The Guardian of Rights: Diplomacy, International Law, and Legacy with Architect of Justice Beth Van Schaack
Prior to returning to Stanford University, Dr. Beth Van Schaack served as Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice in the U.S. State Department office where she once served as Deputy. GCJ advised the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights on issues related to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, and the deployment of the whole range of transitional justice mechanisms in states emerging from violence or repression. Before returning to public service, Dr. Van Schaack was the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School, where she taught international criminal law, human rights, human trafficking, and a policy lab on Legal & Policy Tools for Preventing Atrocities. In addition, she directed Stanford’s International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic. Ambassador Van Schaack has published numerous articles and papers on international human rights and justice issues, including her 2020 thesis, Imagining Justice for Syria (Oxford University Press). From 2014 to 2022, she served as Executive Editor for Just Security, an online forum for the analysis of national security, foreign policy, and rights.
In addition to her work as a Distinguished Fellow with Stanford’s Center for Human Rights and International Justice, Dr. Van Schaack is a Commissioner with the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), and a Senior Peace Fellow with the Public International Law & Policy Group. With seven other senior U.S. government human rights mandate holders, Dr. Van Schaack is a co-founder of The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, which works to center human rights within U.S. foreign policy. Earlier in her career, she was a practicing lawyer and board member at the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA). She is a graduate of Stanford (BA), Yale (JD), and Leiden (PhD) Universities. International Justice, Dr. Van Schaack is a Commissioner with the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), and a Senior Peace Fellow with the Public International Law & Policy Group. With seven other senior U.S. government human rights mandate holders, Dr. Van Schaack is a co-founder of The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, which works to center human rights within U.S. foreign policy. Earlier in her career, she was a practicing lawyer and board member at the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA). She is a graduate of Stanford (BA), Yale (JD), and Leiden (PhD) Universities
Dr. Van Schaack sat down with Marvelous Inc.’s CEO and Founder, Marvelous Maeze, to discuss her illustrious career, women leaders in human rights, and U.S. foreign policy.
Marvelous, Inc.: As you recently stepped down from your role as Office of Global Criminal Justice (GCJ) Ambassador-at-Large after three years, what would you say are the most significant accomplishments of your office during that period, and which remain unfinished or most challenging?
Beth: Thank you. It was an incredible experience made all the more wonderful by how terrific my team was. By the end of my tenure, we had about 30 really passionate expert advocates for transitional justice and survivors working with us, helping to think about how to deploy U.S. resources in support of justice around the world. So, at some level, building that team was really an incredible accomplishment, and it’s been really sad to see all of them lose their jobs in the current crisis at the State Department.
In terms of the substantive work, we spent a lot of time looking for ways to empower victim groups and justice advocates around the world who were trying to pursue various forms of justice following periods of repression or atrocities. Putting them in a position to be able to articulate a vision for justice and then to implement that vision; working with government actors, other funders, the diplomatic community, multilateral actors—all trying to just build an ecosystem in these societies so that justice could be pursued. I also spent a lot of energy going to places where justice is being pursued and where survivors find themselves. I think it’s really important to show up, and often these were places that had not seen senior governmental officials from outside of the region. So, having a senior U.S. person spend time in a refugee camp, small village, or indigenous community and listen to people and then look for ways to express their preferences and expectations in our foreign policy was something that was really moving to me. I also really liked trying to build reparative systems, looking for ways to rehabilitate victims, and working with survivors. We tried to co-create some of these ideas. There are some really great organizations, like the Global Survivor’s Fund, that are trying to find better ways to deliver interim reparations, and then to work with governments to encourage [them] to provide reparations for survivors. So, that was a really meaningful part of it. [...]
Finally, getting the U.S. to support the Aggression Tribunal for Ukraine was a real accomplishment of a number of justice advocates within the United States government. The United States had been, historically, quite cautious about the Crime of Aggression. We didn’t advocate for its inclusion within the Rome Statute, and were part of an effort to build some limitations in the jurisdictional regime within the Rome Statute—but the United States came around when it came to Russia’s full-scale invasion. So, generally, my job was to look for ways for the United States to deploy its financial resources, technical skills, diplomatic energy, and expert personnel to pursue justice anywhere that it was desperately needed.
Marvelous, Inc.: Your team emphasized “survivor-centered approaches to transitional justice” across multiple regions. How do you balance the competing demands of accountability, truth-seeking, and reconciliation, especially in contexts with ongoing conflict or political instability?
