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Can International Law Save Us? · New Thinking for a New World

• 0:02
  Speaker 0: Welcome to New Thinking for a New World, A Tilburg Foundation podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 0: I am Alan Stoga your host.
• 0:09
  Speaker 0: Each week i bring you conversations with people who think differently about the great issues that are shaping our world Geopolitics Disruptive Tech Mass Migration The Changing Climate Culture Wars All of it is grist for our mill!
• 0:28
  Speaker 0: and that you join the conversation at tellbergfoundation.org.
• 0:33
  Speaker 0: And now for today's episode of New Thinking For A New World from the Trump administration.
• 1:02
  Speaker 0: However, it points to a growing tension between national and international law or alternatively between great powers in international organizations.
• 1:12
  Speaker 0: think of it as might makes right versus universal values.
• 1:16
  Speaker 0: Viviana Krzysiewicz and The Center for Justice and International Law are very much on the Universal's values side of the ledger.
• 1:25
  Speaker 0: under her leadership Sahel has helped bring more than two hundred cases before the Inter-American Human Rights System on issues ranging from violence against women to climate, human rights abuses and beyond.
• 1:37
  Speaker 0: Welcome Viviana to New Thinking for a new world!
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you Alan.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I'm very happy to be here.
• 1:44
  Speaker 0: Let's start with Rubio in the ICC.
• 1:46
  Speaker 0: It can be argued that we live at moment when power seems shifting away from globalism towards nationalism where the UN has lost a lot of its dynamism and were universal values seem to be honored too often in The Breach rather than, in fact.
• 2:03
  Speaker 0: I'm thinking of Iran, Sudan, Gaza, DRC...the list goes on and on unfortunately.
• 2:09
  Speaker 0: How do you think about not as much where we came from but where we may be heading at this moment?
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: international landscape and national landscaping in many countries, states around the world.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: We are facing sixty-five life conflicts wars.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: we're facing challenges that come from climate emergency a global pandemic.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So some of the issues and problems that we're facing are internationally in nature, And like it or not We will be needing solutions That bring together different actors internationally States, because states are still very relevant.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: But they can also be other stakeholders and actors that are critical for solving some of the challenges we currently have or will keep on having if we don't harness those issues.
• 3:44
  Speaker 0: It's certainly a case where challenges like climate... migration like global health, biosecurity.
• 3:58
  Speaker 0: Like artificial intelligence are by their nature global.
• 4:04
  Speaker 0: yet our instincts seem the default for our instinct seems to be national.
• 4:10
  Speaker 0: hence secretary Rubio and others it's not just the Americans its other great powers It is the Chinese Its The Russians.
• 4:20
  Speaker 0: So, you've got this fundamental tension between the nature of problems that confront all us and dynamic on a solution side at least among great powers.
• 4:31
  Speaker 0: We can't resolve it today.
• 4:33
  Speaker 0: but when your own work over several decades continue to try to create innovative solutions bridge gap with local national global why are confident can be made to work despite all of the forces we've just talked about?
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: First of all, because I have seen it working.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: So maybe that was a more pertinent question how is it that i decided to work on these fields and seem to have very little promise when I started?
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: but do believe even if you cannot solve some most challenging problems of the world, you can find paths to start untangling some in Latin America, maybe we're not going to be able to get all the US to change its climate policy and this political context right now.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe a few years but... We could work on how better ensure that one of the necessary pillars the global climate, like the Amazon is protected.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: And that depends a lot of national decisions and sometimes international processes that include courts and protection organs and international spaces for developing policies or agreements can act together in a manner or can create the necessary attention so that we move in their right direction.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: So I've done a lot of work trying to protect the right-to-land indigenous peoples and try We have enough information to drive national and international policies through a mix of local initiatives in litigation, advocacy as well as international processes that are also mixed with litigation and advocacy.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: In the case of indigenous peoples It is very clear in our region and worldwide that preserving indigenous lands, it's a very important strategy for preserving the survival of Indigenous peoples.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: And their right to culture... ...and their autonomy but also critical for preserving environment and nature.
• 8:11
  Speaker 0: I couldn't agree more.
• 8:13
  Speaker 0: But the tragedy of the Amazon, the tragedy at the Congo Basin is that those are known problems.
• 8:21
  Speaker 0: They've been worked on for literally decades.
• 8:25
  Speaker 0: The earliest declarations about deforestation in the Amazon are literally decades old by every measure and the objective circumstances or worse today than five ten fifteen twenty twenty-five thirty years ago.
• 8:42
  Speaker 0: And the climate continues to evolve, The way it's evolving.
• 8:48
  Speaker 0: You use the word crisis.
