Reed Brody (born July 20, 1953, Budapest, Hungary) is a Hungarian-American human rights lawyer and prosecutor. He specializes in helping victims seek justice against abusive leaders for atrocities and has gained fame as the "Dictator Hunter." He served as counsel for the victims in the case of the exiled former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, who was convicted of crimes against humanity in Senegal. Brody has also worked with the victims of Augusto Pinochet and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. He currently works with victims of the former dictator of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, is a lawyer for the ousted president of Niger Mohamed Bazoum and is a member of the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua. He is the author of several books, including To Catch a Dictator: The Pursuit and Trial of Hissène Habré (2022).
Early life and education
Brody was born in Budapest, Hungary on July 20, 1953. His father, Ervin Brody, a Hungarian Jew, who was a major influence in his life, survived forced labor in German camps during World War II, eventually escaping to join the Soviet Red Army and participate in the liberation of Budapest before emigrating to the United States and teaching at Fairleigh Dickinson University. His mother, Francesca Cash, was an artist and an arts teacher at a Brooklyn inner-city school.
Brody received his Bachelor of Arts in political science from Fairleigh Dickinson University where he was student government president and a leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement. He earned his J.D. degree from Columbia University School of Law. While a law student, Brody worked a year in Paris as a teaching assistant at the Université de Paris (Panthéon-Sorbonne). Brody holds an honorary doctorate from Fairleigh Dickinson University and was awarded a Public Interest Achievement Award by Columbia University Law School.
Career
After graduating, Brody was the New York State Assistant Attorney General from 1980 to 1984. In this position, he authored consumer protection laws and advocated on behalf of consumers and workers in class action-type suits against large corporations and financial institutions. He was called "the leading expert in the country on career-counseling malpractices.”Richard Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical Manual for Job Hunters and Career Changers (1986), p. 256.
Brody left his position as Assistant Attorney General to research and uncover a pattern of atrocities against Nicaraguan civilians by US-funded "contras." His report, Contra Terror in Nicaragua,Reed Brody, Contra Terror in Nicaragua: Report of a Fact-finding Mission: September 1984–January 1985, (1985) . received national front-page coverageLarry Rother, "Nicaragua Rebels Accused of Abuses", The New York Times, 7 March 1985. and led to U.S. Congressional hearings and a temporary halt to contra funding. Brody conducted a speaking tour of over 60 U.S. cities and appeared as co-counsel with the Center for Constitutional Rights in litigation in U.S. federal court to stop U.S. aid to contras. His report was also introduced into evidence in the case Nicaragua v. United States at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He was criticized by United States President Ronald Reagan, who described him as a Sandinista "sympathizer."Speech by United States President Ronald Reagan, "Remarks at a Fundraising Dinner for the Nicaragua Refugee Fund", 15 April 1985.
From 1987 until 1992, Brody worked for the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, as the Director of its Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers (CIJL),International Commission of Jurists, Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers (CIJL) where he organized campaigns on behalf of harassed and detained jurists and engaged in high-level regional and national seminars on the independence of numerous judiciary systems around the world. He helped draft the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers which were adopted in 1991 and the same year was one of the advocates for the creation of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Together with P. N. Bhagwati, former Chief Justice of India, he assisted the government of Mongolia on behalf of the United Nations in preparing its 1991 constitution.
In 1992, Brody became Executive Director of the International Human Rights Law Group (which became Global Rights), where he served until 1994 placing activists in-country to train and empower locally based rights advocates in a dozen countries. In 1993, he was spokesman for the more than 3,000 NGO representatives at the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna.Paul Lewis, "Differences Are Narrowed at U.N. Talks on Rights", The New York Times, 21 June 1993. Brody then served as Director of the Human Rights Division of the United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) from 1994 until 1995, where he led a staff of human rights officers and police observers responsible for verifying respect for human rights, monitoring compliance with peace accords, and coordinating international support to El Salvador’s judiciary and Human Rights Ombudsman.Reed Brody, Letter to the Editor, "In El Salvador, U.N. Had a Success Story", Letter to the Editor,The New York Times, 29 June 1995. He was also a member of the UN Preliminary Mission to establish a human rights verification mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) in 1994.
In 1995, Brody helped found the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Haiti to prosecute human rights crimes committed during de facto military rule. The investigations he began led to the convictions of 57 military and paramilitary officers for the "Raboteau Massacre," the most significant rights prosecution in Haitian history.
