Ida Manton – Part 2

[00:00:00] Intro

[00:00:00] Dr Miranda Melcher: Hello and welcome to Just Access. Too many individuals and groups around the world today are denied access to justice. This access is vital for making human rights effective and securing human dignity, especially for those in situations of vulnerability, including women, children, minorities, migrants, and detainees.

[00:00:22] Through our podcast, we explore ideas about how to improve access to justice for all. Our motto is, everyone can be a human rights defender, and our goal with these conversations is to raise awareness about human rights issues. My name is Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I’m a senior legal fellow at Just Access and the host of this podcast.

[00:00:40] In this episode, I have the pleasure of continuing my conversation with Ida Manton, who is an expert in the field of negotiations, mediation, and conflict management. In our last episode, we talked about her career and how she’s developed skills in negotiation and mediation. In this episode, we get her thoughts on where the [00:01:00] biggest gaps are in access to justice today and what can be done to fix them.

[00:01:04] We hope you enjoy the second part of our conversation.

[00:01:19] Interview – Part 2

[00:01:19] Dr Miranda Melcher: So speaking in fact exactly of that, of helping other people and the skills needed to enable not just you to be in these rooms, but people you’ve trained as well to spread these skills more widely, what are some of the kind of top things on your list that you help them navigate? What are the key challenges that come up in negotiation and mediation that you need to train people to be able to manage. Are these consistent things over time, or are we seeing things come up now that maybe we weren’t earlier in your career?

[00:01:50] Ida Manton: Both, I think. One of the things that many of the participants I have in my courses struggle with lack of experience.

[00:01:58] And when you don’t have experience as a professional negotiator or mediator, you tend to act from your impulses, you’re very defensive. You are trying to stick to the instruction and the mandate as if it is the last straw that will give you that little air you need to survive underwater. And many of them are struggling with knowing how flexible can they be? Can they survive? Can they afford to listen to the other party, or will they be mesmerized by the other side argument building or storytelling? Are they being carried away and giving in to their position?

[00:02:41] So that is a very blurry line. You never know whether the concessions you’re making are actually you’re giving in too much or those are investments in your future relationship that will unlock areas that were locked for [00:03:00] such a long time.

[00:03:01] And that is a challenge for very experienced diplomats as well. But when you’re young and when you’re inexperienced, that is why we’re very lucky to have, simulations that we can then discuss in the classroom. Why did you do that? Did you feel that it was a good time to give them that information, right? In real life, you don’t have anybody to actually compare notes with or brainstorm.

[00:03:25] Things happen so fast. You’re thrown at the meeting and you’re like, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why I’m the person here. Very often it’s not as ideal as it should be in books. When we read about it, how we should plan for a negotiation process many diplomats will tell you we didn’t have any planning, we didn’t have any time for that, we didn’t have any knowledge experts in the area. We had to, just improvise. And that is reality as well, right? You have to, you have to add that to the equation and [00:04:00] live with it.

[00:04:00] Now, the other thing that I really want my participants to learn in my course is that you’re not just a negotiator, but you are the person with all of your suitcases and all of your layers and that’s the same with the other side. They have their prejudices, they have their feelings, they have their reasons why they’re doing certain things and that is very difficult to open up, to understand. That requires a lot of talking. And as we live in a time where people believe that time is money, we don’t have time for nurture, relationships, usually business negotiations, try to focus on what needs to be achieved and how and who will do what. People do not focus very much on the person behind the negotiator. Understanding what kind of personality am I dealing with? What kind of feedback? What kind of questions I can ask? Because I think you and I, but everybody else who’s listening to this podcast would know [00:05:00] that certain things are triggered for me, and you would not even know what did you say for that to be a trigger, right?

[00:05:06] But if you know the style, but if you know the personality and you there’s a lot of psychology that we can learn about other people that can tell us by how they behave, by their body language, by what they’re saying, by the questions they’re asking. And then when you pay attention to the person and when you’re trying to accommodate and have genuine dialogue, then you actually have a better chance of penetrating deeper and being able to go beyond just stating positions, but go, as we say in the area where you can discuss interests. What is negotiable? What is non negotiable? And into explaining rather than just throwing on the table things that are yay or nay, right? [00:06:00] So that is something that I really want my students and my participants to work on themselves as a person so that they’re not as vulnerable as a negotiator, because it can be very emotional process.

