Fighting for Rights: A Strategic Litigation Guide for SRHR

Written and researched by: Sarah L. Bosha, Agrata Sharma, Isabel Lucía Rubio Rufin, Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane, Consolata Chikoti
Published 2025

Fighting for Rights: A Strategic Litigation Guide for SRHR is a practical and political tool designed to support those defending sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) through the use of strategic litigation (SL). From attempts to roll back abortion rights and restrict access to gender-affirming care, to the criminalization of comprehensive sexuality education and attacks on LGBTQIA+ communities, backlash against SRHR is intensifying worldwide, especially in contexts where protection of reproductive, gender, and sexual rights remains fragile. In the face of these challenges, strategic litigation (SL) has emerged as a powerful tool to resist regression, advance rights, and drive systemic change.

This guide is designed to support lawyers, advocacy practitioners, activists, and judges by offering practical tools and insights to challenge harmful laws, seek accountability, and contribute to progressive legal and social transformation grounded in the realities of affected peoples’ communities. It affirms SRHR as health rights, recalling the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health’s assertion that “reproductive health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of diseases or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive systems and their functions and processes.”

Strategic litigation goes beyond individual cases. It aims to clarify, enforce, or challenge legal standards and policies that violate human rights, and it is a powerful tool for public awareness and systemic reform. In the SRHR sphere, SL has played a pivotal role in advancing access to abortion, gender-affirming care, contraception, and HIV services, as well as protection from sexual and gender-based violence. At its best, SL centers the voices and needs of affected peoples and communities, shifts narratives, sets legal precedents, and pressures governments to comply with their national and international human rights obligations.

However, the SL path is not without risks. This guide carefully examines privacy concerns, political backlash and reprisals, financial barriers, and weak enforcement mechanisms that can hinder impact. It emphasizes the importance of a holistic, ecosystem-based approach, where legal action is supported by advocacy, community education, public engagement, and cross-sector partnerships.

This guide provides a practical roadmap for those considering or already engaged in strategic litigation related to SRHR. It draws from real-world cases across multiple regions, offering intersectional, actionable insights to ensure that SL not only wins court victories, but is nuanced, inclusive, and capable of driving lasting systemic change.