• 8:50
  Speaker 0: I would underline the word Crisis when it comes to Climate but Crisis seems To be something that is what Steve in the right Word?
• 9:00
  Speaker 0: Is unavoidable!
• 9:01
  Speaker 0: The efforts That have been made Have failed its objective Failure.
• 9:06
  Speaker 0: so how do we Do Something differently to stop Failing?
• 9:11
  Speaker 0: It's an unfair question.
• 9:13
  Speaker 0: I know it's a non-fair question.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: No, is not a non fair question.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Is that very fair?
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Um...I think given the path of the world some actions have been taken and keep on happening are mitigating some trends we're in And sometimes they're not as effective, but they do contribute to changing the course.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Because some of their trends are not necessarily set... ...as part of a law of physics you know?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So if you see what were some measures that were taken in Brazil during the first Bolsonaro government, or the only Bolsonaro government so far.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: They were very regressive on some of their impacts on deforestation but a change in course was possible because of... A set of national and international actors that changed the way in which policies were made, and that includes social mobilizations.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: The Indigenous Peoples' Mobilization debates around climate emergency in the Conference of State Parties or the COPS, their mobilizations on research scientists... So some of these trends are not... Yes, they don't have one necessary course.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: What we do nationally and internationally and regionally can actually change the way in which they develop a very significant manner.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes people, when they think about international law.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: They think of what are the governments or judges doing with International Law.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: but International Law and Human Rights Law has been a very useful tool for many other actors that also critical in shaping the course of those processes.
• 12:09
  Speaker 0: Let me push just on that, because as you pointed out first we know who knows if there'll be a second.
• 12:16
  Speaker 0: Bolsonaro government went one way, Lula goes another way... We've had sort-of opposite dynamic in Colombia.
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  Speaker 0: Petro goes one way New Government seems to going other way.
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  Speaker 0: So You get this stop-and-start direction change shift.
• 12:33
  Speaker 0: We've seen it in the United States, we've seen that a lot of places and That's Of course The argument implicitly for A Lot of the work that you've been doing And that say he'll does is?
• 12:44
  Speaker 0: Is there ought to be?
• 12:46
  Speaker 0: I think the argument You would make is international norms International Standards Global Norms or global standards that apply Regardless of the ebb and flow particular regimes in particular moments of time, but it's exactly that tension.
• 13:06
  Speaker 0: That when you have countries like the United States and China an India three or the largest countries in the world who aren't participating in the ICC And who really do seem to go in their own directions?
• 13:21
  Speaker 0: It's at conflict that doesn't allow the pace of consistency that you might need, for example to have successfully addressed climate challenge which is about physics.
• 13:35
  Speaker 0: It isn't entirely about physics but let's shift gears a little bit though because your work has concrete successes.
• 13:45
  Speaker 0: I'm thinking of the Maria de Peña law in Brazil where actions like you and colleagues very much were part that had concrete consequences.
• 13:58
  Speaker 0: Can you talk just a little bit about that case?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the case that reflects... A set of cases we litigated since the nineteen nineties were cases where they tried to address many tragedies and pain women went through in their lives.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: different types of women in different situations were not only painful events, but they were human rights violations.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: You know that Women's Rights as Human Rights and many aspects for example the fact that rape was considered torture or domestic violence could be a human rights violation, were not part of the common sense or the discourse of international lawyers.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: So that was a process of building a law—or an interpretation of the law —that would allow for half of our population to be protected.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: And the case of Maria Dapena was a woman that had suffered domestic violence, and she... ...was dismissed basically by the courts domestically.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Her former husband was not prosecuted for the incredible suffering and the impacts that it had on her.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: She's significantly disabled because of, or lives with disability as I said... ...because of the actions of her husband in physical disability.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: through litigating a case before the Inter-American Commission, we were able to get as a result of that case.
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  Speaker 1: The reform on violence against women
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  Speaker 0: in
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  Speaker 1: Brazil and that created whole system institutions but also it changed part of their culture.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: there are samba's talk about delay Maria da Peña more of a conscious about and an awareness around that topic.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Similarly, in the last fifteen years we've been doing a campaign called the GQAL Campaign on Women in International Justice where through advocacy campaigns at global level were able to change significantly.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the elections took into account gender parity in some of the justice bodies at the UN and at a regional level.
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  Speaker 1: And that led to an increase of women in international justice, which is pretty significant because of that specific campaign.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: So when I see international law is, you know we had when we started law these references of dorking and the way in which judges made their decisions as chapters in a novel weaving their reasoning with thinking about other judges.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: And I think right now As we see the development of international law, I see it more as a multiplayer game where judges do one part of it.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: But what we do as advocates is communities that mobilize in terms of reshaping their thinking about the law and the proposals on how they could work or be interpreted are also critical parts to the evolution the domestic impact of international law.