[00:06:13] Imagine if you’re negotiating the future of your country, if you’re negotiating peace process, cease fire, all of these things are very emotional and you need to build up that kind of strong personality that can handle the attacks on the other side, that can try to solve problems with the others rather than increase the conflict ,escalate and make things worse.

[00:06:41] So these I would say are the few things that I focus on, but I also focus on the wider understanding, I think, of international relations and why we’re doing the things that we’re doing, because for a long time, it was relativized. It [00:07:00] was, everything goes, oh, this happened. Certain things in history happened without even explaining. I think we’re at the stage now, politically or historically, where we know what values we stand for and by somehow, but we also have to recognize that there are other people out there who have very different values and that those people have also platforms to share their narratives. This is why I’m very interested in disinformation, fake news, but in order to be able to hear how those arguments are being built, you need to open yourself up and understand what they’re saying.

[00:07:45] I would never find justifications for autocrats, for dictators, for people who are who are violating the international laws left and right, but I’m worried that they have mainstream [00:08:00] media where they can blatantly say lies and it goes, it’s all relative. It’s information, but I want to teach my student that there is right from wrong and they need to make the difference and their actions need to be in line of who they are and what they stand for.

[00:08:18] And I think that’s very important in the formative years, especially when you’re a student, and I have had some amazing feedback from some of my students who later on assume positions in the EU, in the OSCE, and they tell me that the lectures that we had, albeit sometimes short have been eye opening for them, and they do the job that they do because they want to make this world be really the place that we aspired in international documents to make it.

[00:08:50] Like the Charter of Paris, when we said the war is over and we want to see prosperity. Yeah, I would say these are the things that I focus on and I want my participants [00:09:00] to, even after our classes, deliberate to, to think and to become better people.

[00:09:06] Dr Miranda Melcher: Can you tell us a bit more about the impact of that? Perhaps an example where you’ve seen this sort of negotiation or mediation work have a big impact on access to justice?

[00:09:16] Ida Manton: Yeah. There are a few, there are a few cases that I would like to mention. Let me start with one that is happening now. So I have been I’ve been working with the OSC for a long time and Skopje was one of the most polluted cities in the world when I lived there. And many of the people that I care about had either cancer or somebody very close in their family had cancer, including my mom.

[00:09:47] And, you know it is devastating, whether it’s because of pollution, disregard for the environment, so I really wanted to do something about this. And working with the OSCE, I know that, we have the second dimension which is the [00:10:00] economic environmental dimension in the OSCE and it took me a long time to convince the OSCE Mission to Skopje to do some work in that field because that’s not primarily what their mandate is.

[00:10:12] And I wrote a needs assessment with with my colleagues in PACE Global Strategies, we wrote a needs assessment and basically a recommendation of what the OSCE Mission to Skopje can do to help the government implement the Aarhus convention that their signatory of. And the Aarhus Convention, for those who don’t know, is one of the best written legislations actually when it comes to justice.

[00:10:40] And it could be implemented in many other areas. It doesn’t have to be just environment. It’s based on three pillars. And the first pillar is access to information, that basically governments are responsible to provide information to the demos, to the citizens, to those that they’re responsible for. The second one [00:11:00] is public participation, that they have to provide space for the public to participate in the discussions on environmental matters and the third pillar is access to justice. When this mechanism does not work, meaning that the people were not informed, or were not given an opportunity to take part in decision making regarding their rivers, their pollution, the biodiversity, and so on that they have courts and legal remedies to to start cases against whoever the perpetrator is or the government as such.

[00:11:36] After that work with some of the colleagues, we managed to convince the mission that they can do more work and they have then worked with the local ministries and then they worked with also the local self government units to train them about their responsibility under this convention and I’m very glad to say that [00:12:00] now they even have a budget line within the unified budget that they can do a little bit of work on environmental matters, because, as we have seen lately, there are so many floods, there are so many wildfires in the region that we all actually need to do something to prevent all of these disasters.

