Legal and Conflict Transformation/Negotiation Training in Manicaland, Zimbabwe

From September 29 to October 3, Stephanie Booker of Natural Justice hosted 5 days of legal and negotiation training in Manicaland, Zimbabwe, with Chiadzwa Community Development Trust and members of communities from Mutare and Arda Transau. The meeting was supported by Ford Foundation Southern Africa and the Heinrich Boll Foundation.

Supported by the legal expertise of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association, participants were led in two-day training, discussions and information sharing on relevant laws and policies in Zimbabwe with respect to the environment and human rights and regional and international law.

From 1 - 3 October, Zimbabwean organisation Centre for Conflict Management and Transformation led an interactive training with participants on inter-community conflict and general principles of engaging with external actors. The sessions gave insight on engaging an issue from different perspectives.

The training session complemented the existing community protocol processes being engaged in the community at present. In addition, a small number of participants from mining impacted communities across Zimbabwe took the opportunity to join the much-sought after training, to learn from about relevant laws and policies and to share experiences with community members across Zimbabwe.

E-module on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) for Communities

Natural Justice has developed learning e-modules on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), a mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) through which developing countries are encouraged to contribute to mitigation actions. Over fifty developing countries are engaged in REDD+ and globally there are hundreds of projects and initiatives. The majority of the Earth’s forests are inhabited by Indigenous peoples and rural communities, many of whom may be affected by REDD+ policies, programmes and projects.

The recently updated REDD+ Introduction module summarises the key issues and current programmes in REDD+. The accompanying REDD+ Safeguards module considers the main internationally recognised safeguards and standards, explores the implications of a range of rights and responsibilities, and what these could mean for communities. These modules can be used as a basis for community discussions, workshops and action planning about REDD+. Both REDD+ modules are available in English and Spanish here.

These REDD+ e-modules are part of a series on international frameworks which can be downloaded here. These learning modules support communities developing community protocols and aim to increase the understanding of key international legal frameworks, concepts and programmes.

Legal Training for San Youth

cc !Khwa ttu

On 4th of June, Natural Justice held a one day legal training with San youth at !Khwa ttu, the San Education and Cultural Centre. The legal training was held with fifteen San youth from southern Africa and focused on the rights of indigenous peoples, intellectual property rights and environmental law. The legal training course will be held on two further occasions in 2014.

The students taking part in the legal training course are part of an 8-month accredited Nature and Cultural Site Guide Skills Programme run through !Khwa ttu's Training Department. During the course, San youth learn about their roots, culture, history and traditional knowledge.

Natural Justice provides legal support and training to San and Khoi communities in southern Africa through partnership with Heinrich Boell Foundation and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. For more information on the work of Natural Justice with the San and Khoi please refer to our website and the Heroes Project.

Call for Applications: Legal Officer, Kenya

Natural Justice: Lawyers for Communities and the Environmentis a young and fast-paced non-profit organisation specialising in human rights and environmental law. We are a pioneering international team of legal practitioners, who conduct comprehensive research on environmental and human rights law, support communities and local organisations, provide technical advice to governments and intergovernmental organisations, and engage in key international processes in pursuit of environmental and social justice.

Natural Justice currently works in Africa, Asia and Latin America, with its headquarters in Cape Town and regional offices in Malaysia, India, and USA.

What are we looking for?

Natural Justice has been working with communities, NGOs and government agencies in Kenya since 2009. Due to increasing demand from our partners, we are seeking a full-time lawyer to lead and co-coordinate our work in Kenya. The successful candidate will be based in Nairobi and will be expected to begin work immediately.

Application process:

Deadline: 18 April 2014, 17:00 GMT

What’s on offer?

Natural Justice is a close-knit and nurturing collective that places emphasis on facilitating opportunities for the professional and personal growth of its members. Natural Justice will offer a competitive salary commensurate with skill and experience. Joining Natural Justice will also give the successful candidate a chance to work with a passionate and highly professional global team in a fast-paced environment and gain valuable international experience.

If we’ve got you interested…..read on. If not, but you can think of someone who might be…..pass on. If neither of the above…..then at the very least:

Learn more: http://naturaljustice.org/ and www.community-protocols.org

See our work: http://www.natural-justice.blogspot.com/              

Follow us: https://www.facebook.com/naturaljustice

What will the role include?

Working closely with co-coordinators in Kenya and South Africa; developing strategies, workplans and reports for activities across Kenya; providing legal advice to indigenous and/or marginalised communities and their supporting local organisations (including supporting the development and use of community protocols); supporting communities and community partners in strategizing and addressing infrastructure or extractive industry projects, community land and resource laws; supervising and supporting staff and legal fellows; conducting research and developing community-friendly legal empowerment materials; providing technical advice to government agencies; further developing partnerships with civil society organisations and networks; and organising and attending relevant meetings and workshops within Kenya, Africa and internationally.

