The Mekong Legal Advocacy Institute – building a community of lawyers and legal advocates
EarthRights has been supporting communities affected by environmental harms for over three decades by bringing together the power of law and power of people. Our approach relies on a community of lawyers and legal advocates working with communities and campaigners. EarthRights works to build this community of lawyers from the ground up.
“This course has changed our minds on what is possible”
MLAI participant (2025)
APPLY TODAY
What is the Mekong Legal Advocacy Institute?
In the Mekong region, the changes brought about by rapid economic development and investment pose many challenges for local communities such as harmful extractive projects, land grabs and environmental impact assessments (EIAs) that are used as a tool by powerful corporations to create the appearance of consultation and due process.
Launched in 2009, the Mekong Legal Advocacy Institute (MLAI) is a three-week program that brings together young public interest lawyers, legal advocates and campaigners from the Mekong region (Vietnam, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and China). The participants share EarthRights’ desire to use the law and legal advocacy as tools to address these challenges and seek environmental justice. The program helps them build the knowledge and skills needed to practice legal advocacy, support communities’ needs and strengthen the voices of local people within legal processes.
“I got a lot of energy from MLAI – I feel people’s passion, their purpose in their job. It is impressive and motivating.”
MLAI participant (2025)
MLAI is rooted in practical, experiential learning such as court visits and field trips to learn from communities. It creates space for participants to share their expertise, from lawsuits in China that challenge EIAs that threaten biodiversity to sharing strategies from Laos, Thailand and Myanmar on how to help communities confronted by harmful rare earth mines. While EarthRights has been running MLAI for over 15 years, we work hard to improve it year on year. A recent survey of MLAI alumni gave us ideas on how to do this while also telling us that every single respondent had used what they learned from MLAI in their work.
What happens after MLAI?
Lawyers and legal activists in the Mekong region have limited opportunities to study environmental issues and even fewer opportunities to connect with more experienced practitioners in the region who are already successfully supporting communities with legal advocacy. MLAI addresses this and creates long term impact by connecting participants with leading practitioners from the Mekong Legal Network, a regional network of senior environmental and public interest lawyers. Indeed, many MLN members are themselves MLAI alumni and our long term vision is to grow a community of lawyers and legal advocates.
Along with alumni of the EarthRights School, MLAI alumni also become part of the EarthRights alumni network. Together over [700] lawyers, legal advocates, community leaders, organizers, trainers and activists have taken part in these programs and the MLAI alumni bring much needed legal expertise to the alumni network. This approach acknowledges the challenges that environmental human rights defenders face in the Mekong region whilst leveraging their collective knowledge and power.
“We gained knowledge from the speakers, but we gained more knowledge from the other participants”
MLAI participant (2025)
