• NLG Delegation Observes Election of FMLN: Preliminary Report

    El Salvador, the smallest and most densely populated Central American country with the most extreme disparity of wealth and poverty, has turned a new page. For the first time in its history, a party dedicated to structural improvement of the lives of the majority poor has come to power with the historic March 15, 2009 […]

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  • Presidential Election Monitoring Delegation to El Salvador Voices Pre-Election Concerns

    San Salvador, El Salvador – A delegation of twenty lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild* arrived March 10 in El Salvador to begin serving as accredited international observers in the presidential election taking place this Sunday, March 15, 2009. As observers of the electoral process in the United States we have seen incidences of fraud […]

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  • Update on Puerto Rico: Task Force on the Americas to Reinitiate PR Work

    At this year’s convention, the NLG International Committee Americas Task Force made the important decision to reinitiate its work around Puerto Rico in the future. The decision came after a presentation by Judith Berkan, longtime Guild member and resident of Puerto Rico, supported by Jan Susler, also a longtime Guild member who lived many years […]

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  • Haitian Death Squad Leader Emmanuel Constant Sentenced in New York

    Brian Concannon, Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti Haitian death squad leader Emmanuel Toto Constant was sentenced today in Kings County Supreme Court in New York, by Judge Abraham Gerges, on mortgage fraud charges. According to the Sentencing Memorandum, the full sentence should be between 12 and 37 years. It is not yet clear […]

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  • National Lawyers Guild Applauds Inter-American Court Decision Upholding the Human Rights of Former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune

     Urges Rapid Compliance With Judgment The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) welcomes the recent decision from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) finding that the State of Haiti has violated 11 provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights by illegally imprisoning former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune for two years and by continuing to […]

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  • International Committee appears at UN Decolonization Hearings on Puerto Rico

    Jan Susler After 400 years of Spanish colonial rule of Puerto Rico, in 1898 Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States, and the U.S. militarily invaded and established a military government. Over a century later, Puerto Rico continues to be a U.S. colony- one of the few juridical colonies in the world- in spite […]

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  • National Lawyers Guild Congratulates Raboteau Massacre Victims on Historic Victory

    The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) congratulates the victims of the Raboteau Massacre on their recent victory after a 14-year struggle in the courts of Haiti and the United States. On May 16, the victims received over $400,000 in court-awarded compensation. NLG President Marjorie Cohn noted that “the Raboteau victims have provided all of us a […]

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  • Disturbing the Peace, in Haiti and New Orleans

    Brian Concannon Gerard Jean-Juste, a Catholic priest from Haiti, just does not know when to shut up. In the 1970’s he saw his people starved and persecuted while Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier lived in opulence, so he organized for change. The Duvalier regime responded as dictatorships do, and kicked him out of the country. When […]

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  • Observations from the hearing of Father Gerard Jean-Juste

    by Ollie Ruth Jefferson, Attorney at Law PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI – I arrived at the Palace of Justice with Father Gerard Jean-Juste’s lead attorney, Mario Joseph, and three other observers, approximately 15 minutes prior to the hearing. The UN presence was palpable, evident by their blue helmets, with possibly 20 stationed outside the front […]

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  • Informe sobre Delegación a Bolivia Enero 2– 10, 2007

    Beth Baltimore, Brooklyn, NY Antoine J. Bastien van der Meer, Lane, OK Melissa Brennan, New York, NY Mark Burton, Boulder, CO Mercedes Castillo, CA RESUMEN EJECUTIVO Bolivia es un país que atraviesa una transformación histórica. Colonizado y recolonizado por el capital extranjero, durante muchos siglos esta nación sudamericana ha sido el campo de juego para […]

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