Pro bono legal service providers increasingly operate in environments where access to justice cannot be achieved through litigation alone. In conflict-affected and fragile settings, survivors often face fragmented legal systems, weak institutions, and overlapping humanitarian, human rights, and security challenges.

This interactive workshop explores how the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, originating from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, can serve as a practical framework for connecting legal advocacy, humanitarian action, and community-based justice initiatives.

Rather than presenting WPS simply as a gender policy or a soft-law framework, the session introduces it as a practical mechanism for translating and connecting international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and peacebuilding practice. Through a common case study inspired by peace operations and the Mindanao peace process, participants will work alongside the presenters to identify where pro bono legal service providers, civil society organisations, humanitarian practitioners, and local communities can intervene to improve access to justice.

Using participatory methods inspired by the Street Law approach, participants will analyse justice gaps, discuss practical interventions, and collaboratively design legal and community-based responses. The workshop aims to equip participants with practical ideas that can be adapted to their own professional contexts while encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration between lawyers, civil society organisations, humanitarian practitioners, and security actors.

Ryoko Yonamine

PhD student, Osaka Jogakuin University

Rona Karimi

Student, International Christian University