National Lawyers Guild International Committee

National Lawyers Guild International Committee Logo

National Lawyers Guild International Committee is a branch of the National Lawyers Guild.

Background

From the National Lawyers Guild International Committee website:

The NLG International Committee (IC) supports legal work around the world “to the end that human rights and the rights of ecosystems shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests.” As lawyers, law students, and legal activists, we seek to change U.S. foreign policy that threatens, rather than engages, or is based on a model of domination rather than respect. The Guild provides assistance and solidarity to movements in the United States and abroad that work for social justice in this increasingly interconnected world.

The NLG IC plays an active role in international conferences, delegations and on-going projects that examine and seek to remedy conditions caused by illegal U.S. or corporate practices. By bringing an alternative perspective to multinational institutions, schools, community centers and congressional hearings, the IC and its members actively educate, litigate, and truth-seek toward the end of social justice.

Get involved with us today and be part of building a more peaceful and just world.

A brief history

From its founding in 1937, the National Lawyers Guild has maintained an internationalist perspective, and international work has been a critical focus for the National Lawyers Guild and its members.

The Guild was active in the fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War and in World War II. Guild lawyers participated in the creation of the United Nations, and in the prosecution of IG Farben, the German chemical corporation which played an active role in the Holocaust.

The Guild opposed the hysteria of the Cold War, and many Guild lawyers used their skills to defend immigrants, labor activists, and others accused of “subversion.” Later Guild work has been centered on support for national liberation movements (such as those in Vietnam and South Africa), the eradication of nuclear weapons, and the support of international legal principles and institutions which further “… the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property rights.”

Presently, subcommittees or on-going projects exist for Cuba, Gaza, Task Force for the Americas, Korea, Africa, the Philippines, Haiti and the United Nations. The International Committee has also joined with the Guild’s Labor and Employment Committee to form the International Labor Justice Working Group. Working Groups take on current issues such as Torture, the Afghanistan War, Justice for Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims and preserving Japans Peace Constitution Article 9. Numerous white papers and legal materials are prepared each year.

Since the turn of the 21st century, the International Committee has organized delegations to Haiti, Philippines, El Salvador, Palestine, Venezuela, Lebanon, North and South Korea, Cuba, and Mexico; and International Committee members participated in the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001 and its follow up meeting in 2009.

Guild members have taken a leading role in the International Association of Democratic Lawyers; sending hundreds of lawyers, legal workers and students to the IADL’s Congresses in Cape Town in 1996, in Havana October 2000, Paris in June 2005 and Hanoi 2009. Not a bad travel schedule! NLG IC member Jeanne Mirer was just elected the President of IADL.

We have organized seminars for our own members on how to incorporate international law principles into everyday law practice and have materials to assist practitioners in utilizing many international forums.

Guild lawyers have worked with labor unions to develop a strategy for developing alliances with progressive unions in Mexico. We have challenged labor rights abuses and opposed the devastating proposals for labor law “reform” in that country, by working through the administrative process established under NAFTA.

The International Committee vigorously opposed the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and worked to incorporate international legal principles into critiques of U.S. aggression. Fact-Sheets and White papers have been developed for use by other human rights groups. We helped organize legal delegations to Haiti which documented gross human rights violations in the aftermath of the U.S.-supported coup against democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The Guild participated in a delegation that met with President Aristide in Jamaica in April of 2004, less than two months after the coup.

In the immediate aftermath of the Israeli invasion the Guild sent a delegation to Gaza in February 2009 and has produced talks, videos and a White Paper on the Illegal invasion.

The Guild has a long history of fighting for the right of US nationals to visit and associate with progressive movements worldwide; today, we continue to organize lawyers to provide counseling and representation for U.S. travelers to Cuba, in the face of increased restrictions on travel. In addition to struggling against the unjust foreign policies of the superpower in which we live, the International Committee has sought to assist movements in the United States and around the globe which promote peace, justice, health, equality, openness, and the possibilities of another world.

People

From the National Lawyers Guild International Committee website:

Co-Chairs and Organizer

The International Committee is led by a Steering Committee representing our Subcommittees, and annually elects three co-chairs to organize the work of the IC, represent the IC at the NLG’s National Executive Committee, and lead the development of the Guild’s international work.

