Legal protection programing: Community-Based Paralegal Programing Toolkit

Without access to justice, protection risks intensify, social tensions escalate into unresolved conflicts, and cycles of impunity, powerlessness, and injustice are perpetuated. However, in times of crisis, justice services are often overlooked, despite being essential for addressing rights violations and providing recourse for survivors of violence. Justice programming is frequently treated as a development issue or a highly specialized, sensitive area. In contexts characterized by widespread rights abuses, humanitarian actors often perceive existing justice system as irrelevant—or even harmful—to survivors, reinforcing discrimination, inequality, and violence. Even when accessing justice is considered within humanitarian responses, there is often a bias in engagement, with stakeholders favoring formal justice and excluding informal mechanisms (such as traditional, customary, or religious courts). Yet, these informal mechanisms often prove more resilient in crises and are frequently preferred by affected communities.

Limited investment in that area of programing and services in humanitarian settings has led to significant gaps in operational methodologies for delivering responsive and effective legal protection as part of response to crisis. Humanitarian protection actors have consistently called for clearer guidance and practical tools to support legal programming in emergencies—tools that recognize the importance of justice as a core component of protection and resilience.

The Community Paralegal Toolkit, developed by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), : This toolkit provides a step-by-step guide to establishing community-driven legal approaches within Access to Justice (A2J) programming. It is designed to ensure that justice initiatives are empowering, transformative, and sustainable. The toolkit offers practical instructions on how to build a safe, inclusive, and high-quality community paralegal program. It explains the core approach, outlines key strategic considerations, and highlights the skills and competencies community paralegals need. It also explores how paralegals can support communities to know, use, and shape the law.

Intended for use by stakeholders across humanitarian, peacebuilding, and development contexts, this toolkit emphasizes that legal protection is not solely the domain of legal experts. Rather, it is accessible to the communities we serve—and can be led by them, for them.

By centering community agency, this toolkit enables affected populations to meaningfully participate in shaping their own justice solutions, and to drive the change they want to see.

To access the entire toolkit, please click here