Beth: You can think about transitional justice even prior to a full-scale transition. It’s really important to lay the groundwork. There’s a lot that can be done even if the political context is not quite ready for it. We’ve also seen now, historically, through looking at a number of really important case studies [...] that the different imperatives that you mentioned–-accountability, truth-seeking, reconciliation–-can be pursued in sequence, simultaneously, by different institutions sometimes working together or in acoustic isolation.
So much of it comes down to societies, and what the expectations and preferences are of those communities. One of the things I tried to do as the Ambassador of this portfolio was to really understand the comparative models that are out there so that I could work with the Ethiopians and say, “Well, listen, here’s what Colombia is doing. Let’s hold a convening and let’s bring people from Colombia here so you all can talk in a room and figure out whether what they’re doing might be appropriate or adaptable for your context.” So, [it’s] time to bring advocates from across systems together to explore how to balance these competing demands.
We also tried to fund, or encourage other donors to fund, population-based surveys so that different communities could be asked about what they’re preferences are, how they would rank those various imperatives, what they want to see in terms of a truth-telling process, what their expectations are around accountability, i.e., should an accountability exercise focus on those senior figures more responsible–-the architects of violence–-or do they want to see people from their own communities who turned against their neighbors held responsible. Ultimately, it’s for these societies to decide for themselves, but I think it’s really important for the donor community and the diplomatic community to try and support those efforts while having a really good understanding of what the people want to see when it comes to justice.
Marvelous, Inc.: How does having women in senior human-rights leadership roles change the way justice and human-rights priorities are set, compared with historically male-dominated leadership? In your view, why is gender balance (or at least gender representation) in institutions dealing with human rights, peacebuilding, and transitional justice essential for legitimacy and trust among affected communities?
Beth: Women make up half the world. So, obviously, there should be women in these positions. You’re right that foreign policy has historically been very male-dominated, and I think that can create some blind spots. We know from business and sociological research that more diverse teams make better decisions. They [generate] more informed decisions. They take into account multiple perspectives. They’re more creative. I was really quite proud of the Biden-Harris administration for how many senior women were holding human rights mandates within the State Department, and a number of us have gone on to form the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice. As it turns out, it’s almost all women who held human rights portfolios in the State Department [including those] focused on global youth engagement, international labor rights, anti-trafficking, global women’s issues, LGBTQI+, and racial equity and justice. These are all women who held senior positions, and so that was the face of these issues of the U.S. government, and that matters because many individuals who are impacted by repressive policies and mass atrocities are also women. So, it’s often easier to work with women and to tell your story to another woman than it might be to tell your story to a man.
An important experience that really hit home for me was that I had traveled to Bangladesh. This was before the [political] transition there. I was very much focused on the situation of the Rohingya, and we went to Cox’s Bazar, where upwards of a million Rohingya are seeking shelter from the genocide in neighboring Myanmar. The organizations that we were funding, working with, doing transitional justice work, and training in forensics organized a series of meetings with community leaders. I walked into one of these meetings, and it was all women. These were women who had never held leadership positions in their communities, and they were thrust into these roles by virtue of their circumstances being refugees, survivors, and fleeing violence. Many of them were heading women-only households because their husband or partners had been killed or were elsewhere. So, they were having to articulate [their community’s] visions for justice. We sat on the floor. This was not a fancy meeting at some big high-rise hotel. We sat on a dirt floor. I didn’t ask them to tell their stories because I didn’t want to put them through that again. I knew they had all been through horrific events, but what I asked them was, “What is your vision of justice?” Each one of them had very concrete, detailed ideas.
And then I said, “Do you have any questions for me?” The questions were unbelievable! They had questions like: “What is the status of the case that The Gambia has brought against Myanmar before the International Court of Justice at The Hague?” I could tell them that because I had just been at The Hague and spoken to the lawyers that were bringing that case, and I had been to The Gambia and worked with the Ministry of Justice to find resources to support them in pursuing this groundbreaking case under the Genocide Convention. So, I was able to give them a real-time update. [...] We were able to use our partnerships in the camps and our diplomatic relationships to help bring seven survivors, six of whom were women, down to Buenos Aires to give live testimony before a court there that is investigating the genocide in Myanmar under their universal jurisdiction statute.
Marvelous, Inc.: At the Office of Global Criminal Justice, you worked on “the responsible use of emerging technologies in promoting accountability.” What opportunities and risks do you foresee when deploying technologies (e.g., satellite imagery, digital documentation, data forensics) in atrocity investigations and prosecutions?