[00:12:22] And I think, training people, talking to people, writing about this is raising awareness and I think that kind of advocacy work is very important to spread the word and to develop their skills and the capacities of institutions to improve the situation overall. It required a lot of negotiations, which I have been undertaking in the last five, six years, trying to convince the OSCE first of all, that they can do this. Trying to convince the government officials that it’s a help that is needed, that it will be a starting [00:13:00] point.

[00:13:00] I talked to a few journalists and I have tried to convince them to, despite the grave situation, that they can still have some hope in creating journalist networks and so on. Now, obviously it is not a shining example. It’s not like the Arhus convention suddenly became prime legislation in Macedonia, but many things have happened since, and I’m very proud of that.

[00:13:25] Also I would say I’m very proud of my students in Moldova. I mentioned earlier, I have been doing a model OSCE there for 11 years now, and I have had students who felt that they want to share the seminar that we had with the other students at their university and they reached out to me and said, we want to do something so that this is a more of a continued effort at the university that we would have lecturers like you and other people who can help [00:14:00] students understand how important it is to have genuine dialogue.

[00:14:03] What does that entail? Because they are on the front line. What is happening in Ukraine affects them very much and personally. And they have managed to organize a meeting between me and the Rector and they were very open to the idea to have a negotiation hub at the university.

[00:14:24] So I hope in some near future that we will manage to do something because it’s a student led initiative. Because these are students who understand how important it is that they have their in country capacity to deal with the danger that is looming on their borders and within their country. I’m very proud of the work that they have been doing and I’m sure that we will manage eventually to have that negotiation hub.

[00:14:53] Dr Miranda Melcher: Yeah, those are some great examples. Thank you very much for telling us a bit more about them. And staying on this topic then of access to justice and where the challenges and the gaps are obviously you’ve made a lot of progress as you’ve detailed and teaching your students to do it as well, but unfortunately there are still so many problems in the world around ensuring people can access justice.

[00:15:17] From your point of view, what do you think some of those biggest gaps are that we are facing today?

[00:15:22] Ida Manton: I think the biggest gaps are impunity and I want to elaborate a little bit on this, and then I’ll continue with the other ones. I studied in the Netherlands, in Leiden, and I was very close and I went to see a few of the trials at the International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, ICTY. And I find it devastating that, some people that were, that we knew are war criminals, ended up, because of procedural matters or whatever, ended up dying without having a [00:16:00] verdict.

[00:16:01] Or some other ones went back home as heroes, and, I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that the system was unable to find them guilty, or the fact that back home there are people who celebrate them as heroes. For me, both. But the impunity that we see leads to actions that we see today.

[00:16:25] You know, in the Balkans, we have seen a lot of high level politicians who are very corrupt. We’ve seen war criminals not being punished and they’re part of the political scene. And then the people who have integrity, the people who believe in the system, I think for a long time felt that they’re just being misused and there’s no space for them, because those big autocrats and oligarchs will always find the [00:17:00] way to be on top of that ladder.

[00:17:03] And the people who had good intentions simply felt that there’s no more space for them and are no longer part of the decision making process, are no longer part of the political scene and so on. And now we see somebody like Putin who is violating everything that was created in the last 70 years, basically after the end of the second world war, every commitment that was negotiated in the OSCE, the Helsinki final act, the charter of Paris, by invading a neighboring country, which is a clear violation as such. We have agreed that we will have peaceful resolution to conflicts. We have agreed that we will not invade other countries. And I think he calculates the risk and he thinks that others have done it, I will [00:18:00] do it as well. And that is frightening.

[00:18:02] The fact that, we can still have wars and we cannot prosecute the people who are responsible for the violence, that we can see what is happening in Gaza every day and that we’re calculating with with things like arms embargo, that we shouldn’t provide Israel with the weapons that they’re using to kill children and women in Gaza. I think it’s devastating.

[00:18:29] And I think we have to do something about that if we want to see justice and if we want to see people who believe and are willing to build this international system of justice. To believe in it. Because it is really minuscule to have a tiny little victory somewhere in some court, whether it’s ICJ or it’s I don’t know ECHR, if these big issues of our current [00:19:00] political developments are not sorted out.

[00:19:02] I’m talking about the Balkans, but all of the things that we saw in the Balkans seem like they’re going to be just copy pasted on the conflict in Ukraine, that, deals will be made, that those negotiations will somehow at the end of whatever the end of this war could look like, that deals will be made and justice will not prevail.

