A Glimpse at the Cuban Penal System as of 2025
We are a collective of American legal professionals who came together with the shared goal of professionally researching the Cuban legal system. Our group brought together participants from diverse professional backgrounds, including practicing attorneys, law school administrators and professors, law students, legal workers, and paralegals. This breadth of perspectives shaped both our approach and analysis, with the intention of providing American legal audiences with an accessible overview of the Cuban legal system.
The purpose of our research was twofold: to research the Cuban legal system as it functions internally, and to examine Cuba’s position under international law. Within this broader scope, this group’s specific focus was on the role of popular consultation in both the Cuban Penal Code and the penal process. We were particularly interested in how forms of popular participation manifest not only in legislative drafting but also in the day-to-day administration of justice. Individuals engaged in preliminary research for this project, including extensive study of Cuba’s history, its post-revolutionary political development, its law, and its legal institutions. While in Cuba recently, we met with Cuban civil society members and legal professionals, including popular assembly representatives, attorneys, judges, professors, and law students. These exchanges offered invaluable insight into how the Cuban legal system operates in practice and how legal professionals within Cuba understand the function of law in a socialist society.
At the same time, we as researchers recognize the limitations of our study.
Our on-the-ground research period was relatively short, and our interactions were primarily with legal professionals rather than everyday, working people. As such, our research is limited and some of our findings may reflect the perspectives of professionals more than those of ordinary Cubans who experience the legal system as defendants, litigants, or imprisoned community members. We also left with lingering questions that could not be fully explored within the timeframe of our visits. We left with the understanding that the ability to travel to Cuba, and to allocate the time to travel to Cuba, is inherently limited, and thus poses an ongoing challenging variable to conducting research.
Despite these limitations, our hope is that this report contributes to a more nuanced understanding of Cuba’s legal system for legal audiences. By highlighting mechanisms of popular consultation within the penal code and penal process, we aim to provide research into how Cuba conceptualizes the law not merely as a technical apparatus but as a site of citizen participation and social accountability.
This work is divided into five papers. Since the focus was penal law, each paper was researched and drafted by a group with at least one criminal law practitioner.
At Pan-American Medical Association (PAMA), we believe communication is key and partnerships are essential. Today, we want to lift up the extraordinary commitment of Carl and Tara Eaton from Not Just Tourist (NJT) Orange County. Their solidarity with underserved communities, including Cuba, has been nothing short of inspiring.
Carl and Tara have helped PAMA and the Los Angeles Hands Off Cuba Committee build a strong force on the West Coast. Their organization, NJT Orange County, has become a vital base of support for our Emergency Hurricane Melissa Cuban Relief Campaign, ensuring that our coalition is rooted in strength and service.
We are also grateful for our partnership with Levántate por Cuba (LPC), specifically Dr. Howard Herman, whose expertise in public health has guided us with insights on how to respond effectively in times of catastrophe. His counsel has been invaluable in shaping our response to Hurricane Melissa.
Together, we continue to gather oral rehydration salt (ORS) packets to combat dehydration and water purification tablets to prevent severe diarrheal illnesses. These supplies are critical for families in Eastern Cuba who are rebuilding their lives after the storm.
We extend our deepest thanks to the Ministry of Public Health in Cuba (MINSAP), whose guidance ensures our aid meets the real needs of the population.
At PAMA, we are committed to creating a profound impact in the hearts of the Cuban people. Our coalition is built on humanity and service to those in need.
Pan-American Medical Association United We Stand, Health In Every Land
Twenty years ago Hurricane Katrina was “probably the worst catastrophe” in modern U.S. history, even according to then-Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff. Since then massive wildfires, droughts, and flash floods have swept much of the world with tremendous and deadly consequences.
And more are sure to come – as in the unprecedentedly-powerful Hurricane Melissa that just ravaged Jamaica and Haiti before hitting Cuba. Meanwhile gross environmental disasters like the toxic derailment in Ohio, the 300-million gallon sludge-pond breach in Kentucky, and the 800+ killed by a heatwave in Chicago also rock us here at home.
While climate change is real –a direct product of blind and heedless capitalist production– evidence shows “natural disasters” are rooted in structural inequality and governmental disdain for those who aren’t wealthy.
How must and how are working people responding? Why did revolutionary-though-impoverished Cuba lose only 15 lives when Katrina hit it as a Force Five hurricane when over 1800 people died in New Orleans in a Force Three?
Is it too much to say this a life-or-death discussion? After all, we have only one planet.
THE BLOCKADE IMPOSED BY THE UNITED STATES AGAINST CUBA VIOLATES THE INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE UN CHARTER
IT CONSTITUTES A VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT TO PEACE, DEVELOPMENT AND SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE CUBAN PEOPLE. THE BLOCKADE QUALIFIES AS AN ACT OF GENOCIDE.
DROP THE BLOCKADE
Cuba’s healthcare system was once a paragon, held up as an example of what was possible in the developing world. But all that has changed. Harsh US sanctions, reimposed by the first Trump administration, are making it difficult, if not impossible, for healthcare workers to access the drugs and equipment they need. Although designed to apply political pressure to the communist government, in reality, the sanctions hurt civilians the most. The infant mortality rate is rising, and life expectancy is falling.
The NNOC is home to over 65 organizations standing in solidarity with the Cuban people to demand an end to the criminal U.S. economic blockade against Cuba!
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