Human Rights Law

NLG Says Politics Motivated Decision in Cuban Five Case

Posted on June 05, 2008
Two Judges on Three-Judge Panel Uphold Conspiracy to Commit Murder Conviction Despite Government?s Lack of EvidenceNew York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) believes that politics influenced yesterday?s federal appeals court decision upholding the convictions of five Cuban patriots accused of spying in the United States...

NLG Urges United States to Sign and Ratify Treaty Banning Use of Cluster Bombs

Posted on June 05, 2008
NLG Also Renews Its Call for the U.S. to Ratify Land Mine TreatyNew York. The National Lawyers Guild is disturbed to see that, once again, the rhetoric of the United States government about building peace and security is directly contradicted by its actions...

Hillary Invokes Assassination

Posted on May 24, 2008
For weeks, pundits have speculated about why Hillary Clinton insists on remaining in the primary race when Barack Obama has all but clinched the Democratic presidential nomination. On Friday, Clinton answered that question. It appears she's waiting in the wings for something dreadful to befall Obama...

National Lawyers Guild Calls for Special Prosecutor, Issues White Paper on Torture Liability

Posted on May 12, 2008
New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls on Congress to appoint a Special Prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, to investigate and prosecute high Bush officials and lawyers including John Yoo for their role in the torture of prisoners in U...

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Congressional Testimony of Marjorie Cohn on Torture Policy

Posted on May 08, 2008
Testimony of Marjorie Cohn"From the Department of Justice to Guantánamo Bay: Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules" Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil LibertiesHouse Judiciary CommitteeMay 6, 2008What does torture have in common with genocide, slavery, and wars of aggression? They are all "jus cogens...

National Lawyers Guild President toTestify on Torture Liability Before House Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

Posted on May 01, 2008
On Tuesday, May 6, 2008, National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn will provide testimony at a hearing titled ?From the Department of Justice to Guantánamo Bay: Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules,? before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee...

Center for Constitutional Rights Supports National Lawyers Guild Call for Dismissal and Prosecution of John Yoo

Posted on April 17, 2008
On April 1, a secret 81-page memo written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo in March 2003 was made public. In that memo, Yoo advised the Bush administration that the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel would not enforce U...

National Lawyers Guild Calls on Boalt Hall to Dismiss Law Professor John Yoo, Whose Torture Memos Led to Commission of War Crimes

Posted on April 09, 2008
New York. In a memorandum written the same month George W. Bush invaded Iraq, Boalt Hall law professor John Yoo said the Department of Justice would construe US criminal laws not to apply to the President's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants...

National Lawyers Guild Welcomes Discussion of Racism Occasioned by Senator Barack Obama's Historic Speech

Posted on March 24, 2008
In response to highly-publicized sound-bites from sermons by Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama delivered an historic speech on racism, titled "A More Perfect Union."Rev. Wright had strongly criticized the U...

Beware an Attack on Iran

Posted on March 17, 2008
Is the Bush administration ramping up for an attack on Iran? Thesigns seem to point in that direction. On March 11, Navy Adm. WilliamFallon, commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East, retired earlybecause of differences with Washington on Iran policy...

National Lawyers Guild Calls on Congress to Override Bush Veto of Intelliigence Authorization Bill

Posted on March 11, 2008
New York. The National Lawyers Guild calls on Congress to override George W. Bush?s veto?in direct contravention of the advice of military commanders?of the Intelligence Authorization Bill that contained a provision limiting the Central Intelligence Agency?s ability to engage in the torture technique known as waterboarding...

Thom Hartmann Interview with Marjorie Cohn

Posted on February 29, 2008

National Lawyers Guild Calls on Justice Antonin Scalia to Recuse Himself From Interrogation-related Cases

Posted on February 18, 2008
The National Lawyers Guild calls on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to recuse himself from any case coming before the Supreme Court involving the constitutionality of torture as an interrogation technique. In a BBC interview that aired on Tuesday, Scalia defended the use of torture to extract information from persons in custody by law enforcement officials in some cases...

Injustice at Guantanamo: Torture Evidence and the Military Commissions Act

Posted on February 15, 2008
The Bush administration has announced its intention to try six alleged al Qaeda members at Guantánamo under the Military Commissions Act. That Act forbids the admission of evidence extracted by torture, although it permits evidence obtained by cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment if it was secured before December 30, 2005...

The National Lawyers Guild Condemns Senate Grant of Immunity to Lawbreaking Telecommunications Companies

Posted on February 14, 2008
Responding to fear-mongering by the Bush administration, the Senate voted on February 12 to give retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that have turned over our telephone and Internet communications to the government. These companies have violated several laws, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Title III, the Communications Act, and the Stored Communications Act, as well as the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution...