[00:19:30] And I really don’t want to see that kind of tomorrow. And I think we owe it to all of those people in Ukraine who are losing their life. And to all of those brave people who stayed there and who are defending their identity, their country, that we do this better. That impunity should not be a part of our future, of our tomorrow.

[00:19:50] Then another thing that I think is very important to mention apart from impunity is hypocrisy. I think that, we treat our international [00:20:00] law a la carte. And I think that is very wrong. If life in Ukraine is valuable and if we’re making political decisions based on the lost life every day in Ukraine, I think we have to make the same decisions because Arab life matters and Gaza matters and those lives are equally important.

[00:20:24] And I think we cannot be hypocritical and say that some people are more important than others, as Orwell reminded us and wrote, and I think that we have to genuinely care about human life, human rights about resolving conflicts, not just because it’s convenient for electoral campaigns and the elections around the corner, but because we feel responsibility to be better people and better leaders, and I’m, I’m hoping that we [00:21:00] I’m Macedonian, but also American, I’m hoping that we will have a president soon in America who will put these values on the table and will have a clear idea about what is the vision for this world?

[00:21:17] And I want to see that world based on justice and that’s why I hope that she will become the next president because she has experience in that and I hope that we will care about different areas of the world, no matter how poor or what ethnicity people have, that life is precious wherever it is.

[00:21:41] Dr Miranda Melcher: Definitely a clear message to take to our listeners that I think probably a lot of our listeners very much agree with. So thank you for sharing your perspective with us. To move, however, to thinking about solutions or what we could maybe do to contribute to fixing these issues. Do you see [00:22:00] any sort of If you could wave a magic wand tomorrow relatively straightforward solutions to any of these issues, even if they’re not necessarily politically possible right now, if we could, what might those be?

[00:22:13] Ida Manton: First of all, I think that we have to get rid of some of the leaders that we have in the world now. Putin does not belong to any table. The Russian people deserve to have a better leader, and the Ukrainian people deserve to have a better neighbor, and we, in the world, deserve to have a better Russia.

[00:22:33] There are diplomats that have been working on improvement of East West relations since the end of the Second World War, and I think that we should have done a little bit more in understanding what Putin’s game plan was and prevent that scenario from happening.

[00:22:55] Unfortunately, many people cooperated with Putin [00:23:00] for their own gain and for their self interest and I think that’s unforgivable, and I think we’re very late with the reaction of punishing all of those leaders who are very forgiving and who were having very lucrative deals with Putin and other Russian oligarchs for a long time and they belong to the liberal, democratic systems that we thought they are our guardians of the galaxy.

[00:23:29] So we have to start cleaning our own our own backyard a little bit better and expect our leaders to be genuine liberal Democrats if they say they are, right? So first of all, yes, I think that we should clean the political spectrum significantly. Certain people do not belong in decision making positions, and we also need to figure out better ways if we call ourselves democracies [00:24:00] to listen to the demos, if the people in Georgia are telling us that the law is unacceptable to them, we cannot hide behind the notion that, oh their parliament passed it and it will be interference in the sovereignty of the state and whatever and we cannot do anything from outside. I think that’s just an excuse. I think it is our responsibility to do something to help the societies when they have a call from the demos to become better.

[00:24:34] And if their leaders are unwilling to do that, we have to find ways to sanction that behavior that goes against their own people who are struggling and who are suffering. Because small countries and people, or citizens, need to get reassurance from the layers above from the tier that is above their government [00:25:00] and that layer is supranational layer off international organizations and communities that we have been building for a long time.

[00:25:09] So I have just sent to the editor the final version of a book that we’re about to publish with a former U. S. ambassador, John Maresca, who was the first American ambassador to recognize the independence of Ukraine. But also I know him as one of the most important negotiators in the Helsinki final act, what we call the Helsinki process, the charter of Paris and many documents in between. So there are a lot of lessons that we can learn from people who are involved in this, and I think we have to be a little bit humble, ask, we have to include people who have experience and people who sometimes even have different views and come from a different political spectrum, but we need to have [00:26:00] inclusive dialogue and we need to be a little bit more strict and to persevere on the very, very difficult path of building inclusive democratic societies. Because it is very easy for somebody who has bad intentions to have malign influence, but we need to build our structures much better to be able to defend ourselves and the way of life as we want it and as we want to maintain, because otherwise it’s a huge threat and we might be facing very serious consequences.

