Eight case studies look at how legal empowerment projects can reduce poverty and help people realize their rights; with a forward by George Soros.

Learn more about the East African Court of Justice, which hears cases on violations of the rule of law, one of the fundamental and operational principles set out in the East African Community Treaty.

Learn more about the African Commission, which is tasked with promoting and protecting human rights by interpreting the African Charter and considering individual complaints.

Learn more about the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, a judicial body that delivers binding judgments on compliance with the African Charter.

Learn more about the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Community Court of Justice, which has accepted the submission of individual complaints for human rights violations since 2005.

Ten human rights and law groups are calling on members of the Council of Europe to ensure that a new protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights does not weaken its protections.

This report explores the challenge of making rights real by examining how human rights decisions and recommendations made by international bodies are implemented at the national level.

James A. Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, says that the concept of the rule of law can command consensus in a divided world.