Minimum skills and experience required:

• A LLB or equivalent degree
• Demonstrated expertise in human rights, environmental and/or land law
• Understanding of and proficiency in the Kenyan legal system and institutional arrangements
• At least two years of experience working with communities and/or civil society organisations or networks, particularly in Kenya
• Experience with conducting primary and/or desktop research and preparing clear and analytical reports
• Experience or keen interest in some aspect of international law or policy (for example, multilateral environmental agreements, human rights, or grievance mechanisms)
• Strong oral and written communication skills, including through online platforms
• Fluency in English and Kiswahili

Desirable traits and attributes:

• Familiarity with interdisciplinary and/or participatory approaches and tools
• Keen interest in and commitment to advancing the rights of minority/indigenous communities, particularly in relation to their territories, areas and natural resources
• At least two years of experience in project management
• Proven experience with financial management and fundraising
• Professionalism, strong work ethic, and personal initiative (“a self-starter”)
• Ability to work both in teams and independently with little supervision
• Ability to engage with a range of stakeholders
• Willingness to travel on a regular basis and work with local organisations and communities in remote areas

Please email your application to Gino Cocchiaro (gino(at)naturaljustice.org.za) with the job title in the subject line.

Include a motivation letter that indicates why you feel you are the best candidate for this position, a detailed CV with three references, and maximum three samples of your past work (for example, articles or research reports). Please ensure that your application as a whole speaks to the required skills and experience and desirable traits and attributes listed above.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Best of luck!

The Natural Justice Team

Designing training materials for legal empowerment initiatives

Arpitha Kodiveri of Natural Justice, India attended a weeklong workshop on designing training materials for legal empowerment initiatives held in Ahmedabad. The workshop was organized by the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), an organization that pioneered the use of principles of adult education in creating innovative legal training sessions.

Community based lawyers from different parts of India partnered with  their counterparts from the CSJ to brainstorm on  different methods  and approaches to  designing training material.  Arpitha worked closely with the group to develop a detailed methodology for providing training in environmental law to paralegals in India.

The training module and methodology is due to be  field tested in the coming few months in Gujarat.

CIEL Guide on Amici in international investment arbitration

Non governmental organizations that work in the area of international investment litigation have been bolstered in their defense of public interest, thanks to the new Guide for Potential Amici in International Investment Arbitrations. This joint publication by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and the International Human Rights Program at the University Of Toronto Faculty Of Law explains when and how NGOs can strategically intervene as a third party in international investment arbitrations as an amicus curiae (friend of the court).

The guide also provides background on why international investment disputes arise, the ways in which human rights can be implicated, and how amicus curiae can bolster human rights in investment disputes. 

In particular, this guide  focuses on the potential of filing amicus submissions at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which specializes in disputes between governments and companies.

Given the opacity of ICSID-arbitrated proceedings, there is a clearly identified need for NGOs, acting as amici, to highlight human rights concerns, and focus attention towards public interest issues.

The full report, with annexes is available here.

ICCA meeting for Southern and East Africa discusses ICCA examples from the region

On 8 November Natural Justice and the ICCA Consortium co-convened a meeting near Cape Town, South Africa, on Indigenous Peoples and Local Community Controlled Territories and Conserved Areas (ICCAs) in Southern and East Africa, to identify examples and best practices from the region. 

Following a comprehensive introduction to ICCAs and their recognition under relevant international law by Natural Justice, two expert panels introduced and discussed ten individual examples of ICCAs in the region. 

On the basis of experiences from Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa and Tanzania, the 25 participants from the region discussed various strategies and best practices for communities to protect their ICCAs. The discussions revolved around management of ICCAs, documentation of ICCAs, and strategic litigation. 

Regarding management, the experiences from Namibia and Ethiopia, in particular, highlighted the importance of developing strong community management structures that integrate customary governance while also supporting livelihood generation. 

The discussion on documentation focused on resources and land documentation ‘on paper’, for instance through geo-referencing, as well as on documentation ‘in the landscape’ through the establishment of signposts and other visual aids. Especially the case studies on pastoralist communities, sacred sites and large land areas with weak enforcement structures underlined the importance of documentation as key to obtaining formal recognition of the areas, as well to protecting areas from other external interferences. 

Finally, the discussions on strategic litigation emphasized the importance of directly involving communities in litigation-related stakeholder negotiations and adjudicative processes. Empowering communities to hold meetings on their own ground, to speak on their own behalf, and to determine the overall strategy is key to ensuring positive outcomes and to increasing their confidence as actors in their own rights. 