Beth: This is very much the next frontier of international criminal justice. The digital revolution has revolutionized the way justice is being pursued and the way evidence is being gathered and presented to courtrooms. It’s also created a number of challenges because generative AI is capable of producing disinformation that might mislead prosecutors, investigators, etc. I’m also very worried about [digital tech] from an atrocities prevention perspective because we’ve already seen in places like Kenya prior to the [2007] elections that gave rise to the case before the International Criminal Court a lot of dis- and misinformation. People were hearing things about ballots being stolen and ballot boxes being stuffed. Much of it was false, but it created an environment that encouraged violence to happen. We saw post-election violence in 2007 and 2008. That was prior to all the AI tools that we now have. So, this has always been a problem.
[On the positive side.] it’s incredibly important to be able to mine this information and to teach machines to do so because the result is voluminous amounts of potential evidence and it falls to investigators and advocates to sift through that and find what information is going to be accessible, admissible in court, that can be authenticated, and that will ultimately prove that one or more elements of the various offenses have been satisfied. Syria was very much the first example of this. I saw an incredible statistic that there was more video footage on YouTube of the war in Syria than there was of the actual war. In other words, so much footage had been taken that it went well beyond the [number of] years the war had been going on. We have amazing technologists now that are working to train machines to sift through all this information; figure out whether it has been manipulated [or if it can be] geolocated and chronolocated; or utilize image identification so that they can look for duplications. [...] We helped train advocates to take digital information, utilize it, and protect it from being manipulated and to make sure that it’s in its purest state so that eventually it can be admitted into evidence and serve as the basis for a criminal process against individuals deemed responsible.
We’re seeing this in Ukraine. Satellite data, digital data, etc., are being collected and used to prepare dossiers against responsible individuals. Even though it’s incredibly important to collect and use this open source information, it’s never going to replace witness testimony. You are still going to need to hear from actual eyewitnesses who can describe their own personal experiences. Another big priority when I was Ambassador was to build out our global system of witness protection because witnesses are the soft underbelly of the system. [....] We need to, as an international community, still invest in witnesses and survivors and accompany them through the justice process while at the same time developing these incredible tools to capture, collect, preserve, and authenticate digital artifacts of atrocity.
Marvelous, Inc.: Given geopolitical interests, strategic alliances, and domestic priorities, how does the U.S. navigate the tension between realpolitik and human rights-centered foreign policy when pushing for accountability in atrocities? What compromises were hardest?
Beth: Every policy, at some level, is going to be a compromise of competing equities. And the way we tried to craft policy was to bring all of the relevant offices and experts together in a room and try to understand their perspective on a particular situation–-what their preferences would be in terms of U.S. policy. Then, we’d sort of hammer it out together. That’s why this current environment is so dangerous and worrisome because the human rights-oriented architecture within the State Department has been violently dismantled by this administration. The offices are gone. They’ve been removed from the organizational chart. Senior positions are not being filled or have been abolished. My [former] position is gone. My office is gone. Many of the offices that were held by my colleagues in The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice are gone. They will not be filled or they are significantly depopulated, downsized, or de-resourced. So, when you used to have a big table where you would have the counterterrorism people, someone representing the bilateral relationship, the Department of Defense, and human rights mandate holders [together,] we would get to policy where the human rights issues were taken into account, things were adapted to them, we were looking at the long-term impact on human rights. Even if the policy that was ultimately chosen was not the preferred one, we were choosing that policy with eyes wide open, and we could think about mitigation or rehabilitation later. So, having those human rights voices in the room was really important, and that’s what’s lacking now, I fear.
Marvelous, Inc.: From your experience, where do global justice mechanisms and international institutions still fall short, and what reforms (legal, structural, political) are most urgently needed to strengthen accountability for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity?
Beth: One area where we’ve made great strides is that states around the world have increasingly incorporated the prohibitions against international crimes into their domestic penal codes. So, they now have a legal framework that enables them to prosecute these cases. Many of them have also incorporated the principle of universal jurisdiction. [...] So, that’s what we were seeing in Argentina with this Rohingya case. They have incorporated the prohibitions against genocide and crimes against humanity into their code, and they can initiate an investigation even in the absence of an accused, so long as there’s evidence that one of these international crimes has been committed. So, they’re moving forward on that basis. A number of states have also identified and convened expert war crimes teams. These are increasingly networked across the globe. They meet regularly with each other, particularly within Europe. They’re sharing techniques, information, and evidence. So, this is all where the system is strengthened in comparison with years past.
