Q&A with “The Dictator Hunter”
Stanford Global Studies and the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights & International Justice sat down with Reed Brody, human rights lawyer and recent counsel to victims at the Extraordinary African Chambers, for a Q&A prior to his public lecture at Stanford University.
How did you get your reputation/nickname as the Dictator Hunter?
It began with the case of the former dictator of Chile, Augusto Pinochet, in 1998. He was arrested in London on the warrant of a Spanish judge for crimes that had been committed 25 years earlier in Chile. When the British House of Lords said that Pinochet could be arrested anywhere in the world despite the fact that he was a former head of state, it really opened up the possibility for human rights activists to bring to justice people who had previously seemed out of reach.
So I have been working for the last 19 years with victims who are trying to bring their own Pinochets to justice, and a film called “the Dictator Hunter” was made about the most recent case in Chad with Hissène Habré — that’s how I got the name. It’s a nice calling card, but it doesn’t really reflect the serious or constructive nature of what I’m trying to do.
What I’ve learned over the last 20 years is that if you want to catch a dictator, to bring a dictator to justice, it’s not me who you put in the center — it’s the victims, it’s the survivors who have to be seen as having a claim on justice.
What is the importance of elevating the voices of victims or survivors?
Right now, international justice is a very contested terrain. There is a tug of war going on between the African Union and the International Criminal Court (ICC). When the security council or when a prosecutor in the Hague decides to try to mount a case against an African president, it’s very easy for that president to turn that into a North vs. South confrontation; a political clash. But when a torture victim comes forward and says “I want justice from this man who put me in a dungeon,” then you break through that, and it’s not as difficult to create the political conditions for justice to be done.
The bottom line here is that any time you try to bring a state official to justice you’re going to need to create the political conditions to make that happen. It’s true — there is a double standard in international justice. Why is an African dictator prosecuted for torture and not George Bush? We can deplore that, and I’ve participated in a number of attempts to bring Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney to court for having approved waterboarding and renditions to torture, secret detention camps and things like that. I haven’t given up, but any time you’re trying to break through state impunity you need to have a compelling political argument or movement.
Have those voices also informed any political transitions in their home countries?
That’s another benefit of putting the victims in the center. When the ICC prosecutes a case that’s an important step against the impunity of a leader, but it doesn’t necessarily change the dynamic at home. When the victims organize to demand justice — that can create a different dynamic between the people and rulers.
The case of former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, who was prosecuted in his Senegalese exile after a twenty-five-year campaign by his victims, is an example. That trial was on TV in Chad, and people in Chad watched as their former dictator was being prosecuted, because activists and survivors had the courage to fight for that to happen. And Chad is still an authoritarian country, but a space has been created. It represents an important victory for the citizens of that country.
When these justice efforts are part of a political movement, they have a greater impact than when the international community swoops in and decides that they want to prosecute X or Y person, because you have the agency of the victims.
What are some of the ways that you can provide opportunities for victims or survivors to share their stories?
In this case of the former dictator of Chad, they looked directly at what happened in the Pinochet case. The Chadians came to me and said, “We want to do that.” And it’s inspiring — the more you see it happen, the more it looks possible.
One of the things we did over the years with the Chadians is we watched all of the films of other trials. We also watched scenes from the Raboteau trial from Haiti. I took some of them to the Hague, where we watched part of the trial with Charles Taylor. We watched film of the Ríos Montt trial in Guatemala, which is another really important trial, because there you had the highland Indians of Guatemala who fought for 30 years and were able to put their dictator on trial at home.
That was a huge achievement. The indigenous Mayan people in Guatemala are probably the most marginalized people on the American continent and yet, they were able to put a former ruler in the dock for genocide, for having committed a crime against them as a people. And so that’s much more than just saying “okay, so you should be put in jail.” It’s also about affirming their existence and their rights as people.
This showed the Chadian people that it’s possible — they did it, we can do it.
What are some of the obstacles or challenges to victims speaking out?
Well certainly, obviously, power. One of the reasons I think that the Kenya case [against William Samoei Ruto and Joshua Arap Sang, regarding post-election violence in Kenya] was ultimately undermined was partly because of this dynamic. A prosecutor was in the Hague, trying to do a case in Kenya when the Kenyan government holds all the cards. The Kenyan government has control over the crime scene, over the witnesses — now that’s a case of raw power. In the Kenya case, plan A was to have these crimes tried in Kenya and it was always understood, and it was always agreed on that the cases would be investigated in Kenya. It was only when Kenya refused to do so, that the ICC stepped in, but unfortunately they lost the tug of war with Kenya.
The vast majority of state crimes in today’s world are unpunished. Whether we’re talking about Kenya, Sudan, the United States, or Chechnya.
The big difference today is that justice is always on the agenda. The norm that has been expressed by the international community is that atrocity crimes should be punished. So whether it’s Kenya or Syria there’s an expectation or there’s a hope or there are people who consider it normal now that crimes be punished. Twenty years ago, that was not the case. Twenty years ago, if you killed one person, you’d go to jail. If you killed 10 people, then you’d go to an insane asylum. If you killed 10,000 people, you’d be invited to a peace conference, and that was really the way of the world. And now, unfortunately most of those who kill 10,000 people are still getting away with it, but it’s considered to be aberrational now.
Do you worry under our new administration in the United States — the Trump administration — that these international norms will change?
Yes. I think the United States, even though it was very inconsistent in its support and in its adherence to these norms, it was seen as a part of the architecture. Already, under Bush, the norms were eroded.
Unfortunately today, not only am I afraid that the norms will be eroded, but that there are fewer and fewer champions of those norms. Now, if you look at Syria, who is going to say this is wrong? Who is going to say: “Don’t do that.” There are fewer and fewer governments that are going to expend political capital in trying to uphold the norms of humanity. It’s hard to see the United States doing that under Donald Trump. Obviously, the other major poles of power, Russia and China, are not going to do it. Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, the so-called emerging powers, are also tarnished.
So you have both the traditional and the emerging centers of power that don’t seem to be very excited or that don’t seem very attached to international norms of human rights.
Obviously civil society, largely, is still attached to these norms — people want their rights. At the same time, we see that the traditional liberal values are being eroded among the populace, particularly in the United States and Europe. So I think we’re entering a very difficult period for the enforcement of basic human rights.
What gives you hope? What’s the magical formula to tip things in the right direction?
I think an engaged citizenry. In the United States for example, you see some of the most discriminatory and hateful messages coming out of the government on the one hand. But on the other hand — I have never seen this in my life — Americans or people in the United States are so engaged in democracy.
Just down the block from my house the other day, 1,200 people were in the synagogue as part of Get Organized Brooklyn. People are marching. They’re writing. It’s a glorious thing. It’s “the upside to the downside,” as Gloria Steinem put it. Push is coming to shove in the United States and people are standing up. Unfortunately, we’re standing up not for a better world, but just to prevent a worse world. But my hope is in people power.
For students who may be young to the field, what advice do you have for them?
I grew up at a time when Crosby, Stills and Nash were singing, “We Can Change the World.” And I believe we do have the power to change the world. I don’t think things have ever been as scary in my lifetime as they are today. But I think people can change the world. People can by listening, by daring, by unlocking the potential in others — people have the power to make a difference.
Visit the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights & International Justice website for more information about future events. The original version of this article appeared on the Stanford Global Studies website.
