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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