NEWSLETTER | ISSUE 5 | WHAT’S HAPPENING? FUTURE & PAST EVENTS
What’s Happening? Future and Past Events
May 2026
IPE Strategy Consultation
Rolling basis between May – August. Dates TBD.
ISLA seeks to convene a Strategy Consultation with the ISLA Panel of Experts (IPE) to re-connect and re-commit with IPE. IPE is an opportunity for ISLA to enter into strategic collaborations with lawyers, researchers and academics who share its ways of working and are interested in assisting ISLA’s theory of change to travel to, and be influenced by, various disciplines. IPE seeks to surface the intellectual contributions of African feminists by rendering visibility to their intellectual and scholarly contributions on the law as a tool for social change. The purpose of this convening will be
• First: to collectively revisit and unpack IPE’s rationale and purpose as part of building a network of experts that can be of service to the African feminist ecosystem. This includes considering opportunities that exist for IPE to support ISLA’s work as well as mutual benefit: i.e., how this collaboration can be value adding for the experts, in their various disciplines.
• Second: to identify key political moments and issues where we need to maintain vigilance as African feminists, and how IPE can plug in to the spaces and issues that ISLA is engaging with, and,
• Third: to collectively agree on ways of working, including how to develop a shared political understanding and power analysis of what it means to do the work of developing feminist jurisprudence in Africa.
FLN Alumni Strategy Consultation
25 May – 27 May 2026
ISLA seeks to convene the Feminist Litigation Network (FLN) Alumni Strategy Consultation, which will establish greater clarity and a shared understanding of the purpose, structure, and long-term vision for FLN alumni engagement. The purpose of the FLN is to build a pool of effective African feminist litigators within civil society organisations who are embedded in movements and the communities whose rights they seek to defend and who have a sophisticated understanding of the issues that they litigate on.
The Strategy Consultation will focus on re-engaging and strengthening relationships with FLN alumni from Cohorts 1 and 2. The Strategy Consultation will also provide a dedicated space for collective reflection on key questions, including who constitutes ‘alumni’, what meaningful engagement and retention should look like, and how ISLA can sustainably maintain these relationships. Moreover, participants will work together to define and agree on a clear and practical alumni engagement
structure.
Implementation of Decisions of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights: Communications 688/18; 788/18; and 734/19
19 April 2026
ISLA, under its Litigation for Social Change (LSC) priority area, in collaboration with Equality Now and the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), hosted a webinar examining the implementation of decisions of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, with a focus on Communications 688/18; 788/18; and 734/19. The webinar built on recent jurisprudence, including a landmark decision in Communication 734/19 addressing trafficking in persons and affirming a substantive equality approach that recognises violence against women as a form of discrimination. It also engaged with decisions arising from Communications 688/18 and 788/18, contributing to the evolving body of regional human rights jurisprudence. Thus, the discussion interrogated key challenges arising from the determination and implementation of communications by the African Commission. These included the limited number of cases addressing violations of women’s rights, inconsistencies in the interpretation of normative frameworks on violence against women, and the resulting tensions in jurisprudence. Particular attention was given to the persistent challenges surrounding the implementation of Commission decisions by States.
The webinar successfully:
1. examined the jurisprudential developments arising from the selected communications,
2. analysed the role of the African Commission and States in ensuring effective implementation of decisions, and
3. explored litigation and legal mobilisation strategies that civil society organisations can employ to advance feminist jurisprudence and ensure the realisation of progressive decisions.
The conversation was led by a panel of legal experts who situated the discussion within broader debates on accountability, compliance with regional human rights obligations, and the strengthening of enforcement mechanisms within the African human rights system.
When Gender Neutral Laws Aren’t Neutral: Division of Matrimonial Property Based on Proven Contribution
5 March 2026
ISLA hosted a webinar that explored the legal implications of the legal requirement to prove contribution made towards the acquisition of matrimonial property as a basis for sharing matrimonial property upon divorce. The webinar focused on gender neutrality and the State’s duty to remedy systemic discrimination against women.
The webinar aimed to:
1. examine how gender-neutral laws entrench inequalities and discrimination
2. the question of evidentiary burden required to prove contribution on women, and
3. reflect on application of a substantive equality approach in division of matrimonial property upon divorce.
ISLA Build Strengthening Retreat
May 2026
16 – 20 February 2026
From 16–20 February 2026, ISLA convened the BUILD: ISLA Strengthening Retreat in Johannesburg, a conscious act of feminist pause. In a political moment marked by shrinking civic space, sustained attacks on regional human rights systems, and coordinated anti-rights mobilisation targeting women, bodily autonomy, and sexual and gender minorities, ISLA chose to turn inward in order to strengthen its outward resistance.
Across the continent, backlash politics seek to repackage patriarchy as culture, distortion as morality, and exclusion as sovereignty. In this climate, Pan-African feminist lawyering cannot be reactive. It must be principled, coordinated, and structurally grounded. BUILD 2026 affirmed that defending rights in courts, regional mechanism, and movements requires internal coherence, political clarity, and collective discipline.
Over five days, the Executive Director’s Office, Operations and Finance Team, and ISLA’s four priority areas namely, Litigating for Social Change (LSC), Building Partnerships for Social Justice (BPSJ), Producing Knowledge for Social Change (PKSC), and Strengthening Capacity to Litigate Strategically (SCLS) came together to deepen strategic alignment and shared accountability. At the centre of BUILD 2026 was a deliberate structural shift, ISLA’s transition to a flat organizational model. This transition is not technical, it is ideological. It clarifies who leads, who supports, and how we hold each other accountable, not through hierarchy, but through purpose and political alignment.
Strategy Consultation: Feminist Strategic Litigation in Francophone West Africa: The Role of Private Practice
May 2026
10 – 14 November 2025
ISLA convened a Strategy Consultation on Feminist Strategic Litigation in Francophone West Africa, aimed at exploring how feminist legal principles can be effectively integrated and applied within civil law systems.
Following the successful establishment of the Feminist Litigation Network (FLN) in Anglophone Africa, ISLA began expanding the model to Francophone West Africa in 2019, starting with Burkina Faso and local partner VDF. This process revealed key differences between legal systems, prompting ISLA to reimagine the FLN to better suit civil law contexts. A country visit to Burkina Faso in July 2025 helped lay the groundwork for a new, locally anchored model and a coordinated network of feminist organizations, legal experts, and private practitioners. The strategy consultation in Abidjan built on these efforts, focusing on strengthening partnerships and advancing feminist strategic litigation across Francophone West Africa.
The consultation aimed to engage legal practitioners and feminist organizations to strengthen feminist strategic litigation rooted in international human rights law. It identified collaboration partners and experts to form the core of a regional network, defined partnership frameworks, and refined a case collaboration model that aligns actors, embeds feminist principles, and supports effective coordination across Francophone West Africa.
Through collaborative dialogue, participants mapped partnership models, examined the role of private practice in advancing women’s human rights, and co-developed sustainable frameworks for feminist strategic litigation in Francophone West Africa. The consultation forms part of ISLA’s broader mission to strengthen regional capacity, foster collaboration, and expand jurisprudence on women’s rights across the continent.