The international institutions remain somewhat weak. There’s a lot of criticism of selective justice at the International Criminal Court or for the fact that the Court doesn’t have more perpetrators in custody. This is a function of how the Court was designed and of deficits in state cooperation. So, it’s not the institution’s fault. It’s the fact that it was built to be somewhat weak and to depend entirely upon state cooperation. There isn’t an international police force that can go out and arrest individuals who stand accused of committing international crimes. [The Court is] dependent on national legal authorities to identify the presence of individuals within their jurisdiction, take them into custody, and transfer or extradite those individuals to either another state that has a case open against them or to the international institution that is able to proceed against them. We need to look for ways to strengthen state cooperation […] to potentially amend some of the constitutive documents of these institutions so that they’re able to be stronger and more effective at what they’re doing.
From the institutional perspective, there’s also very serious concerns about morale issues, institutional culture; e.g. the chief prosecutor of the ICC is under investigation for potential sexual assault. So, that’s deeply problematic. Then, these institutions are also quite slow and inefficient. They need to find ways to work more quickly. As the prosecutor used to say, “at the speed of relevance,” so that they are not consuming resources without producing good outcomes and really delivering justice for survivors. There’s much work to be done, but we’re laying the groundwork and we now have an ecosystem of multilateral and national systems coupled with and strengthened by really strong civil society networks.
Marvelous, Inc.: Many argue that prevention should be prioritized over post-facto justice. Based on your background in both law/practice and policy, how should the international community better invest in atrocity prevention, and what barriers prevent more proactive approaches?
Beth: We know that we’d much rather prevent these events from happening than to try and struggle to deliver justice for a handful of perpetrators and victim communities after the fact. It’s not efficient, and it forces people to suffer horribly. [Being more preventative] was a big priority under the Obama Administration with Samantha Power having a senior position in that administration, when I served as Deputy in the office that I later led under the Biden-Harris Administration. We really put a lot of energy toward prevention. We improved our information gathering through our intelligence community. We conducted research to figure out what the risk factors were and what trigger events tend to give rise to communal or governmental violence. We tried to build a diplomatic community that was also similarly focused on this.
The real challenge is that there are so many circumstances that demand the full attention of policymakers in government, the State Department, and the ministries of foreign affairs around the world, so it’s hard to invest time and resources into something speculative around prevention. If prevention works nothing happens. So, you’re expending a lot of energy uplifting peacebuilders, dealing with dangerous speech, trying to build resilience within societies, and then nothing happens. It’s a good outcome, but you have no way of knowing necessarily whether or not your interventions and input were the causal factor of that. It’s [thus] hard to justify big investment in preventative work even though we all intellectually understand that we would rather be preventative. One of the arguments that a lot of us made to try and encourage more investment upstream was [to argue] that the things you are doing to prevent atrocities are good in and of themselves—[they help] to build strong, resilient, inclusive societies globally. They’re better for everyone. Even if we can’t prove that some particular intervention was preventative, we’re still creating a better, more just world where people can live in dignity.
Marvelous, Inc.: How important is the role of local civil society, survivor-led organizations, and domestic political will in successful transitional justice processes? Can top-down diplomatic and legal interventions succeed without strong grassroots engagement?
Beth: The short answer is “no.” You absolutely need to have a strong, independent civil society in order for these mechanisms to work. They’re essentially the bridge between a country’s government, diplomatic community, and multilateral institutions like the United Nations or investigative mechanism that may have been formed like the Human Rights Council, etc. They are also the bridge between those big top-down institutions and ordinary people–-the actual survivors who lived through these events. They can also help translate the ideas, visions, hopes, and expectations of ordinary people and mold them into policy proposals they can advocate before the government and bring in international support to try and build those things. Part of what we did in government was to try and fund those organizations so that they had the resources they needed to bring in expertise and hold convenings in these communities. With the funding frozen by the Trump Administration, and some of it actually rescinded, this sector is really in crisis right now. Part of what our Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice has been doing is working with philanthropists and other donors to try and think about how we can continue to invest in this sector.
Marvelous, Inc.: In pursuing justice (or transitional justice), how do you guard against unintended consequences such as the retraumatization of survivors, political backlash, renewed violence, or misuse of justice tools for vengeance? How should those risks shape policy design?
Beth: It’s incredibly important. We’ve become much more sophisticated now about thinking about trauma-informed approaches, really understanding that you can’t ask survivors to tell their stories over and over again. You don’t want to create multiple accounts that might later be used to cross-examine the survivor. Minor differences in an account do not necessarily mean the person is lying, it just means they told the story slightly differently, but a defense council is going to utilize that in an effort to zealously represent their client.
