Eric Stover

UC Berkeley program seeks to help prosecute war criminals

Alexa Koenig and Eric Stover quoted by San Francisco Chronicle, April 14, 2017

“The front-line people who capture images of what’s happening, they tend to focus on the body or where the bomb hit — they don’t realize that’s actually the least helpful info for courts,” said Koenig. “What the courts need is the 360-degree pan shot of the surrounding area to place what happened in a particular location. Or they need information that might seem irrelevant, like the angle something came from, or a shot of a newspaper that establishes the date.”

“Alleged perpetrators are leaving more fingerprints in various places. They’re leaving fingerprints behind the cyber curtain, meaning, they’re going on email, they’re sending messages to their subordinates, they’re filming things,” said Eric Stover, faculty director of the Human Rights Center.

Prosecuting war criminals in the era of the war on terror

Eric Stover and Alexa Koenig interviewed by KQED-FM, July 29, 2016

Eric Stover: “Before you can have a trial, you actually need to have an accused. So, how do you go after those war crime suspects? And when you look at the post-9/11 environment, going after suspected terrorists, how did the United States conduct that pursuit? And was it illegal?”

Alexa Koenig: “How do you actually muster the political will to have countries aid and search for these individuals, or when they are–as our book is called–hiding in plain sight, when they’re right in front of us? How do you break down the political protections around them to make them vulnerable enough to get them into courts?”

Arrest Bashir

Alexa Koenig, Eric Stover and Victor Peskin write for Foreign Affairs, July 13, 2016

In 2009, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese leader for crimes against humanity, including the killing of 300,000 people and the displacement of 2.5 million more in Darfur. A year later, the court added the charge of genocide. Since then, Bashir has made more than 75 trips to nearly 30 countries, including to seven states that are members of the ICC and are therefore legally obligated to arrest him.

“When I returned home, it was another hell”: Now’s the time to talk about what we do after Guantánamo

Alexa Koenig and Eric Stover write for Salon, Feb. 25, 2016

Right now, as we take first steps toward finally closing Guantánamo, we have a choice: Do we continue to transfer individuals with little to no social, economic or psychological support, leaving them desperate for a productive future? Or do we make a relatively tiny investment in their future to set them on a path toward productivity? Even as Guantánamo finally and rightfully closes, the damage endures—as does our responsibility.

Book excerpt: American exceptionalism at its worst

Eric Stover, Alexa Koenig, and Victor Peskin write for Alameda Magazine, Sept. 2015

By late summer 2003, Abu Ghraib was packed with nearly 3,000 prisoners. Many of the detainees were Iraqi civilians who had been picked up in random military sweeps or at checkpoints for “suspicious activities.” Most were men, but there were also women, adolescents, and even children as young as ten, the majority of whom were deemed not a threat to society but who were not immediately released due to orders from above.

After Kenya, lessons for witness protection

Alexa Koenig, Stephen Smith Cody and Eric Stover write for International Criminal Justice Today, April 17, 2014

International criminal prosecutions depend on credible witness testimony. In particular, victim-witnesses can provide essential evidence regarding both crimes and those who committed or orchestrated them. However for many, testifying in an international trial requires an act of great courage, especially when perpetrators still walk the streets of their villages and towns.

Berkeley Human Rights Center awarded $1 million for investigating war crimes

Eric Stover interviewed on KQED, Forum, February 6, 2015

We’re taking 100,000 to really recognize the exceptional work that the Sexual Violence Program has done. And we want to keep that a permanent feature of the Center. We have just around a 2-million-dollar budget. We raise 95 percent of that. And so, an award like this is really kind of a stamp of approval.

UC Berkeley program on human rights, war crimes wins $1-million grant

Alexa Koenig and Eric Stover quoted in Los Angeles Times, February 4, 2015

The MacArthur grant will establish an endowment for the center and help fund its work on researching and preventing sexual violence, Koenig said. The new endowment will “provide a sense of stability and that makes this really important,” she said.

Eric Stover … said the center is working to ally Silicon Valley companies with international prosecutors on the use of digital videos, emails and other technologies that bolster evidence in trials of those accused of atrocities. Stover said that he was grateful for the MacArthur gift and that he hoped it “will attract others to recognize our work.”