The Transnational Legal Clinic (TLC) is a legal clinic working in collaboration with civil society organisations and actors from across the world, to produce campaigns and litigation aimed at social transformation.
The Clinic is made up of staff and students from the Transnational Law Institute, enabling students the chance to apply their learning and develop skills in a real world context.
Our projects
The Clinic’s inaugural project was an Amicus Curiae brief presented to the Constitutional Court of Colombia in a case challenging the criminalisation of abortion filed by fourteen Colombian citizens with the backing of the leading women rights’ NGO La Mesa. The project was conducted with the participation of 19 LLM students and was reported in the main Colombian daily, El Tiempo.
The Court reached a historic decision to decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks of gestation in February 2022 (Sentencia C-055-22)
Read the full decision of the Constitutional Court of Colombia (in Spanish)
Read the Transnational Legal Institute's amicus brief in English, or in Spanish (official version).
In June 2023, The Transnational Law Institute, alongside the NGOs Clean Trade and Terra de Direitos, submitted a shadow report on people's right to natural resources (art. 1 of the ICCPR) that benefited from legal research carried out by students of the Transnational Legal Clinic. 17 of our LLM students participated in the preparation of the shadow report, which was presented to the Human Rights Committee in its 138th session in Geneva by Professor Octavio Ferraz. The context of the shadow report was the Council's review of the human rights situation in several countries, and Brazil in particular.
You can read the full shadow report here.
Upcoming projects
Students and staff interested in getting involved in the TLC should contact Professor Octavio Ferraz: octavio.ferraz@kcl.ac.uk