Brian Concannon

I'm a human rights lawyer, and Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti

Human rights lawyer and activist Brian Concannon Jr. directs the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), which promotes human rights in Haiti by litigating cases in Haitian, U.S. and international courts, documenting human rights violations and working with grassroots activists in Haiti, North America and throughout the world. Mr. Concannon writes and speaks often about justice, human rights and democracy in Haiti. He has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Democracy Now! and radio and print media throughout the world. IJDH’s website, www.ijdh.org, is the best single source for current information and analysis of human rights in Haiti.

Mr. Concannon lived and worked in Haiti from 1995 to 2004, first with the United Nations, and after 1996 with the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in Port-au-Prince. He also observed four elections in Haiti as part of an Organization of American States mission. The BAI was established by the elected Haitian government to help victims and the justice system prosecute human rights cases, mostly from Haiti’s 1991-1994 de facto military dictatorship. The BAI’s most prominent case was the prosecution of the 1994 Raboteau Massacre, considered the best human rights prosecution in Haiti’s history. The Raboteau court convicted 53 defendants for an attack on a pro-democracy neighborhood, including the de facto dictatorship’s top military and paramilitary leaders. Several high command members were deported from the US because of their convictions, and the trial was the subject of an award-winning documentary.

Mr. Concannon is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. He was a 2005-06 Wasserstein Public Interest Law Fellow at Harvard Law School, and held a Brandeis International Fellowship in Human Rights, Intervention and International Law from 2001-2003.