Children's right to education is key to unlocking global human and economic development. The right is protected by multiple human rights norms and treaties, but inadequate state spending and discrimination prevent millions from going to school, while keeping others trapped in substandard schools without textbooks, adequately trained teachers, seats, or even toilets. Poor children, ethnic minorities, girls, and children with disabilities are especially hard hit. In response, students, teachers, parents, and education rights advocates are increasingly turning to the courts for justice. This comparative study, based on scores of interviews in Brazil, India, and South Africa, sheds light on the innovative ways that education advocates and social movements are harnessing the power of the judiciary to demand adequate basic education for all. It finds that strategic litigation has been a helpful tool, leading to material improvements in education infrastructure as well as positive changes in government policy and jurisprudence, and that it has been an effective ally for student movements and global education policy-makers alike in Brazil and South Africa. It also interrogates whether strategic litigation has been under-used in India, where one of the world's largest and fastest-growing youth populations is struggling to reach its educational potential. This study--the second in a five-part series examining the impacts of strategic litigation--shows that strategic litigation is no panacea: it can be slow, costly, and risky. But it also finds that strategic litigation has been effective--especially when combined with other forms of advocacy--in opening schools doors that were previously closed. It suggests specific further action in Brazil and South Africa, and calls for robust experimentation with this tool to unlock stalled processes in India. [This report was prepared as part of the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Open Society Foundations Education Support Program. For the first of the five studies, "Strategic Litigation Impacts: Roma School Desegregation," see ED606038.]