• 18:50
  Speaker 0: But International Law has to translate into National Law, which is one of a course—the great accomplishments in Brazil that Marie de Peña looked at law.
• 19:02
  Speaker 0: That doesn't happen as often as I'm sure you would like or that a lot people think oughta happened.
• 19:10
  Speaker 0: What was it about?
• 19:14
  Speaker 0: The legislature is to legislate, actually follow what they heard from the American court and create domestic law.
• 19:24
  Speaker 0: They didn't have to do it—they chose to do that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: in international law because there was a binding of litigation for them.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: but...
• 19:33
  Speaker 0: You can't bind a legislature to pass a law?
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: But you cannot enforce it!
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: The fact that there was immobilized civil society domestically and a government that built, they were bound by the decision created perfect moment.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: so international law served as trigger of brother process to change domestically.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: You can say about accountability in.
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  Speaker 1: I think one of the major accomplishments that we had with international law and interaction on domestic processes through the Inter-American system is a whole process creating domestic processes or triggering domestic processes for prosecution, crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: by overturning the amnesty laws in several countries, and also by over-turning some of the statutes of unitations.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't have believed that if you were part of any democracy or human rights movement that happened through a set of decisions of the Intermecan Court, it enabled major decisions against President Fujimori in Peru and perpetrators in Argentina.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: In Uruguay, Chile, Colombia or Guatemala... it had a very, very strong impact.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And that's the judiciary as well which is also an autonomous branch and independent branch of power.
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  Speaker 1: so how to explain that?
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  Speaker 1: I mean varies from region-to-region.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: but i think you have look at international law And the way in which it interacts as well with domestic actors and with the constitutions, and with society domestically.
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  Speaker 1: Those relationships including a recognition of their constitutional value or human rights treaties but also history understanding human rights as valuable and key actors domestically, the judiciary in civil society.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: And journalists thinking that this is valuable part of these more constructive process making international law a real source of power domestically in the marriage that it has with national laws, but also with critical actors domestically.
• 23:39
  Speaker 0: pivot from the Americas to Iran, where you serve on a fact-finding mission to Iran appointed by the president of the UN Human Rights Council.
• 23:51
  Speaker 0: And I assume that's been ongoing for several years now.
• 23:56
  Speaker 0: Tell us about... ...about the fact finding mission?
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Well, The Fact Finding Mission was established after the unlawful death of Dinah Masa Amini, a very young Kurdish woman that was detained and then killed because actions that were taken by different patterns in the Iranian security forces and its administration of justice.
• 24:48
  Speaker 0: This is in twenty-two?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: That's in twenty two, yeah... The fact she died created a set of protests, it really triggered a lot of empathy from different sectors of the population.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: And those protests were also suffocated with violence and that created a lot international solidarity for the women and those that stood in solidarity with her.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: The president of the Human Rights Council at the time, he wanted to make sure there would be somebody from Latin America who had experience and expertise working on gender-based violence on human rights in the Americas.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And so, he put my name forward and finally named me as one of three members of that fact-finding mission.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: In dealing with a Human Rights situation in Iran and the protests to bring some of the experiences and expertise from America into that setting.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: And also, it has been an incredibly learning experience for me to interact with a completely different geopolitical landscape in very sophisticated and complex society such as the Iranian society.
• 26:55
  Speaker 0: The Iranian government allowed the mission to go to Iran, to collect facts and document cases And you continue work on it.
• 27:05
  Speaker 0: I'm surprised.
• 27:07
  Speaker 0: Why did they do that?
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: The country never let us in Never!
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: The state hasn't led us No!
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: The Islamic Republic of Iran has not Let Us In.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: We have access repeatedly, and they haven't.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: They have rejected the existence of their fact-finding
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: mission.".
• 27:33
  Speaker 0: Nonetheless you've been able to gather a lot information.
• 27:36
  Speaker 0: You created a roadmap And what I found fascinating about the road map but i'll put it as question that not surprisingly much countries where action could be taken somehow because access to the Iranian court system is extremely unlikely.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think that this is a very important aspect of the fact-finding mission and many responsibility and gathering evidence for accountability domestically or internationally.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: However, having lived through the experience of Latin America I also put a lot of emphasis as a member of the fact-finding mission in making sure that we would include what from the work of a very important set of South African and Turkish feminists, what we call transformative reparations.
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  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: That this society as whole needs some... significant changes in the institutions, and the laws, and practices.
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  Speaker 1: In this Islamic Republic of Iran—in order to ensure... ...the rights of all women….
