The Health Law Research group is pleased to announce their first speakers' event with Sabrina Germain, Emily Allbon (City Law School) and Mara Malagoni (Warwick) on the theme of Reproductive rights as socio-economic rights in Nepal.

Date: Monday 11 March 2024

Time: 4pm to 5.30pm 

Location: Hybrid

• On campus: University of Sheffield, Bartolome house, Moot Court
• Online: Joining links will be sent the day before the event

Event Abstract: 

The Reproductive Rights as Socio-Economic Rights in Nepal project looks at creative and practical solutions using legal design to empower marginalised groups and help them improve their access to justice in the hopes to foster a better implementation of socio-economic reproductive rights.

Nepal is one of the leading jurisdictions in Asia with regard to the constitutionalisation of reproductive rights. The new and expansive interpretation of these rights is presented in a series of Supreme Court Judicial decisions including the ground-breaking Lakshmi Dhikta[1] case that has captured media headlines around the world. While Nepal features an impressive array of socio-economic rights relative to reproductive and sexual health, their implementation remains uneven and often ineffective – especially for poor and historically marginalised groups, and in the more remote areas of the country.

Together legal design expert Emilly Allbon (City Law School), health law and policy expert Sabrina Germain (City Law School), and constitutional and Nepalse law expert Mara Malagodi (Warwick School of Law) aim to tackle some complex legal questions at the forefront of constitutional and health law debates in the non-standard jurisdiction of Nepal and to improve the vulnerable population’s understanding of their socio-economic reproductive rights by disseminating knowledge through impactful, innovative and creative methods.

By framing reproductive rights as an access to justice issue, their project intends to help Nepalis exercise their constitutional socio-economic rights and to see them more effectively implemented in the country. More broadly, the project addresses the following research question: How can legal design help with the dissemination of legal knowledge to improve vulnerable groups’ access to justice and rights implementation?

The paper they are presenting on ‘The Power of Legal Design in Access to Justice and Rights Implementation’ unpacks a comprehensive legal analysis of Nepal’s innovative framework of reproductive rights framed as socio-economic rights. It also outlines the approach the team has taken to translate the legal analysis into concrete visual tools such as journey maps using personas, legal maps and case explainers.