The worry of renewed violence is always there. I was in Liberia when Prince Johnson, who was one of the key alleged perpetrators during the wars in Liberia, was going so far as to practically threaten violence if Liberia moved forward with their War and Economic Crimes Court. So, people were quite worried that he was going to lash out, and it might bring about a return to some level of violence. [that said,] many Liberians felt like he was somewhat of a paper tiger. He had a lot of power in Nimba County, [...] but was he really able to mobilize violence? It was unclear, but it was a worry.
So, you’re constantly worried about the individuals who may be the target of investigations refusing to go along with this and looking for ways to derail a process, including by using violence. A lot of it depends upon working with the local society to figure out how to approach these issues in a way that can neutralize some of those potential threats. The whole system has to be created within the context of international human rights obligations that states have taken on by virtue of joining treaties or customary international law.
Marvelous, Inc.: As you return to academia and join, among other groups, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) as a Commissioner, what do you see over the next 5 to 10 years, as the biggest opportunities and greatest threats to global criminal justice? What legacy do you hope to help build?
Beth: We’re definitely in a period of retrenchment, and that’s obviously worrisome and disappointing because we emerged from a period where you saw a real expansion in commitments to justice in the plethora of new institutions that were being created–-new models, new ideas emerging, and a lot of creativity. The situation in Ukraine produced so many new pathways to justice that are available now to other societies to pick up and adapt for their own particular purposes. It was good in the sense that we’re proliferating ideas and institutions, but now we’re also seeing a withdrawal of support. Unfortunately, many other states are following the lead of the Trump Administration and using this retrenchment within the United States as an excuse to pull back from their own commitments, including states that have been long devoted to these issues. I would really like to see that change course and for states to instead step up and fill the gaps that are being left by the Trump Administration.
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Human Rights Day 2025: Interview with Anya Neistat
Anya Neistat stands out as one of the most accomplished and courageous human rights investigators of her generation. Over more than two decades in the field, she has conducted over 60 investigations in some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones, from Syria and Chechnya, to Afghanistan, Yemen, and beyond, tirelessly documenting abuses and giving voice to survivors. Rising through the ranks at Human Rights Watch, she later served as Senior Director for Research at Amnesty International, where she helped shape the global research agenda and guided crisis response at a global scale. As the Legal Director of The Docket Initiative at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, Anya combined rigorous legal expertise, humanitarian passion, and unmatched field experience. Today, Anya is the president of the open-access digital platform InterJust, continuing her mission to expose injustice, hold perpetrators accountable, and advance a more just world.
Anya sat down with Marvelous, Inc.’s CEO and founder, Marvelous Maeze, for an exclusive interview as part of a new series that highlights women leaders in activism, advocacy, and international human rights.
Marvelous, Inc.: You’ve spent more than two decades conducting investigations into war crimes, human rights abuses, and atrocity crimes across conflict zones, from Syria to Ukraine to Yemen. What do you see as the most urgent reform needed within international justice mechanisms to close the gap between documentation of abuses and actual accountability?
Anya Neistat: Thank you for having me. I have a pretty clear answer to your question, and that answer was also something that drove me to start InterJust. I believe that it is absolutely critical that the weight of responsibility for atrocity crimes, investigations, and prosecutions is shifted to national jurisdictions. Of course, there was a lot of effort put in by all of us into creating the International Criminal Court and some other large international mechanisms, but I think we can all see by now that this is not enough, and this cannot possibly be the only solution for a variety of reasons–capacity, mandate, jurisdiction, political considerations, and everything else. I think right now, it is absolutely clear that we do have an enormous unrealized potential in national jurisdictions. In all of the countries around the world that made this commitment after World War II, and some would argue even earlier, to make sure that it’s a shared responsibility of humankind to pursue accountability for atrocity crimes such as genocide, aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, to this day, only a few of those countries have fulfilled this responsibility. We’re talking about the mechanism that is technically called “universal jurisdiction.” In simple terms, it means that for certain core international crimes, the possibility to investigate and prosecute lies with everybody, regardless of where the crimes were committed or where the perpetrators are. So, I do believe that we should focus our efforts into activating and supporting these investigations, and making sure that these prosecutions actually work beyond a handful of countries like Germany, France, and the Netherlands–but truly globally.
