Oxfam America’s legal work advances our human rights and humanitarian missions at home and abroad, with an eye toward achieving long-term, structural change. Given the breadth of Oxfam’s anti-poverty mandate, our legal work supports a range of social and environmental justice goals. This includes fighting for indigenous land rights, climate justice, labor rights, corporate accountability, and refugee rights, as well as ensuring the safe arrival of emergency humanitarian aid for people fleeing conflict zones or natural disasters.
Oxfam deploys a range of legal tools in our fight against inequality. These include:
- Suing governments for human rights violations, such as our lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s illegal Title 42 ban on asylum seekers.
- Submitting amicus briefs in support of communities as they defend themselves against corporate human rights abuses. Examples include our brief supporting indigenous land rights in Peru; our argument that the U.S. Supreme Court should recognize corporations must be accountable for human rights abuses; and our brief detailing the obligation of businesses to provide harmed communities with access to remedy before Mexico’s Constitutional Court.
- Advising our humanitarian teams on how to deliver emergency aid in line with U.S. sanctions law, so that we can safely deliver water, food, cash, and other objects indispensable to the survival of those fleeing disaster areas.
- Intervening in international and regional human rights courts to advocate for strong standards to protect the rights of people that are in jeopardy due to climate change. Examples include our submissions to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
- Filing complaints in administrative agency mechanisms to hold companies to account for their adverse human rights impacts, such as our SEC complaint against Moderna over its attempts to monopolize control over the COVID-19 vaccine co-created by the U.S. government, or requesting that U.S. Customs and Border Protection issue a “Withhold and Release Order” against a foreign palm oil company using forced labor.
- Assisting communities to negotiate settlements with companies that have profited off their land displacement and other adverse human rights impacts.
- Advising Oxfam policy advisors and allied nongovernmental organizations on a range of domestic and international law matters that shape their understanding of key matters. Examples include women’s land rights in Chad; the human rights obligations of extractive companies seeking loans from the U.S. government; or whether domestic laws rolling back community land rights can be challenged based on free trade agreements with the U.S.
Oxfam does not use legal tools in isolation; rather, these efforts complement existing campaigns, advocacy, and humanitarian work. We frequently conduct our legal work in close collaboration with nongovernmental organization allies and the invaluable assistance of pro bono partners.
Finally, we continue to develop our legal work overseas, supporting both Oxfam country offices across the confederation and forging stronger ties with groups that litigate in foreign courts where the presence of an international nongovernmental organization like Oxfam would generate meaningful impact.
If you are interested in learning more about our legal work and potential collaboration, please contact Oxfam’s Legal and Shareholder Advocacy Lead Diana Kearney at [email protected].