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: …and those that protest.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: is not enough to have one very bad guy going into an international court or be subjected the domestic jurisdiction of a country that has the ability to do justice for victims, so specific perpetrator.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: That's not enough change this situation.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: The important thing is also make sure we understand what are some critical reforms necessary in the institutions and practices of the Islamic Republic of Iran so that women, men and minorities can live and thrive.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: But
• 30:27
  Speaker 0: that clearly cannot happen under these circumstances?
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: No it can't happen... It cannot happen in current situation.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I think That's why you create a roadmap.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: You can incrementally make sure that different international actors and domestic actors have a horizon or where, how they get there to protect basic dignity for
• 31:04
  Speaker 0: all.
• 31:04
  Speaker 0: Let me keep on pushing.
• 31:06
  Speaker 0: it is an impossible circle in the sense Iran is the most sanctioned government on the planet at the moment, and those sanctions obviously have not impacted its policies.
• 31:21
  Speaker 0: So indeed it's that war with Israel in United States.
• 31:27
  Speaker 0: so everything is worse than it was a year ago or two years ago were three years ago.
• 31:32
  Speaker 0: which doesn't say though all-it will always be so I grant.
• 31:37
  Speaker 0: But it is precisely that question of where the kind of very positive roadmap, you and your colleagues laid out comes up against a reality.
• 31:53
  Speaker 0: Of continued deterioration in circumstances... Is he the same thing with Afghanistan?
• 31:58
  Speaker 0: Same things as Sudan country after country?
• 32:04
  Speaker 0: which leads to my ultimate question how this balance?
• 32:09
  Speaker 0: It's work worth doing, obviously.
• 32:12
  Speaker 0: But at what point does it fail?
• 32:14
  Speaker 0: How do you avoid that framing which clearly your avoiding?
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm inspired for and in What i've seen In my own experience in working in Latin America?
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: And That's why don't lose hope as I think that ideas and Things that seem utopian or impossible can be possible sometimes, and they will be possible by the workings of many inside the country.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: And sometimes some outside the country as
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: well.".
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: We thought at many times during the dictatorships and the civil wars and periods of massive repression that...
• 33:00
  Speaker 0: In the Americas?
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: ...in America said there was no future.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: but for many of those that suffered human rights violations and for societies as a whole, the fact somebody cared about their lives and their life.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: And the truth about this situation tried to understand what they were going through where some obstacles with protection was very important was very important to give them strength and hope, it's also very important as well.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: To know how to dismantle some of the repressive apparatus that existed in those countries.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: And I see this same profound desire when i listen to many victims and activists doctors and lawyers, nurses that we talked to in Iran.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: So if failure is defined by an overall change in government... Yes I would say we have failed.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: but what do you think it's important for us?
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: What I would like to see right now is an end to the war, because it has been very prejudicial for them.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: The human rights situation domestically has entrenched some of their worst actors domestically and really not helping Iranian society.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: at this juncture I think that what we continue to do of documenting and understanding, letting others understand whether some of the obstacles is one contribution.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: It's not a whole thing—the process of change takes many actors' historical processes forms of social and political organization.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think that we're there right now with what's happening with Iran, but i think that there is a constant... ...of a profound desire for the respect of dignity and fundamental rights that are present in large swathes of Iranian society.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: And doing this work even when it's truly more bitter than sweet, really.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: It can be very painful and frustrating.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I think it contributes to the right path and a modicum of truth to the table in many discussions.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: And so, that's why I do believe it is important to focus on issues of accountability yes?
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Yes!
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Of course we want persons who have committed crimes against humanity to be prosecuted or punished but need much more than that And when we cannot do anything, and I say that about human rights defenders... ...and others around the world.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: at least standing by them.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Showing solidarity and showing that we believe in them….
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: …that we care for them and document what's happening is a way of keeping this spirit under fire.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: I'm too much of a human rights person, sorry.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: in a moment of despair for isolation, or so many.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Standing by and documenting and listening and covering the truth... And uncovering their ultimate causes and impacts on those processes of oppression, dignity and rights is critical to what will come
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: next.".
• 38:18
  Speaker 0: There's no doubt that bearing witness matters.
• 38:22
  Speaker 0: It matters in the short run, it matters in long-run.
• 38:26
  Speaker 0: And at the end of day I think that is an important part of what you do and what Sehu has been doing.
• 38:35
  Speaker 0: so let's leave there because...I don't know if this is an optimist or pessimistic note but at least its a conclusion.
• 38:41
  Speaker 0: Thank You very much and I look forward to your joining our next conversation.
• 38:57
  Speaker 0: Remember, tell us what you think at telbergfoundation dot.
• 39:01
  Speaker 0: org.