What is PILAP?

PILAP is the Public Interest Legal Advocacy Project, a project of the Community Legal Education Center (CLEC). PILAP is supported by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the PRAJ.

What are PILAP's Goals?

PILAP's goals are to use the legal system to assert and protect citizens' rights, as well as to encourage governmental and private sector transparency and accountability. To accomplish this, PILAP selects legal cases that have strong potential to generate publicity and debate, and that promote broader respect for legal norms, beyond the mere bounds of the case. By publicizing its case work, PILAP hopes to achieve broader aims: to demonstrate the legal system's viability as an instrument of reform, to generate greater respect for the rule of law, and to assist both citizens and government to better understand and implement their legal rights and obligations.

What is PILAP's Approach?

PILAP's substantive focus is on land and forestry cases. Using a careful selection process, PILAP chooses a small number of these often high profile cases. After accepting a case, PILAP employs painstaking legal analysis, careful development of evidence, negotiation, litigation, and mass media as necessary to resolve and publicize the case.

Supplementing this case work, PILAP promotes policy reforms that assist citizens and government to more effectively use the law, and provides public legal education to develop greater understanding and confidence in the legal system.