«The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the state of emergency in which we live is not the exception, but the rule»-Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940)

TRUMP ON TRIAL

Call for Special Hearings of the International Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples in Movement (ITCPM), 2026

Introduction

We call on all communities, peoples, organizations, families, movements, and individuals committed to the defense and full realization of our rights – without borders – to join us in convening a continental and global historic people’s trial of the most serious crimes of the U.S. regime of Donald Trump and his predecessors and accomplices, nationally and internationally. The terror that the U.S has unleashed on the streets of Caracas is the same terror that has awakened unprecedented resistance on the streets of Minneapolis.

This trial convened by the International Tribunal of Conscience (ITCPM) will begin during its first phase in the course of 2026, and will be built from below, through popular assemblies and preliminary hearings organized by sectors whose rights have been violated in each country, community, organization, and/or movement that decides to participate.

These assemblies and preliminary hearings will be organized thematically with the support of an organizing committee coordinated by the International Tribunal of Conscience (ITCPM), the People’s Movement for Peace and Justice (MPPJ), and the Coordinadora Americana por los Derechos de los Pueblos y Víctimas de la Prisión Política (American Coordinator for the Rights of Peoples and Victims of Political Imprisonment), together with other partners and allies, and will converge with their contributions, claims, and documentation in national and regional assemblies and hearings.

These assemblies, hearings, and processes to present claims and documentation will culminate in:

1. A binational hearing (focused on issues related to the United States and Mexico) in El Paso, Texas on September 21-22, 2026 and

• A continental hearing (focused on issues focused on Latin America and the Caribbean and on a global scale) to be held in Mexico City-Tenochtitlan on November 5 and 6, 2026, as the conclusion of the first phase of this process, followed by global dissemination of the Tribunal’s findings on December 10, 2026 (International Human Rights Day)

Frames of Reference

The International Tribunal of Conscience (ITCPM) was born in October 2010 within the framework of the IV World Social Forum on Migration in Quito, Ecuador and held its first hearings in Mexico City in November of that same year.

The ITCPM is the first independent ethical tribunal of its kind to specialize in issues related to the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and displaced persons («peoples on the move«), and has collaborated closely with the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) since its inception.

This has included the participation of the ITCPM in the TPP process in Mexico between 2011 and 2014, culminating in its landmark opinions. We assume these findings and those of previous ITCPM processes referenced here as starting points for the 2026 process, in addition to all the relevant case law for each topic, sector, and country, as well as the best of the critical, interdisciplinary academic, political, social, and cultural reflection and literature regarding these issues in Latin America and on a global scale.

The ITCPM has also held special hearings within the framework of cases such as that of Ayotzinapa (in New York City, 2015), in solidarity with the arrival of the migrant caravans in Mexico City and the holding of the World Social Forum on Migration there in November 2018, within the framework of our coordination of the Civil Mission for the Observation and Defense of Human Rights in Peru in April 2023, and in the encampments in solidarity with the Palestinian people at universities throughout the U.S in the spring of 2024.

The Tribunal process during 2026 will have the Statute of the International Tribunal of Conscience (see below) as a frame of reference, in addition to the Statute of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT), the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples (or Algiers Declaration, 1976), Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, among other sources.

We will also bear in mind throughout this process the enduring inspiration of the Russell Tribunal’s judgments of first the war crimes and crimes against humanity of the United States in Vietnam in 1966-67 and then regarding the crimes of the military regimes imposed by U.S “National Security Doctrine” in Latin America in the 1970’s. These proceedings were grounded in the Nuremburg Principles.

Our frames of reference for this process also include all of the relevant norms of international law, international human rights law and Inter-American law, and of the legal systems of the states of the American continent and of the world, together with the normative systems of Indigenous peoples and communities of African descent, and of the intercultural ethical and moral principles that underpin the universal legal conscience of all of humanity in its most emancipatory sense.

Statute of the International Tribunal of Conscience (ITCPM)

Objectives of the Tribunal

1. To make visible, denounce, document and prosecute States, governments, companies, institutions, organizations and/or individuals involved in violations of the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees and displaced persons, and their families, communities, and peoples, in countries of origin, transit, and destination throughout the world

1. within the framework of recurrent patterns of structural, state, and systemic violence

b) including their rights to migrate, not to  migrate, and not to be forcibly displaced, which together are the basis of the universal right to freedom of movement and/or transit, and/or to «human mobility» or ius migrandi (see Arts. 13 and 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948), and their right to remain in their communities and countries of origin, as an expression of their right to live a dignified life;

2. To analyze illustrative cases of violations of the dignity and/or rights of migrants, refugees, and displaced persons, and their families, communities, and peoples;

3. To determine the responsibility of state and/or corporate actors, in the light of:

1. the minimums established by relevant international, regional, and national legal norms, both conventional, jurisprudential and customary, and their interpretation; and/or

• the ethical imperatives that underpin the demands of movements and peoples, and their insurgent legitimacy within the framework of the exercise of the right to rebellion, including mobility as a process of liberation;

• from the perspective of alternative law, including the right to universal citizenship, and/or of residence, and the right of peoples to an autonomous «life project of their own», as recognized by the Statute of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, based on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples (Declaration of Algiers,  4 July 1976), arts. 1-7

d) the rights recognized and demands included in the Peoples’ Agreement adopted by the World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba on April 22, 2010, and in the Charter of Rights of Undocumented Workers adopted in Mexico on April 30, 1980,  among other sources

4. Recommend immediate, medium and long-term precautionary measures of justice, reparation, truth, and/or reconciliation applicable to each case, and to the systematic patterns and practices of injustice reflected in these cases

5. To contribute not only to the enrichment of existing legal frameworks, but also to their expansion and critical deepening in terms of the recognition of rights, and to their counter-hegemonic transformation, «from below»

6. To channel cases suitable for prosecution in the relevant international, regional and national legal and institutional spheres of advocacy aand litigation, including articulation with convergent issues with other courts of conscience and related spaces