What Is Movement Infrastructure?

Meena Jagannath, Director of Global Programs at Movement Law Lab, shared how movement lawyers are using litigation as a frontline defense against rising authoritarianism. As host and steward of the Global Network of Movement Lawyers, the Lab brings lawyers together from across the globe to test and learn from strategies to block authoritarian power through legal action.

Movement Law Lab’s core role within the movement ecosystem is centered on training and shifting the legal sector toward a movement-oriented approach. We provide substantive support to various campaigns—from abolition efforts in Chicago to the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta. We engage in advocacy against the use of terrorism narratives in relation to the genocide in Palestine. And we provide lawyers with political education to deepen their understanding of and engagement with movement-based work.

With Brexit, the election of Trump, and the election of Bolsonaro, we began to see a wave of political happenings that we thought we should understand as a global community. We also felt it would be important to get insights flowing to and from our work within the U.S. At the [network’s] initial convening in 2019, we had lawyers and activists from more than 25 countries, representing people from most of the world’s continents.

The idea was to exchange information about what we were seeing in our different areas and discuss how we as lawyers who work alongside movements can do so in a way that gets at the root of structural problems. That gathering matured into the network, which understands that global crises need global solutions. We must build an infrastructure that can help people understand how different problems manifest at the local level, their global roots, and who the power holders are on the other side.

We have also tried to innovate new tactics—new ways of leveraging the international legal system to unlock different legal paths, new jurisprudence, and new arguments that provide platforms for movements from different countries to articulate. For example, COVID vaccine inequity has roots in the legacies of colonialism and apartheid. Legal documents can articulate this—that the failure to address ongoing coloniality in our global economy is something that results in this inequity. We’re trying to create legal movement infrastructure that will help folks build better strategies and leverage international tools to address problems that don’t have any borders.   

Of course, in this moment of rising authoritarianism, the questions are: what are the features of authoritarian regimes in different places and how do we compare those playbooks? How can a country that may be further along on the path towards authoritarianism or fascism help instruct those of us who are at a different point on that trajectory? How can that help us prepare and organize ourselves differently to prevent moving further down that path to fascism, or at least protect ourselves while we gain more power to resist?

Vince Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), shared the organization’s guiding vision: a total transformation of resource distribution so that oppressed people can live and thrive in joy. He shared insights from recent collective struggles that relied on the power of coalitions. He also highlighted how a strategic orientation called Block and Build,[1] articulated by Max Elbaum, helped CCR push the needle in that direction.

We have tremendous power when we come together in coalitions and alliances. Our power to coalesce around an issue, even if we don’t agree politically on everything, is one of the greatest powers that we have for change.

There are two examples. One was in the context of New York City’s Stop and Frisk program. The practice is violent and terrible for Black and brown people. Under the auspices of searching for guns and drugs, data began to show that cops were rolling up on anybody who was Black or brown. They weren’t getting guns and drugs off the street. It was a method of social control.

CCR, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Legal Aid Society were on legal teams that were litigating on behalf of people who were harassed by the NYPD. We also pulled together a coalition called Communities United for Police Reform[2] to examine and address different parts of the problem. The coalition got extraordinary state- and city-level accountability measures passed. And data collection was critical, because everybody on the street knew what the cops were doing, but it wasn’t observable without data.

After almost 15 years [of lawsuits], we were able to secure two wins: the department’s practice of Stop and Frisk was declared unconstitutional and we passed affirmative legislation to make it harder for the police to stop and terrorize people indiscriminately. And we did that all from the perspective of communities that were impacted instead of a top-down policy approach.

That was a very good example of what build can look like. Even starting off in a defensive position can be a catalyst for a coalition coming together to build what we want to see.

Another example happened just last week. We’ve been representing The Descendants Project [3] in Louisiana, which has been challenging Greenfield Louisiana LLC’s building of an enormous toxic grain elevator in their community.[4] They are connected to several other parishes and a loose coalition of folks who are sharing strategies and resources.

CCR took the entire set of groups to Geneva to speak with the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The Committee issued a scathing report calling for change in what’s called “Cancer Alley” and a reparations commission. That helped us file a lawsuit that called for a moratorium on new petrochemical plants in Cancer Alley. And it resulted in Greenfield Corporation pulling out from St. John the Baptist parish.

There’s the block: We blocked one company from coming in. That fight enabled the community to think about what a reparative economy could look like, and to ask: What could they build there, what would they change, and how should resources be distributed?

There will be people who don’t share radical transformative politics, and the challenge is that a democratic formation has to be done democratically. There won’t be a Project 2025[5] from the Left. That’s not how we roll.

The organizations that are clear on the challenges we face while focusing on creating a compelling and doable vision for our communities to thrive—those are the organizations I’m going to support. We also need the infrastructure to cultivate broader understanding that aligning with the status quo is the end of democracy and aligning with the dream is essentially the beginning of the democracy that we haven’t had yet.