Brody served as media liaison for the exiled Tibetan Women's Delegation at the 1995 UN Women’s Conference in Beijing whose harassment by the Chinese authorities became one of the symbols of the conference. In 1995, he was expelled from occupied East Timor by Indonesian authorities.Reed Brody, “We Are Not Animals”, Op-Ed, Washington Post 24 July 2996, Online at Ohio University independent publications. He led an Amnesty International fact-finding mission to Sierra Leone (1996). As former Executive Secretary, he was a coordinator of the International Commission of Jurists' report Tibet: Human Rights and the Rule of Law, published in 1997.International Commission of Jurists, Tibet: Human Rights and the Rule of Law (1997). , p. 11. He was a member of the U.S. National Criminal Justice Commission, which produced The Real War on Crime, published in 1996.Steven R. Donziger, ed., The Real War on Crime: The Report of the National Criminal Justice Commission (1996) .
In 1997, Brody was Deputy Director of the United Nations Secretary General’s Investigative Team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, charged with probing atrocities committed by troops loyal to Laurent Kabila.Barbara Crossette, "Inquiry into Congo Killings Meets Obstacles", The New York Times, 15 November 1997.
Human Rights Watch
Brody was with Human Rights Watch from 1998 to 2016 and was an integral part of the organization’s efforts to hold perpetrators of large-scale human rights violations accountable for their crimes. Most notably, Brody directed Human Rights Watch’s participation in the landmark case of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet before the British House of Lords. Brody called the Lords’ decision in the Pinochet case – that the Chilean did not enjoy immunity and could be prosecuted on the basis of universal jurisdiction despite his status as a former head of state – a "wake-up call" to tyrants and a “spark of hope for victims.”The Associated Press, "Despot Crusade: American Human Rights Activist on Marathon Mission to try African Dictator", 3 July 2006, at Human Rights Watch. In the wake of the Pinochet case, Brody began working with victims to pursue other former exiled leaders including Hissène Habré of Chad, Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, Jean-Claude Duvalier and Raul Cédras of Haiti, and Idi Amin of Uganda. He wrote the Human Rights Watch booklet The Pinochet Precedent: How Victims can Pursue Human Rights Criminals Abroad.Human Rights Watch, The Pinochet Precedent: How Victims Can Pursue Human Rights Criminals Abroad. Brody also participated in the 1998 Rome Conference which led the creation of the International Criminal Court.
Brody was an observer at the 2012 trial of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón for refusing to apply Spain’s amnesty law and proceeding with an investigation into atrocities committed under Francisco Franco and during Spain’s civil war. Judge Garzón is best known for using the doctrine of universal jurisdiction to investigate war crimes and torture across national lines, most notably ordering the arrest of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and seeking to indict members of the Bush administration for their role in torturing prisoners. Although Garzón was acquitted in the Franco-era trial, on 9 February 2012, the Supreme Court of Spain convicted Judge Garzón of illegally wiretapping conversations to discover evidence of illicit money laundering tactics being used by suspects and their lawyers."Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón on Trial: Interview with Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch", Democracy Now!, 3 February 2012.
In April 2010, Brody spoke at a rally of over 60,000 in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, noting the irony that Judge Garzón was prosecuted for attempting to apply the very principles that he had successfully promoted internationally."Verdad, Justicia y Reparación de las Victimas", 24 April 2010, Cuatro.com. Brody expressed indignation that Judge Garzón was the first judge in Spain to be put on trial for ordering wiretaps.Reed Brody, "The Conviction of Baltasar Garzón", The Nation, 15 February 2012.
In 2010, he assisted the Haitian government in building the case against former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, and he co-authored the HRW report Haiti's Rendezvous with History: The Case of Jean-Claude Duvalier.Human Rights Watch Report, Haiti’s Rendezvous with History: The Case of Jean-Claude Duvalier, April 2011. (pdf) He is featured in a video on the case produced by Human Rights Watch.Video: Human Rights Watch, His Victims Won’t Forget: ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier, 14 April 2011.
Brody attended legal proceedings at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2010. He is author of the July 2011 HRW report Getting Away with TortureHuman Rights Watch Report, Getting Away with Torture, July 2011. which examined the impunity of former US President George W. Bush and other top officials for the widespread mistreatment of Muslim prisoners, and of the book Faut-il Juger George Bush? based on the report. His other HRW reports on counter-terrorism issues include The Road to Abu Ghraib (June 2004),Human Rights Watch Report, The Road to Abu Ghraib, June 2004. which investigated the roots of the prisoner abuse scandal and The United States’ 'Disappeared' (October 2004),Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, United States' "Disappeared", October 2004. which looked at the long-term incommunicado detention of al-Qaeda leaders in "secret locations".
Hissène Habré case
Since 1999, Brody has worked with the victims of Hissène Habré, the former dictator of Chad, to bring him and his accomplices to justice. Habré is convicted of thousands of political killings and systematic torture when he ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990 before fleeing into exile in Senegal.