[00:26:40] Dr Miranda Melcher: Deffinitly important issues to keep an eye on there because of, as you said, the incredible consequences and risks of them. To think then about what people listening might be able to do to contribute to avoiding or minimizing those risks and consequences, what would you recommend people could do if they’re listening and going, [00:27:00] wow, this sounds amazing, I’d love to get involved?

[00:27:02] How could they go about that?

[00:27:04] Ida Manton: I think it depends on where they are in life, you have different expectations from a nurse, a different expectation from a political scientist, from an academic, a different expectation from a kindergarten teacher. I think we all have to understand our role in society. And we all have to be politically aware, active, and knowledgeable. In many societies, in many parts of the world, people have been oppressed and they have no freedoms or rights or they’re just being manipulated for elections when their votes are needed for certain oligarchs to maintain their power and so on.

[00:27:51] And I think it is very important to recognize who can do what in society. But I believe that we [00:28:00] have to have politically improved knowledge that we have to start teaching the young generation that is very much busy with TikTok and watching ridiculous videos that have nothing to do with their responsibilities. But we have to find ways to send those messages across the board and tell young people, tell older people about their responsibility. And also the importance of being part, not just on the election day, but also have opinions and expect the decision makers to do something about it.

[00:28:39] In America, that, that link is active. People go to their representatives, lobby groups go to the representatives and have certain expectations. I think in most parts of Europe, and I won’t even talk about other parts of the world, that link just [00:29:00] doesn’t exist. The connection that people have to their parliamentarians is non existent. The information that is being shared from what is being discussed at high level fora, summits and high level meetings, experts conferences and so on to what happens to a person’s life in a village in India or a mountainous region in Bulgaria. They don’t know. They’re not informed.

[00:29:29] So I think there is a lot of lack of information and that means that we need to change the way we communicate with the constituencies. Media is crucial in this, so I think we need to teach our people, our students from the earliest age, what this information means, who is spreading, what we need to be digitally literate.

[00:29:59] We need [00:30:00] to know what kind of information our kids get from the internet. These are all new challenges. We’re dealing with A.I. We’re dealing with new things that humanity really didn’t have to think about until a few years ago, but the bottom line is wherever the information comes from, we need to know it’s a reliable information, we need to have analytical skills, we need to still teach our students how to analyze text and words and what that means. How to say things to whom, at what time and so on.

[00:30:37] I think everybody has a role. Democracy starts from the lowest level, from the local governance, your own municipality, your own city or town, to the national level. Not everybody will be advisor to the president, right? But everybody has a role in expressing their expectations, rewarding politicians when they’re [00:31:00] doing a good job because I think we’re failing that they’re quite a lot. Rewarding them not just on the election day, but also recognizing that they are doing a great job because there are many of those as well.

[00:31:14] And we tend to just criticize. We’re focusing only on who’s doing bad and where and so on. I think that we need to be more mature political beings in our surroundings, and we need to learn how to communicate effectively. And I think those are some of the skills that I’m teaching my students. And I think every human being needs to work on those and to improve them in our daily life, in our life as a parent, as a professional, as a negotiator, as a politician, and so on.

[00:31:46] Outro

[00:31:46] Dr Miranda Melcher: Thank you so much for speaking with us, Ida Manton. And to listeners, thank you for joining us as well. If you are enjoying what we’re doing with the Just Access podcast, please tell your friends, [00:32:00] like us and share us on social media, and rate us and leave a review on your favorite podcast app. We love to hear what you think, and it really helps us get the word out about what we’re doing.

[00:32:09] You can also get in touch with us with any comments, reflections, or suggestions for people or topics to cover by contacting us at podcast at just-access.de. That’s podcast at just-access.de. Until next time!

[00:32:26]

Episode 1 – Liz Evenson – HRW – Part 1

Intro

[00:00:00] Dr. Miranda Melcher: Hello and welcome to Just Access! In this podcast series we talk to some fascinating people, legal experts, academics and human rights advocates, and many more. We explore ideas about the future of human rights and improving access to justice for all. 

