Task Force on the Americas

The Task Force on the Americas developed out of a February 2006 delegation to Venezuela, an effort sponsored by the NLG and National Latino/a Law Students Association. The delegation of 16 lawyers, 6 law students, and a filmmaker spent a week in Caracas and was inspired by the Bolivarian Revolution and its effort to further regional integration and an alternative to neoliberal trade policies in the Americas. The Task Force then sponsored a U.S. tour of Justice Fernando Vegas of the Venezuela Supreme Court.

We then sent a delegation to Bolivia in 2007 and have sent several groups to observe elections in Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, and Bolivia. We have also sent delegations to Guatemala, Honduras, and Colombia to investigate and report on human rights issues. The Task Force has sponsored numerous workshops at NLG conventions and works in conjunction with other progressive organizations on human rights campaigns. We have a listserv and hold annual meetings at the NLG convention.

Because Venezuela's revolution is based on that country's 1999 constitution and laws pursuant to it, and because constitutional change has been a key demand of progressive forces in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Honduras, lawyers and judges from the US can play an important role in explaining developments in left-leaning states, resisting US intervention, and countering US media disinformation.

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