Who we are

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, active Subcommittees exist for Cuba, the Middle East, Korea, 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.

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

Guild members have taken a leading role in the International Association of Democratic Lawyers; over 240 lawyers and legal workers from the U.S. participated in IADL’s Congress in Havana in October 2000, and over 30 U.S. lawyers attended the IADL’s Congress in Paris in June 2005.

We have organized seminars for our own members on how to incorporate international law principles into everyday law practice.

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 endorsed a legal delegation to Venezuela, scheduled to immediately follow the World Social Forum in Caracas in February, 2006.

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. 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.

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.

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