Litigants turn to lawyers to transform their claims into arguments that a judge will hear, even if it sometimes seems to distort their stories, omit things that concern them most, and use phrases they barely understand. And this happens in national courts as well as international contexts. But while litigants in local courts often have pragmatic reasons for pursuing legal cases, those who appeal to human rights laws are often trying to make moral arguments, to draw attention to their cause in a long-term campaign for social reform.