Marvelous, Inc.: InterJust emphasizes “survivor-centered legal action.” What does that look like in practice, especially in contexts where survivors face ongoing security risks, displacement, or stigma? How do you ensure that survivors are not only consulted, but meaningfully centered in strategic litigation, evidence gathering, and post-trial processes?
Anya Neistat: For me, a survivor-centered approach means two main things. One is conceptual, and the other is practical. Conceptually, it means that none of us should think that we know better than the people who have been affected by these horrendous crimes. Frankly, I’ve seen many times in my career international organizations and lawyers coming in and deciding for survivors and communities what needs to be done. In some cases, they were right. In some cases, they were wrong. But, conceptually, it’s just not right. So, we are really trying to base our legal strategy, selection of cases, and choice of jurisdiction on what makes sense to survivors. We don’t expect them to know all the intricacies of the legal procedures. Part of it is making sure that we give them various options and discuss options with them, but it also means that we are not trying to drive the agenda. For example, pushing for prosecutions when people are focused on reparations. It is really making sure that, from the very beginning, the expectations and goals are clear, and that every step of the way, people are informed and remain active participants in the process. [....] Our work in Ukraine, for example. Two years ago, we were talking to some of the survivors who chose to participate in the cases that we were pursuing. Some of them were safer than they are now because the front lines keep moving. The advancement of Russian troops means that they could potentially be at greater risk than they used to be two years ago, and for us, it could potentially mean dropping the case. We are prepared to do that despite all the work that went into this because their safety and well-being come first. Then there’s Venezuela, where protecting the anonymity of witnesses is absolutely critical. Documents get leaked, traders get wind, despite all the efforts that we put into ensuring the identities of survivors are not revealed until and unless they absolutely have to be. We have security plans to make sure we have a plan for what happens if it does come to them being at greater risk. It’s something that we constantly need to reassess. We try to have a holistic understanding of the needs of the survivors who decided to take on the enormous burden of being part of these investigations.
Marvelous, Inc.: Your work through The Docket Initiative has exposed patterns of sexual violence, torture, the use of starvation in sieges, forced displacement, and other systemic crimes across multiple geographies. How can data and evidence from these investigations be used to influence not only individual prosecutions but broader policy and norm-setting around atrocity prevention?
Anya Neistat: Another idea behind InterJust, which has basically taken over the portfolio of work previously carried by The Docket, is to ensure that we approach international justice systemically, not just follow opportunistic cases, and that our litigation is truly strategic and is focused on patterns of abuse that highlight some of the most atrocious things that happen in situations of armed conflict around the world. Also, we look into understanding what works and doesn’t work, and how the systems can be changed. [....] One of the ideas that we are exploring at InterJust is much more focused on quantitative analysis that is now becoming more realistic with some of the tools that are becoming available to us, including data processing tools to look into the trends in both atrocity crimes and accountability mechanisms over the last two decades. It’s not just an academic exercise. It has very important practical implications. There is a certain mythology around armed conflict, which leads to over-emphasizing certain violations and overlooking others, including the newer, modern types of violations, [such as] massive attacks on civilian infrastructure or cyber attacks. At the same time, we can see that certain patterns of atrocities are becoming less common because the rules of international human rights law do work, to a certain extent, [such as] Rwanda and Bosnia. [....] The other piece of systemic analysis is understanding what works and doesn’t in accountability mechanisms. We have done this massive project that analyzes every jurisdiction in the world to understand how the laws work when it comes to universal jurisdiction. I was very surprised that this actually has not been done before. There was no centralized place to find the answer to the question of which jurisdiction to go to if you have a case. We analyzed 216 jurisdictions, which included countries and territories, and now it exists as an interactive tool called Project Meridian where practitioners, survivors, NGOs, and lawyers can put in their parameters and find a simple answer for which country would be most suitable.
Marvelous, Inc.: As a woman leading major human rights litigation and investigations, in a field still dominated by powerful state actors, often male, what have been the specific barriers (structural, institutional, cultural) you’ve faced, and how have you navigated them?
Anya Neistat: That’s a good question. I think you are absolutely right to point out this imbalance that quite a few international organizations or litigation firms are led by women. There are lots of women, both internationally and among national actors, who are in charge of this work. I’m thinking of my colleagues in Ukraine, the vast majority of organizations there are women-led. My entire senior leadership team is all women–something that I am very happy about and proud of. Yet, it is true that at high-level events all-male panels still happen. And if they don’t, at least when I’m invited, I often feel like being a token woman put there to check the box rather than to truly ensure equality of voices. How can we possibly talk about equality broadly when we cannot achieve that within, or eradicate sexism in international organizations that are supposed to deliver on those promises? Another issue women face is that they still have to combine it with all of their other responsibilities. I have four children. Combining my work with being a mother is never easy, and many of my colleagues face the same challenges. Men are not pulled in a million different directions and can actually focus on work.