Senate Poised to Capitulate to Cheney's Fear-Mongering

Posted on January 24, 2008
After a January 24 debate in the Senate on amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Senate appears ready to capitulate once again to the Bush administration's agenda of sacrificing liberty for questionable security.On the day before Congress was slated to take up this issue, Dick Cheney addressed the Heritage Foundation, the most influential right-wing think tank...

Cheney Impeachment Gains Traction in House Judiciary Committee

Posted on January 21, 2008
Nine out of 23 Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee favor starting impeachment hearings against Vice-President Dick Cheney. Six of the nine are co-sponsors of H.R. 799, which contains three articles of impeachment. Articles I and II of H...

The Torture Tape Cover-up: How High Does It Go?

Posted on December 26, 2007
When the hideous photographs of torture and abuse emerged from Abu Ghraib in the spring of 2004, they created a public relations disaster for the Bush administration. The White House had painstakingly worked to capitalize on the 9/11 attacks by creating a "war on terror...

Bush Still Spinning Nukes in Iran

Posted on December 18, 2007
The unanimous conclusion of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, that Iran ceased pursuing a program of nuclear weapons in 2003, has dealt a severe blow to the Bush-Cheney agenda of forcible regime change in Iran. For several months, the rhetoric emerging from the White House escalated to the point that many observers predicted Bush would attack Iran before he leaves office...

Guantánamo Detainees' Fate at Stake in Boumediene

Posted on December 03, 2007
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in Boumediene v. Bush. Most of the 34 detainees whose fate hangs in the balance in this case were brought to Guantánamo after being picked up by bounty hunters or tribesmen in Afghanistan and Pakistan...

Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed: Bush Negotiates Permanent Presence in Iraq

Posted on December 03, 2007
The revelation that Bush will sign an agreement for a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq before his term is up confirms the real reason he invaded Iraq and changed its regime.It was never about weapons of mass destruction. It was never about ties between Saddam and al Qaeda...

National Lawyers Guild and Society of American Law Teachers Strongly Oppose Homegrown Terrorism Act

Posted on November 27, 2007
On October 23, 2007, the House of Representatives passed the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 by a vote of 404-6. The bill will be referred out of committee this week and will then go to the Senate floor. The National Lawyers Guild and the Society of American Law Teachers strongly oppose this legislation because it will likely lead to the criminalization of beliefs, dissent and protest, and invite more draconian surveillance of Internet communications...

Remembering Victor Rabinowitz: Legal Giant of the Left

Posted on November 25, 2007
On November 16, 2007, Victor Rabinowitz, one of the giants of the legal profession and a tireless fighter for social justice, died at the age of 96. One of the founders of the National Lawyers Guild 70 years ago, Victor defended unpopular clients when other lawyers were afraid to touch them...

Preventing the Impending War on Iran

Posted on November 23, 2007
Rhetoric flowing out of the White House indicates the Bush administration is planning a military attack on Iran. Officials in Saudi Arabia, a close Bush ally, think the handwriting is on the wall. "George Bush's tone makes us think he has decided what he is going to do," according to Rihab Massoud, Prince Bandar ben Sultan's right-hand man...

Musharraf Plays Bush for a Fool

Posted on November 19, 2007
Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency on November 3rd after the Pakistani Supreme Court indicated it would overturn the results of an illegitimate election that would have extended Musharraf's term as president. Musharraf quickly fired the Supreme Court justices who planned to rule against him...

Michael Mukasey: Another Loyal Bushie

Posted on October 21, 2007
The Michael Mukasey Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing has demonstrated that Mukasey cannot be relied upon to function independently as U.S. Attorney General. Nevertheless, Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee seem so thrilled that Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales that they're willing to vote for him even though he's another loyal Bushie...

Unrepentant, Bush Denies Torture

Posted on October 08, 2007
The April 2004 publication of grotesque photographs of naked Iraqis piled on top of each other, forced to masturbate, and led around on leashes like dogs, sent shock waves around the world. George W. Bush declared, ?I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated...

Pursue Diplomacy, Not War, With Iran

Posted on September 24, 2007
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?s visit to the United States has prompted an outcry, including protests and tabloid headlines calling him ?evil? and a ?madman.? As Juan Cole says, "The real reason his visit is controversial is that the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran...

Erwin Chemerinsky and the Post-9/11 Attack on Academic Freedom

Posted on September 15, 2007
One week after renowned legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky was offered the position of dean of the new law school at the University of California at Irvine, Chancellor Michael Drake withdrew the offer, informing Professor Chemerinsky he had proved to be "too politically controversial...

Bush Plans War on Iran

Posted on September 02, 2007
The Sunday Times of London is reporting that the Pentagon has plans for three days of massive air strikes against 1,200 targets in Iran. Last week, Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, told a meeting of The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal, that the military did not intend to carry out "pinprick strikes" against Iranian nuclear facilities...

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