[00:00:21] I’m Dr. Miranda Melcher, a Senior Legal Fellow at Just Access and over the next two episodes, I speak with Liz Evenson. She is the International Justice Director at Human Rights Watch, or HRW. In this first episode, we focus on introducing Liz and her role at HRW. In the second episode, we’ll focus on her recommendations for improving access to justice, especially at and via the International Criminal Court, or the ICC.

[00:00:50] Hope you enjoy the conversation.

Interview 

[00:00:57] Dr. Miranda Melcher: Can you start us off please by telling us a bit about you and your background? How did you come to join the human rights?

[00:01:08] Liz Evenson: Thank you so much and thanks for having me on your podcast! So, I’m a lawyer by training, I went to law school in the US and I also did a Master’s in European human rights law in England and I got interested in human rights when I was at university. I think I’d always been interested in issues of social justice, but it was really at university that for the first time as an undergraduate that I discovered this whole language of human rights, both the philosophy of it, the history of the different movements, the fact that there’s a whole system of international law to protect human rights. I didn’t know any of that until I rocked up as a pretty naive 19 year old in the university class.

[00:01:55] But it really just spoke to me. It felt like this is a vocabulary that matches the things that I value and believe and is a vocabulary that can help me be part of remaking the world or being part of some change processes. And so I followed that interest through my law studies and then I actually ended up at Human Rights Watch through a great program that Human Rights Watch has, which is a fellowship for early career law graduates and in fact I got a fellowship that was specific to my law school, donated by someone quite special. 

[00:02:30] So I actually entered Human Rights Watch on a one year fellow, basically a traineeship for human rights documentation and reporting and came then in contact with colleagues who were working on international justice issues and got a position after my fellowship and I’ve been with Human Rights Watch ever since, which is in total now some 16 years.

[00:02:53] Dr. Miranda Melcher: Okay, that’s pretty cool! Thank you for sharing that pathway with us! But we are going to focus mainly on what you currently do at Human Rights Watch. So what is it that you do? How would you explain it to someone who maybe isn’t particularly familiar with HRW?

[00:03:11] Liz Evenson: Well, the simplest way to explain it, I think, is that I’m part of a team that champions justice for victims of serious international crimes. And putting that into the context of what Human Rights Watch does many of my colleagues at Human Rights Watch are the ones who are going out there and trying to get to the truth of what’s happened when it comes to human rights violations: interviewing survivors, interviewing witnesses, going to governments, asking, you know, what happened or going to others who might be responsible for these violations. And I should say on Human Rights Watch we work on the whole spectrum of human rights issues: social rights, economic rights, civil political rights, not only the kinds of human rights violations that might rise to a level of serious international crimes, but our work comes in basically as the other side of the coin.

[00:04:00] So our colleagues are documenting and making public and exposing human rights violations that could amount to crimes under international law, war crimes, crimes against humanity, sometimes even genocide. And then we come in as the other side of the coin and try to figure out, okay, what strategies could be put in place to hold those, who are responsible for what turn out to be international crimes, to account through individual criminal responsibility, through courts of law.

[00:04:30] What kind of strategies do we need? How could we get there? How do we make those processes as victim and survivor centered as possible? So we are the other side of, once we have this reporting on these potential crimes, how can we then try to advance towards justice? And I say really advanced towards justice because justice is a very, very long game – it can take decades, it can also not ever materialize. So we are trying to champion justice as the end goal and trying to accompany the processes as we go along.

[00:05:05] Dr. Miranda Melcher: I like that. It’s helpful to put into the context of HRW’s work because I think often the on the ground tracking and documenting what’s happening might be more visible but that’s obviously part of what needs to be done, but stage two, what it sounds like you do is: okay, we know what happened, now what? How do we make sure that, that’s not the end of the story? So obviously very important work, but what does that look like day to day?

[00:05:30] Liz Evenson: Well, every day is really varied. That’s one of the things that I like so much about this job. I’ve just recently taken a new position as the leader of our international justice team. I previously was on the team for many, many years and I was focused really closely on the International Criminal Court.