Marvelous, Inc.: What does a political and justice ecosystem look like, globally, in which women (including women of color, displaced women, and conflict survivors) have equitable access to participate in shaping accountability processes, leading investigations, and influencing policy?
Anya Neistat: Some of the systemic changes we are discussing more generally are also aimed at making sure that this world is equitable. When we talk about survivor representation, it’s really a survivor-centered approach. This gendered perspective is so critically important, and it does not mean only focusing on gender-based violence. It’s really looking into any investigations we are conducting through that lens, and that’s a very different thing than just focusing on crimes committed against women. It’s really looking at how crimes committed against men or children influence women and what it means for them. You cannot exclude women who have not been victims of those crimes from the process because then you will get a completely skewed picture. To make these processes successful, a lot of thinking needs to be put into planning the teams that are involved in the investigations and prosecutions. I cannot tell you how many times I heard from women that they refused to cooperate with national processes because the interviews have been conducted by men who often have never been trained in gender-informed or trauma-informed approaches. [....] Even though there were some trainings put in place, it doesn’t always solve the problem. Unless and until that becomes just an inherent part of the process this is not going to change. It’s not just about assigning a woman to run an interrogation of someone who had suffered sexual and gender-based violence, [...] because I have also seen female interrogators completely unprepared to run the process correctly. Again, it’s not about checking a box on gender. There are really a lot of practical, day-to-day things that can be done by NGOs, state authorities, investigative teams, and international organizations to just make sure that we start changing things step by step.
Marvelous, Inc.: Given the rising wave of authoritarianism, proxy wars, and transnational repression, how can strategic litigation remain nimble and effective?
Anya Neistat: Yeah, it’s not the best time for human rights work or international justice, I wouldn’t lie. Think we did see more of our golden era, the era of hope, when we thought that the trajectory was quite positive toward much bigger commitments towards international justice. We can blame the times. We can get all depressed and think that nothing is possible as long as we are losing support of, for example, for international justice systems, right? Or we can use it as an opportunity. I don’t want to sound like an incurable optimist, but I do think even now, looking at the developments in the United States and how it affects international justice systems, you can already see how some of the other countries are rising to the occasion. Something that has always been delegated to these giant global powers is now being picked up by much smaller countries with much bigger commitments to human rights. It’s not the [type of] shift that happens in a few months, but it is something that we can make happen. We’ve had very interesting conversations in Latin America, Africa, and the Asian-Pacific region where, suddenly, when you lay it out in terms of what regional powers can do it makes much more sense. When you ask some of the African states why they need the ICC to prosecute crimes committed in Africa or why do they need France to prosecute some of the war criminals when they have certain countries with very strong judicial systems and very good universal jurisdiction laws? It can be taken at the regional level. In Latin America, Argentina is a great example. It is one of the states fearlessly leading in universal jurisdiction, and with a lot of grit and much faster than many of the European countries. These are great examples of how, on one hand, the situation is grim, and we shouldn’t be oblivious, but on the other hand, we should be looking for opportunities or new avenues that this trend opens up.
Marvelous, Inc.: For funders and philanthropy that support human rights work, what are the most important investments required now to expand accountability globally, especially in under-resourced regions or in protracted crises?
Anya Neistat: I have been thinking about this a lot because I interact with funders quite a lot. We need a change of paradigm because I just see millions of dollars being invested in the same things over and over again with very little tracking of actual outcomes. For example, think of all the funding investments in trainings and capacity building of local civil societies or prosecutors. I think it’s necessary to a point, but when I go to some of the countries that are now involved in some of these international justice processes and interact with investigators and prosecutors there I think these resources could be equally spent on training them. The way funders think about it really reflects some massive biases, and this massive divide between the “global north” and “global south,” or whichever terms you attach to this. Secondly, the way funders think of impact and outcomes–what I have seen over the past ten years is many funders moving away from funding accountability or justice efforts to something that sounds much more amorphous like “peace and security” where at the very least you can do a conference here or there and gather a bunch of people to talks about things yet again, you know how the money was spent, and you have a nicely written report afterwards. Everybody realized that these processes take much longer than your average grant lifetime. Most donors are still stuck with 3-year maximum funding. Some of the cases we are talking about take a decade. Very few donors are prepared to (a) realize that their investment in the early stages of the case is what ensures the delivery of the outcome 10 years down the line or (b) that, actually, these investments mean much more than just a sentence or a conviction. By investing in NGOs conducting documentation, in national units carrying out these investigations, and in awareness campaigns, they are actually advancing the notion of international justice. There are a few donors who understand that investment in infrastructure is just as important as project support. [....] We saw it with the withdrawal of U.S. funding. Organizations collapsed because they were based on project funding, and nobody has invested in building them up so that they can ensure long-term survival. Radical reforms need to be led by the funder communities themselves. It’s very difficult for grantees to dictate how the processes should be shifted.