The participants from the region concluded that portraying community conserved areas as ICCAs can be key to linking different resources and land rights issues with livelihood objectives and intra-community processes. 

Lesle Jansen and Gino Cocchiaro presented for Natural Justice. A large number of country and international legal reviews of ICCAs are available here. The ICCA registry can be accessed here.

Africa Regional Symposium for Community Land and Natural Resources Protection

From 5-7 November, 30 pioneering community and civil society experts gathered in the !khwa ttu San community centre outside Cape Town, South Africa, for the first Africa Regional Symposium for Community Land and Natural Resources Protection. 

The Symposium, co-convened by Natural Justice and Namati, facilitated an exchange of best practices on community empowerment for strengthening land and natural resources rights among twelve African countries and more than two dozen communities. 

The event set out to meet three interrelated objectives: 

1. Share best practices, tools and strategies for empowered community land and natural resource management and protection; 

2. Support each other to confront local and/or national challenges to community land and natural resources claims; and 

3. Brainstorm new and innovative forms of legal empowerment and build a cross-disciplinary community of practice that fosters continued dialogue and learning. 

The workshop consisted of a number of small group works and plenary discussions that addressed a number of interrelated challenges at the community governance level (community definition, governance and leadership, equity and gender, conservation and stewardship, community driven development) and regarding communities’ external interactions (investor-community relations, and policies laws and governments). Discussions revolved around specific case studies, project experiences and broader advocacy strategies.

Community protocols (www.communityprotocols.org) and Natural Justice’s Living Convention were both discussed as useful legal empowerment strategies. 

To ensure that the successful tactics and approaches that were identified during the dialogue are made available to a vast number of practitioners around the world, in a next step, Natural Justice and Namati will facilitate a practitioner-written guide to community legal empowerment for strengthening landscape rights. 

The guide will: 

1. Outline a range of community land and natural resources protection methodologies; 

2. Present the variety of positive strategies brainstormed at the conference; 

3. Highlight some of the most compelling, successful case studies presented; and 

4. Illustrate the most intractable obstacles faced and some suggested solutions. 

The over-arching aim of both the symposium and the guide is to support and train CSOs around the world to effectively facilitate community land protection efforts and, in the process, work with communities to improve intra-community governance, gender equity, and sustainable natural resource management. Sharing practitioners’ strategies is central to this effort. 

New IIED Publication on Legal Empowerment and Accountability in Africa's Land Rush

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has released a new publication entitled "Accountability in Africa's Land Rush: What role for legal empowerment". According to IIED website, "In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in acquiring farmland for agricultural investments in lower-income countries. Whilst such investments can create jobs, improve access to markets and support infrastructure, many large land deals have been associated with negative impacts for local populations, including the dispossession of land and other resources and increased conflict over economic benefits. There is growing evidence on the scale, geography and impacts of large deals. But less is known about how the legal frameworks regulating this land rush shape opportunities and constraints in formal pathways to accountability; and how people who feel wronged by land deals are responding to seek justice, and to what ends. 

This report assesses the state of evidence on pathways to accountability in the global land rush, with a focus on Africa. It also identifies areas for a new research agenda that places accountability at its centre." The publication is available in English here.

Workshop on Legal Tools and Agricultural Investments in Bangkok

Palm oil development in peninsular

Malaysia. 

From 7-8 March, Harry Jonas (Natural Justice) attended a workshop on Legal Tools for Accountability in Agricultural Investments for South East Asia hosted by Focus on the Global South and the International Institute for the Environment and Development.

Participants engaged with a range of issues over the two days, including: investment protection and promotion in the ASEAN; national legal frameworks; human rights mechanisms; government investor and farmer-investor contracts; and international regulatory frameworks. The workshop was held in Bangkok, and was preceded by a public forum held at Chulalongkorn University entitled: Rethinking Policy and Legal Frameworks for Inclusive and Sustainable Investments in Agriculture in South East Asia.

Harry thanks colleagues at Focus and IIED for what was a useful and thought-provoking few days.

EMRIP Submission on Indigenous Peoples and Access to Justice

Orang asli (Indigenous peoples) of Malaysia celebrate a

successful High Court judgment in 2012. Photo via The Star.

On 11 February, Natural Justice made two submissions to a Human Rights Council-mandated study by the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) on access to justice in the protection and promotion of the rights of Indigenous peoples. The draft study will be presented at the sixth session of EMRIP in July.