[00:05:47] But in that job as in my new role every day is a bit different. It can look like conversations with colleagues, understanding, okay, we wanna advance something, how are we gonna get there? Can it be helpful to do strategizing? It could be reviewing documents that we’re putting out publicly, statements, press releases.

[00:06:07] It can be having meetings, phone calls in the last couple of years, mostly Zoom calls or other remote means with other NGO colleagues on a common strategy with the people we’re trying to convince to do things – so government representatives, could be court officials as well. It’s a lot of talking.

[00:06:28] When I was working from home, when I had a friend visiting a couple of years ago who’s a medical doctor, and after kind of listening to me work all day, she said, so like, when do you work? You just seem to be on the phone all day. And I was like, well, that is kind of, that’s how we make change.

[00:06:44] It’s through conversations, you know, as much as anything else, getting information that we need to make the best recommendations we can about what a justice process could look like here, what political will is necessary to get states to agree to do something that would support justice and then trying to popularize that through more conversations and public materials. So it’s really quite varied and every day is a mix of different things. One thing that we’re not doing is going into court ourselves. So I describe what we do really more as policy research.

[00:07:18] So that side of the international justice system, you know, what kinds of justice mechanisms are available, are any available? Oftentimes they’re not. So how do we start to build up towards calling attention even to the fact that justice is needed. And then taking those recommendations out there and doing advocacy and trying to create change.

[00:07:39] But, we’re not representing clients. We’re not in court. We’re not the prosecutors ourselves.

[00:07:44] Dr. Miranda Melcher: So that actually really helpfully kind of brings me to my next question, which is obviously you’re not in court, but you’re doing a whole lot to try and create or popularize or figure out ways for justice. And you’re also not a state, you’re not an international government organization. So how does that relationship, for example, with the International Criminal Court, with the ICC, how does that work? I imagine there must be benefits, but there’s probably also some challenges of this kind of position. Can you tell us a bit about that?

[00:08:14] Liz Evenson: Yeah, absolutely! So oftentimes we are trying to persuade government actors to do something. And I think that’s like maybe what you think of as classical human rights advocacy. We want to get a resolution passed in the Human Rights Council mandating a commission of inquiry or fact finding mechanism.

[00:08:33] And so we would be interacting with state representatives around that issue. But it’s true that in our work on international justice, at some level, the judicial authorities themselves are also the people we’re seeking to influence, but we’re seeking to influence them in a way that is fully, fully mindful and respectful of the fact that they are judicial authorities.

[00:08:56] So there’s an independence there that we’re also trying to protect. And in fact oftentimes our message to governments is, you need to stand up, you need to protect these institutions. They’re being sort of undermined by interests that are opposed to accountability. So this is why it’s really important to hear you say from the floor of the UN General Assembly, or the Security Council that you respect the independent decisions of the prosecutor and the judges.

[00:09:22] And want something like the International Criminal Court to work in a way that’s consistent with its mandate. So we have to always keep that in mind. And so I wouldn’t call what we do in terms of our engagement with judicial authorities, whether that’s the International Criminal Court or whether it might be lawmakers in a particular country that are, you know, maybe improving their laws to facilitate these kinds of prosecutions nationally.

[00:09:47] With the lawmakers and government representatives it’s one thing, but with judicial mechanisms like International Criminal Court, we’re not trying to impinge on their independence, in fact if anything, we’re doing a lot of work to make sure that independence is protected. But we are making policy recommendations, so not about the outcome of a particular case, or the innocence or guilt of a particular person, but issues like, so how should the prosecutor think about which cases to select? What are the different principles or guidelines? 

[00:10:17] What does it mean for the ICC to do its work in a way that leaves a lasting legacy that has impact for victims and affected communities? How does that goal translate into how you make decisions about cases? All the way on down through how you have a presence in those communities as the ICC in order to make sure that justice is not only done, but also seen to be done.

[00:10:40] How do you forward plan for a time when the International Criminal Court’s mandate might come to an end, but there’s still gonna be a need for additional accountability processes, support for victims, reparations, proceedings, witness protection. So it’s in that area of kind of policy research and policy recommendations that we might be saying, oftentimes publicly, here are recommendations to the International Criminal Court.

