On March 18, 2026, the IAPL Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers published a report from an International Mission of Jurists documenting a pervasive “climate of fear” among legal professionals in Guatemala, with lawyers, prosecutors, and judges facing systematic harassment, arbitrary detention, forced exile, and criminal prosecution for carrying out their professional duties. The report highlights heightened risks for lawyers from historically marginalized communities — particularly Indigenous and women lawyers who challenge state power or represent vulnerable clients. The mission found that Guatemala’s judicial system is being used to target anti-corruption prosecutors and judges who have pursued politically connected defendants, with multiple magistrates and prosecutors having fled the country in recent years following criminal charges widely viewed as retaliatory. The Guatemalan case is seen as part of a broader regional pattern in which executives capture or hollow out legal institutions, then direct those institutions against the remaining independent lawyers who challenge them.