Marvelous, Inc.: How do you think about legacy, both of survivors and of civil society, in accountability work? In what ways should legal victories, truth commissions, or reparations processes be accompanied by memory, storytelling, and structural reform so that justice translates into prevention and lasting societal change?
Anya Neistat: The things that you mention both happen, but not in a connected way. There seem to be some organizations that focus almost exclusively on legal victories, case building, and investigations. Then there are other organizations that make it their main goal to work on truth a reparation, memory, and storytelling. I think as long as these two groups of organizations and initiatives are separated we cannot really talk about legacy or long-term impact. I keep talking about the fact that in universal jurisdiction there have been some amazing victories and exemplary cases where everything came together. The Lundin trial in Sweden is a fascinating case–survivors who have persevered for two decades to see this case in court, but now the case is in court, and we have two executives of a massive oil consortium on trial for alleged complicity in international crimes. That’s massive. That should be the case of the century. How many people have heard of it? Almost nobody. Then we have Lafarge’s trial, which is a little more known within a tiny circle of people who follow these cases closely. So, we made it one of our strategic goals to invest in advocacy, communications, and awareness phrasing because we do feel that unless these justice processes, both victories and challenges, are talked about to a point that enough people know and care about them, then we will not have the systemic change that we are looking for. There are many ways of doing this. The journalistic community is one of our target audiences. [....] I am very pleased to see that the documentary that was made about our work in Ukraine, The Cranes Call, is getting such a fantastic response. Combining the work of organizations through creative coalitions is how we can make this work much less obscure to the proverbial general public.
Marvelous, Inc.: Finally, as you reflect on your own journey, from early research and constitutional law, to field investigations with Human Rights Watch, to shaping global litigation strategies at InterJust / The Docket, what guidance would you offer to the next generation of women human rights activists and lawyers? What qualities, strategies, or values are most essential for sustaining long-term impact, especially in a world where atrocities continue to evolve and take new forms?
Anya Neistat: Grit and perseverance. Everybody going into this field must understand that it’s not an easy journey. When I first started this work, it was easier and looked much more promising than it is right now. Everybody entering this field and starting this journey now must understand that the road ahead will be much bumpier than it has been for my generation. With that said, it all goes in waves. So, I’m absolutely convinced that what we see right now is a very grim phase, but it’s a phase nonetheless. There is hope that in a sufficient number of years for these women who are just starting this journey to still be able to do something. This tide will change. It won’t change on its own. We are all working towards it, but even if not us, then it will be the next generations of human rights activists and lawyers will see another era of hope and achievement in this field. It’s thinking early on about the community and the connection. No woman entering this field right now would be able to do it alone. Nothing gives me more inspiration, hope, and strength to keep going than seeing other incredible female leaders. Just knowing the stories of women who did not start with a legal education as a career but were survivors or family members of victims of human rights violations, and instead of completely falling apart and giving up, became incredible leaders in the human rights field. Lastly, believing in yourself. I hear such a difference between young men and young women who approach me for advice. This sense of entitlement that comes from young men is fascinating, and I almost never get it from young women. They could be from the exact same university with the exact same level of education, and yet there is something inherent that makes women much more humble in the way they approach things. In this world, it is critical to believe that you can contribute and have a lot to offer. The way that women approach their employers, counterparts, or advocacy targets matters so much.
Marvelous, Inc.: Do you have any projects you would like to let our audience know about?
Anya Neistat: Follow InterJust’s website. There is a lot that is constantly developing. We try to post not only about our work, but also about the work done by other organizations. I do quite a few public events. The most recent one was at The Hague at the ASP (Assembly of States Parties). I have a whole library of unwritten books that are just waiting for their moment, including one with the tentative title The Power of a Broken Heart about female human rights leaders who came to human rights work through personal loss and not through legal education or a more formalized road. I found their stories so compelling that I really wanted to write about them.
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