congolese warlord Roger Lumbala in France. This will be one of the first universal jurisdiction cases in France involving crimes committed against civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lumbala is currently indicted by the French authorities for leading an armed group, known as RCD-National, during Congo’s 1998-2003 war that allegedly committed murder, rape and torture, as well as acts of cannibalism. In close collaboration with international and local partners, CFJ has been gathering evidence to ensure that the charges represent the full scale of the criminal behavior of the group – including sexual violence – and represents victims’ interests as ‘civil parties’ in the case.

Venezuela: Last month CFJ and Venezuelan human rights organization Foro Penal, submitted evidence to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The evidence demonstrates crimes against humanity committed by military officials of the Maduro regime in Venezuela. The report describes the role of 11 officers in committing alleged crimes including torture, arbitrary detention, and sexual abuse. Last week, together with other international NGOs, our Senior Program Manager Ignacio Jovtis was a panelist at the side event “Justice in Venezuela: Moving forward at the ICC and beyond,” at the 21st Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court. He highlighted our recent evidentiary submission, encouraged the participation of victims during the proceedings at the International Criminal Court and called for more options to ensure accountability of the perpetrators.

At TrialWatch we defend the rights of journalists, democracy defenders, women, and minorities who are unjustly imprisoned following unfair trials. We monitor and grade criminal trials to expose those that are a sham; provide legal support, and develop Global Justice Rankings indexing states’ judicial systems.

Some examples of recent successes include:

Mexico: A Mexican appeal court reduced the sentence of indigenous activist Kenia Hernandez after a TrialWatch report highlighted the flaws in Hernandez’ trial. Following the report, the UN has also called for her conviction to be overturned.

Morocco: In Morocco, TrialWatch exposed flaws in criminal proceedings against investigative journalist Omar Radi along with our partners the USC Law School. Our expert from USC, Professor Hannah Garry, gave the trial a grade of ‘D.’ Radi was convicted of national security charges and rape despite not being allowed to call a key witness to support his defense, or to question the prosecution’s main witness on the rape charge. Listen to Professor Garry describe how the case is further evidence of a pattern in Morocco of using shame-inducing charges to stifle critical reporting and political dissent.  TrialWatch has shared the report with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to read as it is currently considering Mr. Radi’s case.

Indonesia: In Indonesia, TrialWatch submitted an amicus brief to the Indonesian Supreme Court supporting journalist Muhammad Asrul’s challenge to his conviction for cyber defamation after an unfair trial that we monitored. TrialWatch Expert Professor Simon Butt said the proceedings evidenced a “type of aggressive use of [Indonesia’s cybercrime] Law [that] has no place in a democracy”. The challenge before the Supreme Court is pending. This case provides a critical opportunity for the Court to clarify the protections to which journalists should be entitled.