Reed Brody: "I blame Obama a lot for what's happening in the United States right now."

BarcelonaReed Brody (Brooklyn, 1953) has spent his life defending human rights around the world and pursuing dictators throughout Africa and Central and South America, but also denouncing the despotic leaders of the West thanks to his work at Human Rights Watch and the United Nations. He collaborated with the victims of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and in Catch a dictator (Debate) recounts the journey to condemn Chadian President Hissène Habré to life imprisonment. Brody spends much of the year in Barcelona with his partner, Catalan filmmaker Isabel Coixet.

Given the current state of the world, Reed Brody could have work for many years.

— We live in a world of impunity. One hundred years ago, it was normal for civilians to die in wars and for torture to occur around the world. Before World War II, the justice system lacked the tools to pursue criminals. Now, however, we have international norms and institutions, yet almost the same crimes continue to be committed. Political will is needed, and this is what is often lacking today.

In the book, he explains how many countries boycott these international organizations.

— The United States, even under Democratic administrations like Bill Clinton's, was one of the seven countries in the world that voted against the Rome Statute, because the position of leaders in Washington—both Democrats and Republicans—has been to defend U.S. interests, not to build a more just world. Europe, on the other hand, has traditionally been the most respectful and favorable place to build a world based on international norms of justice.

You are very critical of the International Criminal Court, because it has cost more than 2 billion euros and has not prosecuted a single important leader.

— International justice has no police force. They can indict Netanyahu or Vladimir Putin, but they cannot arrest them. And, furthermore, the big problem has been that it has two standards. Since Nuremberg, almost all international justice institutions have directed their efforts against defeated adversaries, as in Nuremberg, where Nazi criminals were tried but not the bombing of Dresden; or in Tokyo, where the atrocities of the Japanese army were judged, but not Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over the years, enemies of the West, such as Milosevic and Putin, or many Africans, have been tried, but few Europeans. With the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Yoav Galant, for the first time an international institution attempted to initiate a trial against a Western ally, and the response was swift. Now the Criminal Court finds itself in an existential struggle amid US sanctions and the resistance of many European countries.

Back to the book. It took 18 years for a dictator, the president of Chad, Hissène Habré, to pay for his crimes.

— It's been many years of waiting, but I think our strength was that the victims led the struggle. In a way, we managed to turn the search for justice into a kind of justice, in the sense that the victims were able to tell their stories, transforming their suffering into a shared project. Obviously, there were thousands of victims, and not all of them participated at the same level, but we were able to facilitate recognition of their suffering and loss.

Souleymane, one of the victims, asked that the silence be broken.

— For me, the most moving thing was the testimony of the rape survivors, who had the courage to speak out in Hissè Habré's presence. For many people, this was more important than the conviction.

I must confess that when you told the story of Khadidja's rape, I cried.

— When she returned to Chad, she had a very hard time because there were many people who despised her, but for her, this gave meaning to that part of her life.

Have you made many sacrifices throughout your life?

— I have a comfortable life. I haven't given up anything important. I've always fought for a more just world, and we don't have it: we're in a very difficult time, in my country and around the world.

Are you afraid that something might happen to you when you return to the United States?

— If I stay home, nothing will happen to me, but if I go to the US to protest, I don't rule out arresting peaceful protesters. If there's no resistance in the streets, we'll lose our democracy. In a normal country, the freedom to protest is obvious, but right now in the US, nothing is obvious.

What does Trump mean?

— An existential threat to US democracy. Even though he was democratically elected. That half of the voters considered him better than the alternative is already a tragedy. I was in Pennsylvania canvassing for Kamala Harris and saw that there wasn't much enthusiasm for the Democrats. I don't have much either, but given the alternative... People didn't hesitate to vote for the January 6th insurrectionist, and now we'll have a permanent insurrection. The people, in a way, have forgiven him for January 6th. We are in a life-or-death struggle for American democracy.

And for the world.

— Europe must participate, it must stand up to Trump and not indulge him. It must not go leader by leader, flattering him. Trump only stops in the face of strong opposition.

He says Europe must be strong, but with what's happening in Gaza, it hasn't shown that firmness either.

— Europe is divided. We didn't live in the same Europe fifteen years ago. And it's not safe from this anti-democratic movement either. It has more history, more roots, more legacy than the US. In general, Europeans are better at distinguishing between truth and falsehood, and this critical capacity is being lost in the US because of algorithms, the prevalence of social media, fast things, and the fake news...

Part of the blame is ours, journalism's.

— Not quality journalism, but when I see my son getting his information from TikTok... Formal education is becoming less and less important.

Do you have a point of disappointment with Obama?

— I blame Obama a lot for what's happening now in the US. He didn't want to spend his political capital on truly transforming the country, and then he intervened to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning. Obama has played a significant role in the Democratic Party's shift away from its traditional base. Trump, with his 49.8%, is transforming the entire country, and every time the judges or anyone else intervenes, the response is: «We have the mandate of the people to implement our program»Obama never challenged permanent interests. He implemented a small healthcare reform, which I don't despise, but he wasn't a transformative president with his 53%, which would have been higher if he weren't Black. Trump's second term will be much worse, because in his first, there were people around him who dared to say no to him. Now, however, they were elected for their loyalty, and they think that Trump, after surviving the attack, was chosen by God and leading a millennia-old project.

He describes to me a similar situation that could happen in Chad.

— Yes, except that we had and still have a different culture; we have two hundred years of a very imperfect democracy.

I say this because of the mechanisms of power, of flattery to the leader.

— Even if we save institutions and democracy, much of what made the United States great—science, innovation, culture, art, universities—will have already been dismantled. The country is on the path to underdevelopment; we will see a decline in life expectancy, health, and the standard of living of Americans.

That's why he will continue to demonstrate and fight.

— Resisting.

Is it in his DNA? At the age of 12, he and his brother created Brodania, an imaginary country with a peculiar constitution.

— I remember presenting the two-sheet manifesto to my father with my brother. Brodania is very much in tune with my whole life. In the manifesto, we said we wouldn't harm other countries, that we wouldn't do business with a country ruled by a dictator or a king... [Laughs] Yes, it's part of my DNA. At that age, I participated in political campaigns and protests against the Vietnam War.

Belgium is key to Habré's story. Here in Catalonia, we know the Belgian justice system very well.

— Belgium and Spain had the most advanced universal jurisdiction laws in the world, because they allowed cases to be opened for crimes committed in other countries, even if the alleged perpetrator was not in their territory. Because there is so much impunity around the world, victims and activists looked for places to file complaints, and Belgium and Spain stood out. But in both cases, the law only served the villains of the Third World. When the powerful were wanted to be charged—in the case of Belgium, Sharon and Bush; in the case of Spain, China for Tibet, the US, and Israel—both laws were dismantled. Now, all European countries have universal jurisdiction laws, but they are much more modest. And this also demonstrates the double standard: the law could be applied to an Argentine or a Chilean, but not to an American.

I think my work, on another level, is very similar to yours. You have to know how to listen, there's a touch of activism, much frustration because few cases go forward and few victories.

— Absolutely! When I was in college, I was torn between studying journalism and law. My father wanted me to be a journalist, and I chose law because it seemed like a safer path.

[...]

— [Laughs] I have many journalist friends because we work in the same places, we do the same work. I can defend causes more openly, go beyond denunciation, although I have other ethical limitations. We're from the same world. Well, not all journalists or lawyers… I do something between journalism and law: investigating, denouncing, uncovering, revealing…

Stand up to power. That's the only thing we can do.

— It's the only thing that counts.