Haiti Subcommittee

About the Haiti Subcommittee

Contact information

The new Haiti Subcommittee

The International Committee established the new Haiti Subcommittee in February 2006, two years after the coup ousting democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to systematize the work that the Guild and Guild members have been doing to promote justice and sovereignty for the Haitian people, and to expand opportunities for Guild members to participate in Haiti advocacy work. The subcommittee's work will include traditional efforts the Guild has undertaken on behalf of the Haitian people, such as preparing human rights reports, issuing press releases, organizing delegations, convention workshops and panels, and pursuing cases before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Guild members are currently working on litigation in Haitian, U.S. and international courts, representing political prisoners in Haiti and political refugees in the U.S., preparing human rights documentation, speaking on human rights in Haiti and supporting grassroots organizing on justice issues in Haiti and the U.S.

The Haiti Subcommittee is currently organizing a series of legal delegations to Haiti focusing on such topics as prisoners� rights, women�s right and labor issues. The delegations are an excellent way for Guild members to get involved in work for justice in Haiti and to publicize the current situation on the ground there. Upon return from any of the delegations, participating Guild members will draft a report of their findings, which could be used in conjunction with petitions to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, as a way to publicize conditions in Haiti, or as a tool to educate elected representatives.

The Haiti Subcommittee is co-sponsoring a workshop for the 2006 Convention on the use of U.S. "democracy promotion" programs to undermine progressive governments in Latin America. The Subcommittee encourages all interested members to attend the workshop to learn more about how the U.S. used the National Endowment for Democracy and other tools to systematically undermine Haiti�s democratic governments.

For more information on human rights and the rule of law in Haiti, please visit the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti's (IJDH) web site at www.HaitiJustice.org. To read IJDH's Haiti Justice blog, visit www.blog.ijdh.org.