Find the most relevant guidance based on your area of intervention

Find the most relevant guidance based on your area of focus

Resources for Legal advisors

A Community-Based Practitioner’s Guide: Documenting Citizenship and Other Forms of Legal Identity

Tools and Guides
 

This guide provides step-by-step instructions on establishing and operating a paralegal or other community-based program to help people obtain legal identity documents. It is primarily for people designing and managing community-based paralegal projects to help clients access documentary proof of citizenship and other forms of proof of legal identity, such as birth certificates. However, it will also be useful to those undertaking legal aid, litigation, and non-litigation advocacy work, as the issues that it seeks to address frequently lie at the intersection of laws and how they are applied in practice.

Accountability Resource Guide: Tools for Redressing Human Rights & Environmental Abuses in International Finance and Development

Tools and Guides
 

This guide provides information for communities who are, or who may be, harmed by projects sponsored by financial institutions, development banks and private groups. It is intended to assist community leaders, lawyers, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in determining what rights communities have and how they may access accountability mechanisms when those rights have been or may be violated.

These tools may be used where a project has harmed communities or resources on which they depend or when there is fear of harm in the future.

This resource is part of the CCSI’s Directory of Community Guidance on Agreements Relating to Agriculture or Forestry Investment.

Assessment Toolkit: Assessing gender-sensitive implementation and country-level monitoring of the Tenure Governance and Africa Land Policy Guidelines

Tools and Guides
 

This gender-sensitive toolkit enables civil society organisations, women and communities, as well as other actors to assess each country’s current legal framework and tenure governance arrangements in line with the provisions of the VGGTS and the AU F&G.

Community Land Protection Facilitators Guide

Tools and Guides
 

This step-by-step guide aims to help community-based organizations and advocates working to help communities protect their customary claims and rights to land and natural resources. It provides tools to:

● Prepare communities for negotiations with investors

● Strengthen community governance of land and natural resources

● Monitor, evaluate and assess the implementation of projects.

This resource is part of the CCSI’s Directory of Community Guidance on Agreements Relating to Agriculture or Forestry Investment.

Due diligence, tenure and agricultural investment. A guide to the dual responsibilities of private sector lawyers advising on the acquisition of land and natural resources

Tools and Guides
 

This guide examines the role and responsibilities of private sector lawyers when advising their clients on agricultural investments. It discusses how lawyers can prevent and/or address and mitigate adverse human rights impacts on holders of legitimate tenure rights when advising on or conducting their due diligence and risk assessment processes on behalf of their clients. It provides a number of key recommendations, including on how to align legal advice with the VGGT and CFS-RAI.

Groundthruthing: A note on methodology

Tools and Guides
 

This guide aims to help community organisers and paralegals to use the method of “ground-truthing” to collect information about operations that might be illegal, prohibited or causing harm. It is a useful tool to monitor the impacts of investments and the proper implementation of agreements and contracts.

This resource is part of the CCSI’s Directory of Community Guidance on Agreements Relating to Agriculture or Forestry Investment.

Guide on incentives for responsible investment in agriculture and food systems

Tools and Guides
 

Increased investment in agriculture and food systems—from both the private and public sectors—is critical to enhance food security and nutrition, reduce poverty, and adapt to climate change. To generate sustainable benefits, this investment must be responsible. What role should investment incentives play in encouraging such investment? This Guide helps to answer that question. Specifically, the Guide provides policymakers and government technical staff with guidance on how investment incentives can be used (and how they should not be used) to enhance responsible investment in agriculture and food systems. The Guide provides an overview of responsible investment in agriculture and food systems; examines common types of incentives; offers general considerations on how incentives can be used; and discusses how to plan for, design, monitor, and evaluate investment incentives for responsible investment in agriculture and food systems.

Guide to Organizing and Working with Community-based Paralegals

Tools and Guides
 

This manual is a practical learning aid and helpful reference guide for community-based paralegals and organizations running community-based paralegal programs.

Handbook on United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement

Tools and Guides
 

This Handbook provides a summary and the actual text of the United Nations (UN) Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement, acknowledged by the UN Human Rights Council in December 2007. A first short section focuses on India before looking at the international context.

Housing and Land Rights Network Toolkit

Tools and Guides
 

This toolkit provides an overview of the main international legal basis and popular claims that ground the human right to adequate housing. It comes with a checklist to compare these international texts with national states' engagements and practices.