This article analyses LGBTQI rights and death penalty litigation in the Caribbean and East Africa before and after the establishment of new regional international courts. LGBTQI rights and death penalty are both hard cases fuelled by global movements and litigation strategies that easily clash with local sentiments. For litigation to have impact in such issue areas, the article finds that three elements must align. First, there is a need for new institutional opportunities such as new judicial venues or laws. Secondly, there is a need for coordinated legal strategies that can utilise the available legal venues. Thirdly, there is need for a societal momentum for the cause, or at least the absence of strong political contestation against the cause. In our study, the establishment of new regional courts provided institutional opportunities which could be seized by transnational litigation networks. And as international courts operate on distance from local politics, they created a more neutral international legal opportunity structure. In the two regions and across the two issue-areas studied, these three elements were most clearly aligned regarding death penalty litigation in the Caribbean – and the least regarding LGBTQI litigation in East Africa.