We, members of the global legal community, hereby commit to take action for and with refugees and other displaced people to increase legal assistance and to facilitate improvements to the systems through which rights, justice, and solutions are accessed.
We do so in solidarity with displaced people, one another, and other stakeholders as part of a multi-stakeholder initiative that recognizes the mobilization of legal stakeholders is essential to a whole-of-society and whole-of-route approach to refugee response and to the realization of the Global Compact on Refugees’ (GCR) four objectives.
We acknowledge this mobilization must occur from a local to global level and in partnership with affected populations.
Legal Assistance for and Legal Empowerment of Refugees and Other Displaced People
We commit to work in partnership to increase access to legal assistance and to resource and strengthen host community and refugee-led legal assistance and empowerment initiatives, including in humanitarian contexts, in order to increase the number of displaced people who enjoy equal access to justice (in line with the GCR and Sustainable Development Goal 16 “Equal Access to Justice for All”).
Legal Assistance for Refugee-Led Organizations and Refugee Rights Non-Governmental Organizations
We commit to increase access to legal assistance for refugee-led organizations (RLOs) and other organizations that work with displaced people to address their organizational and programmatic legal needs and to strengthen their legal and institutional capacity and resilience.
Refugee Inclusion and Hiring
We commit to fulfill these commitments through refugee inclusion and leadership, and to take action that is supportive of the wider refugee participation agenda. We specifically commit to support refugee-led and staffed, local, community-based initiatives, as well as host community initiatives that create opportunities for people with experiences of displacement to be meaningfully involved in all stages of legal assistance, empowerment, advocacy, and education programming.
Legal Advocacy, Policy Engagement, and Asylum Capacity Development
We commit to undertake legal advocacy such as: strategic litigation, policy engagement, and legal assistance to advance systemic change to laws, policies, and practices that ensure the rights of refugees and other displaced people, including to foster accessible, fair, and effective asylum procedures and legal assistance schemes.
Funding and Resource Mobilization
We commit to provide direct financial and human resources or to undertake other efforts to support host community and refugee-led legal assistance and empowerment initiatives in order to address the barriers that hold them back from attracting sustainable financial and human resources. In doing so, we recognize the essential role that these organizations and initiatives play in the global legal ecosystem and we acknowledge that host community and refugee-led legal initiatives are often at the forefront of legal assistance provision, but that they are frequently excluded from coordination spaces, lack connections to donors, and are chronically underfunded.
Coordination, Collaboration and Legal Capacity Development
We commit to work collaboratively in order to leverage networks, partnerships, and resources and to strengthen coordination, share knowledge, and monitor the impact of our efforts as diverse stakeholders within the global refugee legal ecosystem. We specifically commit to cooperate with other GRF Pledges and relevant initiatives that involve a legal assistance or refugee rights dimension.
