The University of The Gambia Law Clinic: The role of a university law clinic in securing access to justice from the perspective of human rights and duties

This chapter will reflect upon the author’s experience coordinating the University of The Gambia (‘UTG’) Law Clinic (‘the Clinic’), and the role played by the Clinic in furthering access to justice in The Gambia. It will consider the nature of human rights as a means of promoting access to justice, considering liberal and solidarity-community approaches to understanding human rights and their corresponding duties. It will reflect on how duties in relation to human rights might be instilled and fulfilled by the Clinic’s work, and considering the implications of the Clinic’s educational activities for improving access to justice in The Gambia through Clinical Legal Education (‘CLE’). It will conclude that a solidarity-community understanding of a human right to access to justice better manages to conceptualise how the Clinic can promote a duty held by individuals and communities to improving access to justice.