Co-Chairs

• Jeanne Mirer is Co-Chair of the International Committee. She is currently President of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, a founding Board Member of the International Commission for Labor Rights and a Board Member of the Sugar Law Center. Additionally, Jeanne is a member of the Core and the National Board of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign. She has been a member of the NLG for 42 years and has held numerous positions in the Guild. She practices labor, employment and civil rights law in New York City. Among her clients are Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange who have taken to court the U.S. chemical companies that profited from manufacturing the poison. In addition to the Guild and the IADL, she is a member of the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee, the National Employment Law Association, and the NAACP. Jeanne has a deep and extensive history of work in both the international and domestic sphere, including the application of international laws, standards and treaties to the United States. She has authored and co-authored countless white papers, briefs, and articles on everything from the human right to peace, to Agent Orange, to drones, to women’s rights, to labor law and international law.

• Suzanne Adely is a graduate of City University of New York School of Law. Co-chair of the International Committee, she is also a founder of the Middle East, North Africa Labor Solidarity Network in the U.S. Prior to working with the UAW she was a civil rights coordinator with Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) in Queens, NY, and a legal worker with the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (Cairo). Suzanne is also a longtime organizer. In Chicago, she worked on campaigns with the Arab American Action Network and the Chicago Coalition to Protect People's Rights, challenging War on Terror policies. Suzanne has been active in anti-war and Palestine solidarity organizing in the U.S. since her youth. Suzanne is the daughter of Jordanian workers and grew up in Yonkers, New York. For 10 years, she worked as a high school teacher in New York City and Cairo. She is a long-time member of Al-Awda-NY, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Defend the Egyptian Revolution Committee of New York. This past spring Suzanne organized an NLG delegation which brought U.S. lawyers to Egypt.

• Jackelyn Mariano was introduced to the National Lawyers Guild when she was a legal intern for the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL) in the Philippines, with whom she drafted an impeachment complaint against then-President Benigno Aquino III on grounds of corruption and betrayal of public trust. Since then, she has been active in the NLG’s Philippines Subcommittee, later serving as its chair, and leading the NLG’s participation in the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP). Jackelyn decided to join the legal profession after several years of organizing as a member of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON) against labor trafficking of Filipino migrant workers to the United States. Born and raised by Filipino immigrant parents in Queens, NY, her activist and professional work is deeply informed by her personal experiences. Jackelyn is dedicated to international struggles that aim to solve the root problems causing systemic oppression, and particularly targets imperialist plunder and wars that force poor and working people to migrate from their homes in order to survive. Jackelyn is a graduate of CUNY School of Law. She is one-half of a small, two-person law firm in Queens, NY, and specializes in immigration and estate planning. She also serves as the chairperson of NY Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (NYCHRP).

• Charlotte Kates is the part-time organizer of the NLG International Committee. A graduate of Rutgers University School of Law, she managed the education and advocacy work of the Center for Constitutional Rights’ Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative before working as a disability rights and inclusion advocate in Vancouver, BC. She is the international coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a member of the organizing collective of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and a long-time organizer with Al-Awda-NY, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition.

Protest Russian Sanctions after Ukraine Invasion

March 18, 2023 Answer Protest Flyer

ANSWER has heavily advertised a demonstration to be held on March 18, 2023 to protest sanctions on Russia in the wake of their invasion on Ukraine.

Screenshot of portion of flyer for ANSWER protest for March 18, 2023

From a flyer on their website:

The war in Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia are making it harder for people to pay their rent, fill their gas tanks, put food on the table and keep the lights on. Much of the damage is due to the sanctions placed on Russia, a major producer of everything from oil to wheat. The US Federal Reserve admits that the conflict is “pushing up inflation” while slowing down growth.

To fight inflation we need to end the US’s massive international sanctions regime and demand they stop sending weapons to fuel the Ukraine war, and stop blocking peace negotiations.

The Wall Street Journal now says: “Gas Prices Poised to Rise Again as Sanctions on Russia Take Effect,” while global economists say the “massive shock” of the war will produce new “inflationary pressures, sapping confidence and household purchasing power.”

US sanctions on Venezuela and Iran are further impacting the market in oil and gas prices, driving up prices and driving the climate crisis destroying the planet. It’s clear as ever that the US’s own policies of sanctions, and the proxy war provoked by NATO policies, is directly impacting the cost-of-living crisis for working class people. Meanwhile the military industrial complex and Wall Street get richer. This is criminal — the time to act is now!

The protest was supported by National Lawyers Guild International Committee'.