(New York, NY - October 19, 2023) - StandWithUs, alongside dozens of other organizations, had previously asked three law firms to withdraw their organizational sponsorship of the American Branch of the International Law Association’s “International Law Weekend” Conference. The conference was poised to award Navi Pillay with its Outstanding Achievement Award, despite Pillay having a track record of advancing a discriminatory agenda against the Jewish people and the State of Israel at the United Nations (UN), including in her ongoing role as head of the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Israel.
StandWithUs thanks these three law firms–Debevoise & Plimpton, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and White & Case–which appear to have revoked their organizational sponsorship and now no longer appear on the conference’s official program sponsor page. Also no longer featured are Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law and Winston & Strawn–a law firm that also just revoked a job offer to a candidate who whitewashed Hamas’s massacre of over 1,400 innocent people (see page 33). StandWithUs also extends tremendous gratitude to its supporters and members of its pro-bono network who personally wrote to the firms.
CEO of StandWithUs, Roz Rothstein, stated, “This week has been devastating for the international Jewish community. Hamas’s October 7th torture and massacre of over 1400 people and kidnapping of over 200 civilians was the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. We are grateful to the law firms for doing the right thing at a time when the Jewish world mourns our losses and faces dangerous challenges in Israel and worldwide.”
StandWithUs International thanks the following organizational partners for co-sponsoring this effort: World Jewish Congress - North America, B'nai Brith International, American Jewish Congress, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, Israeli-American Coalition for Action, Shurat Hadin, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, Lawfare Project, NGO Monitor, American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, Center for Combating Antisemitism, Combating Antisemitism Movement, Club Z, Deborah Project, Eagles’ Wings Ministries, Endowment for Middle East Truth, Hasbara Fellowships, Human Rights Voices, Institute of Black Solidarity with Israel, International Council of Jewish Women, International Legal Forum, Israel Christian Nexus, Jew Belong, National Jewish Advocacy Center, Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, Saidoff Legal Department, South African Friends of Israel, South African Zionist Federation, Students Supporting Israel, UK Lawyers For Israel, Women's International Zionist Organization, Zachor Legal Institute, Zionist Organization of America and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.
About StandWithUs
StandWithUs (SWU) is an international, nonprofit and non-partisan Israel education organization that works to inspire and educate people of all ages about Israel, as well as challenge misinformation and fight against antisemitism.
Through university fellowships, high school internships, middle school curricula, conferences, materials, social media, educational films and missions to Israel, StandWithUs supports people around the world who want to educate their schools and communities about Israel.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the organization has chapters and programs on six continents, including throughout the U.S., in Israel, the UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Brazil and the Netherlands.
For the last eleven years, SWU has consistently received the highest possible ratings from Charity Navigator and Guidestar, two charity watchdog groups that assess hundreds of thousands of charities in the United States.
