Published on 13-03-2026, Last modified on 13-03-2026

Building Capacities “Social movements and the law: Global South-North Conversations on Law, Resistance and Justice”

This event is organized in partnership with INSPIRA and the Conflict Research Group. 

Across the world, social movements are confronting powerful actors and systems of injustice that shape people’s rights, livelihoods, and democratic participation. In many contexts, activists combine grassroots organizing with legal strategies, including strategic litigation, to challenge power and defend their rights. This shows how the law can become both a tool and a terrain of contestation within broader movements for social change.

This event brings together voices from the Global South and the Global North to explore how communities and legal advocates confront power, both within and beyond formal legal systems.

María Lua Ribeiro Curty Belgrano is a lawyer and activist with the Movimiento Campesino de Santiago del Estero (MOCASE) in Argentina. Since 2021, she has been part of the movement’s Secretariat for Territory and Human Rights, where she works on land tenure conflicts affecting peasant and Indigenous communities and follows related legal cases. She has also been involved in the School of Agroecology, where she collaborated in teaching human rights, and helped coordinate initiatives such as the Huarmi Ashpa Gender School. Between 2022 and 2023, she participated in the Indigenous Communities Territorial Survey, gaining in-depth knowledge of the history, current conditions, and organizational practices of Indigenous communities in Santiago del Estero. Her work highlights how legal knowledge, political organization, and grassroots education can come together in struggles for justice and dignity.

She will be joined by Laura Adriaensens, lawyer at Progress Lawyers Network (PLN) in Belgium. Drawing on her experience in movement lawyering, she will reflect on how legal strategies, including strategic litigation, can be used to defend human rights in Belgium, while also discussing the limits of legal institutions in confronting structural injustice.

Together, the speakers will open a conversation on how grassroots movements and legal advocates can learn from each other across contexts, asking questions such as:

– What role can law and strategic litigation play in struggles for social change?

– How can movements use legal tools while maintaining broader forms of collective action?

– What can movements in Europe learn from struggles in the Global South and vice versa?

Rather than a purely academic discussion, this event aims to create a space for dialogue between activists, students, and social movements, exploring how different strategies can contribute to broader struggles for justice and democracy.

After the lecture, we kindly invite you to join a reception (16:00-17:00)

Click here to register