The first submission had a global focus and consisted of two parts. Part I included inputs and experiences from several countries in Asia, Africa, and North and South America, with particular emphasis on the protection and stewardship of Indigenous peoples’ customary territories and resources. These were primarily drawn from a series of legal reviews coordinated in 2012 by Natural Justice and Kalpavriksh on behalf of the Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCA) Consortium.  It focused on the following themes before setting out key recommendations from the legal reviews:

1. The relationship between access to justice and a range of other Indigenous peoples’ rights;
2. Systemic and structural threats to Indigenous peoples’ rights and their territories and resources;
3. Judicial systems themselves as a barrier to justice;
4. Landmark judgments;
5. Landmark legislation; and
6. Continuing challenges with implementation and compliance.

Part II then suggested biocultural community protocols as an innovative tool for integrated legal empowerment to enable Indigenous peoples to access justice and to assert and affirm a range of other rights and responsibilities.

The second submission was a joint submission in French in collaboration with Programme d’Intégration et de Développement du Peuple Pygmée au Kivu (PIDP-Kivu) and focused on the particular challenges that the Indigenous peoples of North Kivu face in relation to access justice. These and other submissions by Natural Justice are available here.

Namati Hiring

Natural Justice-partner Namati is hiring! Namati, which develops, implements and evaluates models for delivering quality legal aid at scale, has three positions open: Director of Finance and Administration; Director of Communications and Advocacy; and Director of Research and Evaluation. Completed applications should be emailed to employment@namati.org by January 31, 2013. 

Learn more about the positions, and Namati, here. Follow Namati on Twitter here, like them on Facebook here, and subscribe to their Youtube channel here.

Animated Film on REDD+

The Global Canopy Programme has released an updated version of “An Introduction to REDD”, described as "a short animated film that aims to explain REDD+ to non-expert audiences in a clear and succinct way."

Find out more about the film here, including versions in French, Portuguese and Spanish.

UN Resolution on Legal Aid

Via namati.org

The United Nations Commission for Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice has unanimously adopted a resolution for the groundbreaking UN Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems. The principles and guidelines are the first international instrument on legal aid.

According to analysis by Namati, some of the most significant components of the resolution are:

• Prompt access to legal aid at all stages of the criminal justice process and a right to be informed about a right to legal aid and other procedural safeguards before any questioning and deprivation of liberty; 
• The involvement of a diversity of legal aid providers including lawyers, CSOs, university legal clinicians and paralegals; and 
• The development of a nationwide legal aid system that is sufficiently staffed and resourced to ensure effective and quality legal aid services delivery. 

Read more of Namati’s analysis on the principles and guidelines here.

Law, Environment and Design Workshop - Bangalore

Natural Justice and the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology co-hosted a workshop entitled “Engendering Dialogue among Law, Environment and Design” at Srishti's campus in Bangalore, India on 7 December, 2012. The workshop sought to share the visions of participants, discuss ways of working together, and explore possible intersections between law, environment and design. The workshop also saw the launch of the website of Natural Justice and Srishti’s exciting new joint project, the Law, Environment and Design (LED) Lab (opening January, 2013). Representatives from the Global Environments Summer Academy, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment also participated in the workshop. 

While the LED website is not yet fully populated, it can be accessed here.

Workshop on Legal Empowerment in Southeast Asia

Rooftops in Jakarta.

From 6-7 November in Jakarta, Indonesia, Harry Jonas (Natural Justice) attended a two-day workshop on legal empowerment in Southeast Asia. Hosted by Namati, the Open Society Justice Initiative, the Indonesian Legal Resource Centre, and the TIFA Foundation, the workshop brought together over 30 lawyers and legal specialists focusing on legal empowerment in the region. Over the two days, the group heard presentations, engaged in participatory methodologies and developed a forward-looking strategy for the region. Participants also assessed how to ensure that justice issues are referenced in the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals process, which they considered to be a particularly strategic approach to creating systemic change. On behalf of the Natural Justice team, Harry thanks the organizers for the opportunity and looks forward to supporting next steps.

ALF Presentation on Creative Media and the Law

Namita Malhotra of the Alternative Law Forum (ALF) presented on her experiences using different forms of media to communicate the law at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology on 3 October, 2012. The presentation introduced faculty from Srishti and the Natural Justice India team to the use of different media forms and some of their potential challenges. ALF has used these different forms as tools to intervene on a variety of issues ranging from piracy to censorship. Their work continues to highlight the need for experimental modes of communicating the law, with an emphasis on exploring how the law can be deconstructed and understood through a multidisciplinary lens. This presentation will help to inform Natural Justice and Srishti’s work in setting up a lab to focused on exploring how design can be used to flesh out legal problems.