Helping to Create and Support a Human Rights Litigation Organization in Southern Africa

One of New Perimeter’s earliest projects involved a partnership with the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), which formally opened on June 20, 2005, in Johannesburg. A joint venture of the International Bar Association, the Open Society Institute of Southern Africa, and New Perimeter, SALC provides support to under-resourced human rights lawyers in nine Southern African countries. SALC was created to fill a void in human rights training, support, and resources in the region.

The New Perimeter team provided case-specific assistance on high-impact human rights cases concerning a wide variety of issues, from press freedom and arbitrary government crackdowns on political opposition to harassment of lawyers and women's equal right to inheritance and property. The team also assisted SALC in exposing human rights abuses within the region to the international community.

The team created a virtual library for SALC that is unique in its Southern African focus. The library compiles both basic legal documents from the nine countries and pertinent human rights research resources.

New Perimeter also created a nuts-and-bolts Litigation Manual that teaches how to conduct constitutional and human rights litigation in Southern Africa. The Manual is being distributed on CD-ROM and is also available on SALC’s website.

DLA Piper lawyers provided critical support to the SALC director and staff during a rotation program in which DLA Piper lawyers served three months as lawyers-in-residence in Johannesburg.

In early 2011, New Perimeter again assisted SALC by researching and drafting international law sections for an HIV/AIDS law manual for legal practitioners in Southern Africa.