[00:11:05] And we also engage in a dialogue with other NGOs through a network called the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, which really brings together the whole global international justice movement to have these kinds of conversations with court officials. So I think it’s important that something like the International Criminal Court, but I would say really any prosecuting authority, any judicial authority dealing with these kinds of crimes needs to have some kind of connection and outreach to NGOs. 

[00:11:35] It’s the NGOs that are representing the constituencies here. They’re the kind of the stand in, for lack of a better word, for the global constituency, for doing justice for these kinds of crimes. And so in order for these processes to ultimately have legitimacy, they have to have legitimacy in the eyes of the people and one of the proxies we have for that would be the NGO communities, particularly those NGOs that are really working hand in hand with victims and survivor communities.

[00:12:06] Dr. Miranda Melcher: So that’s a whole lot of very cool, very nerdy things. I’m sure we can get in lots of nerdy detail about, the number of things you’ve reeled off that you work on, which is brilliant. So thank you for giving us that overview. This might be like choosing your favorite child. Hopefully not. But are there maybe some current or upcoming projects in particular that you maybe want to highlight for us?

[00:12:31] Liz Evenson: Well, this is gonna be kind of a nerdy answer, but it’s also the truth. I’m not sure when this podcast will air, but, next week, at the beginning of December, is the annual meeting of all of the governments that belong to the International Criminal Court. It’s called the Assembly of States Parties and it takes place over five, six days, sometimes in the Hague, sometimes in New York at UN Headquarters. This year it’s in the Hague. And I’m really looking forward to this for a couple of reasons. One, you know, it’s a place where really important work gets done, by states on behalf of justice. 

[00:13:05] I’m sure your listeners will know that something like International Criminal Court, but again, any sort of justice process for these serious international crimes depends so much on the willingness of governments to support those processes, to protect them from obstruction, to put resources behind them. And so this is a platform where states parties will be doing some really specific things like setting the court’s budget or passing resolutions, but taken together, it’s really a moment to put the spotlight on the importance that they attach to victims having access to justice for serious international crimes.

[00:13:41] So I’m looking forward to the culmination of a lot of work that my colleagues and I do all year round to urge states to make the most of this moment. But the other reason I’m really looking forward to it is because it is really a singular gathering of the international justice movement. Even though it’s a meeting of ICC member governments, lots and lots of other justice topics will get discussed during side-events and corridor discussions. And particularly the last few years when in person gatherings have been limited for many, this will be my first time back at a Assembly of State’s party session in person since 2019.

[00:14:18] So I’m just looking forward to that community coming together and finding out what’s going on for people, what their priorities are and how these issues look, you know, from wherever they might be positioned in the world.

[00:14:29] Dr. Miranda Melcher: Wonderful. Well, that’s exciting to have that coming up so soon. Hope it is kind of all the things that you’re hoping for. Might there be something, maybe one more in like, I don’t know, the first half of 2023 that particularly comes to mind?

[00:14:53] Liz Evenson: Well, I think it’s probably no surprise to anyone who’s been following developments in international justice over the past year, that what’s happening in Ukraine has really drawn, sort of unprecedented in some ways, attention to the necessity of having justice for serious international crimes.

[00:15:11] And trying to understand what are all the different mechanisms that have now been activated and what are nonetheless, the barriers that might be in the way. So how to take this very strong, almost immediate impulse to talk about justice and to talk about the need for justice for what’s happening in Ukraine and make sure that it actually gets translated.

[00:15:34] Now, that’s not something that’s gonna be resolved in the first and half of 2023, but I think we’re gonna continue to see that response maturing and will give us an opportunity to have a look and see how is this all fitting together? Are there lessons that can be brought in from previous situations?

[00:15:49] Are there lessons that can be taken forward into other situations? And how do we take this interest, and kind of the spotlight that unfortunately has been put on the necessity of justice given what’s taking place, how can we take that spotlight and talk about what to do in other situations that also like Ukraine, where the delivery of justice is important and so essential. So that’s, I think, one of the key issues with us at the moment and it’ll be with us for quite some time.

Outro

[00:16:22] Dr. Miranda Melcher: Thank you, Liz, for sharing your story with us and giving us insight into the Human Rights Watch and the work you do with the organization. In our next episode, we’ll delve more into how to improve access to justice globally with Liz. Stay tuned!