What Are Human Rights?

Thomas Becker • 2021-09-11

Watch on YouTube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

Dylan Carnahan:Welcome back to the Simple Questions Podcast. I'm your host, Dylan Carnahan. That was Democracy Stands By, Alisa Jefferson. Credits for the song? It was written and created by Alisa Jefferson with Barb Wilmoth on the drums, mixed and produced by Alisa Jefferson and Andy Oxman of Soundworks Recording Studio, and lastly mastered by Matt Elliott of Black Sky Studios. You can find information about events and music at alisajeffersonmusic.com. The question for this episode is, what are human rights? What will you learn in today's episode? Well, just to name a few things, the two basic types of human rights, examples of human rights violations, and ways people can advocate for human rights. Our guest for today is a Harvard Law graduate. He's documented war crimes in Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel. He's investigated the extrajudicial killings of the Atavasi people in India, acted as a nonviolent bodyguard for the Zapatista guerrillas in Mexico, and won a civil suit against the ex-president of Bolivia for his part in Black October, where 400 unarmed Bolivian citizens were injured and 67 were killed by the Bolivian military. I introduce to you, Thomas Becker. I'd like to start out first with getting to figure out a little bit more about you as a person. We're going to kind of go back to kind of the beginning of your adventure here. So, can you kind of talk about what made you want to become a lawyer?

Thomas Becker:Boy, I definitely did not want to become a lawyer. Lawyers can be really quite boring, and I can confirm that they are quite boring now that I am one. You know, I think there's two things. What kind of drove me to social justice? So, I knew I wanted to be a human rights lawyer and not a kind of like a more traditional lawyer, like working at a law firm, that was never kind of on the table. I think in part what drew me to the law as a tool for social change was, many years back, I used to work with a group of Zapatistas that are armed rebels or guerrillas in Southern Mexico. Ironically, as a bodyguard for them. The irony of this skinny gringo from Kansas City walking as a bodyguard. But the theory was to kill the guerrillas, to kill the rebels, the local government or the paramilitaries would have to shoot a gringo, and it would be front page news, and it would be bad PR for them. So I used to accompany and work with guerrillas in Southern Mexico and decided, I should really learn the law so I can help them find avenues for social change. I think I saw so many really horrific things that took place there. And though I think there's limitations of law, I also saw that there were these spaces where you could use the law to actually make a difference in people's life. I've been an activist since I was a kid. I grew up just off Troost in Kansas City, and I think I put parents that were really involved in the community, and I saw the inequalities being on, I think Kansas City's dividing line, racially and economically. So I think that drove me to do social justice work or human rights work. And again, working with guerrillas, I thought law could be a pretty good thing to put in the pocket.

Dylan Carnahan:So it sounds like law was kind of a means to an end. And so what specifically drew you to human rights? Do you think it was your upbringing?

Thomas Becker:I think a lot of it had to do with my upbringing. I think, again, I saw, you know, so this is a few years back, but there was this study that did kind of the eight most or the top 10 most dangerous neighborhoods in the United States. And two of the top 10 were in Kansas City. And one was in my neighborhood, was my neighborhood. So you know, I saw a lot of poverty, I saw inequality, but I was fortunate enough to go to, I got a little bit of scholarship money and folks that helped me go to high school out in at rocker. You know, which is in the suburbs and, you know, to a good school and I saw kind of the inequality, the difference that like my friends in my neighborhood, what kind of upbringing they had, what kind of opportunities they had versus folks that went to rocker. And I was like, you know, this something seems a little bit off. And I feel like I have a responsibility to do something about that. So I think seeing those inequalities, plus this sounds completely ridiculous, but punk rock music, I think contextualized it. You know, a lot of these punk bands are very political, anarchist, feminist and stuff. And I think they kind of they helped put in the perspective. A lot of things I was seeing, I was seeing, okay, this actually is part of a bigger picture. How do we chip away at these things that are pretty unfair for a lot of people?

Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, that's a pretty interesting influence.

Thomas Becker:Music, it's strange, but yeah, again, I mean, there are these riot girl feminist bands and anarchist punk bands that really criticize the system. I think my politics have probably grown somewhat since then or I've refined them, but they did help kind of introduce me to a lot politically.

Dylan Carnahan:Now that you saw law was like a means to kind of help you with this kind of human rights work, what have you done with that?

Thomas Becker:You know, I've been lucky. I've kind of worked all over, you know, in India and South Africa and Western Sahara and various countries in the Middle East, Palestine, Lebanon, but principally been working kind of in Latin America. So Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, but I've mostly been living in Bolivia working there. When I was a law student, I kind of randomly thought maybe we should try to sue the ex president of Bolivia, which seems ridiculous. But I was a law student, I started a case against the ex president of Bolivia. And so I've been working there for much of the last, been like a decade and a half off and on doing human rights work. So my works ranged from this case against the ex president, other cases as well, like suing people that have carried out human rights abuses to documenting them, being in the field. I mentioned Lebanon and being there during their war with Israel's war with Hezbollah and documenting the use of what's called cluster bombs. These won't bore you too much, but these kind of like missiles that open in the sky and then drop little parachutes with bomblets. And so we were going all the villages where people were essentially blowing up and documenting that stuff to kind of, you know, testifying before, you know, various congresses in other countries to presenting before the Inter-American Commission or submitting news to the UN. So lots of a lot of the boring stuff, but mostly really kind of working in the field. I mean, I think I'm a little different than more traditional human rights lawyers that are more traditional lawyers that like just go to a courtroom or sit behind a desk and, you know, make these legal arguments with paper, you know, stacks of paper this big. I usually try to work in the field with communities. I mean, I'm kind of maybe this is like the punk rock anarchist influence, but I believe that social change comes from below more than above. So I try to work with communities and help out in ways that help them have access to things they don't have access to. So a lot of times, like in these smaller communities, like in Bolivia, in these small indigenous communities, they don't have the same voice that a gringo from the United States has in terms of like access to TV or fancy legal words that nobody really understands. So I try to embed myself with these communities and then see what they need and then see how I can help out. So I look to them for guidance. What do you guys need? I'm here to help out. I never try to say, this is what you should do. I try to like, I let them steer the ship and kind of use me as their tool. That's kind of the approach I try to take.

Dylan Carnahan:You're more of a facilitator.

Thomas Becker:Yeah, I mean, I just think that like, I don't know what I'm doing more than anybody else. And I think when people try to make decisions, the people who know best are the victims, you know, and not some gringo from Kansas City, but I think I can play a role in helping out. But I think it's really important to look to them and see, okay, you tell me what you need and I will help try to facilitate that or make this kind of come to light. And that can be, it can be cases. So I bring cases, you know, in court, so very traditional lawyering, or I will, you know, write these human rights reports and then do a bunch of media around it. You know, right before we got on, I was telling you how some things kind of exploded in Bolivia. And I've been doing kind of 5am to like 1am press from anything from the like morning show to which is like especially in Bolivia are just ridiculous because I'll be sandwiched between like, you know, quite literally like the president and then some llamas coming in and people, you know, juggling behind llamas and stuff. Morning shows are just absurd. But so but I'll do press and then really talk to the press about like, this is what's happening. This is not what you're seeing. And this is how we documented it. So it's not just me like spouting my opinions. It's me being in villages. So for instance, in Bolivia, last about a year and a half ago, I was in a village where this massacre took place and I was there the day of it. So I documented all the kind of killings, the bullet holes in the blood and quite horrific. Spoke to all the victims and, you know, at a time when this there was a coup in Bolivia just a week before, actually, and the you know, there wasn't the space where the victims had a voice. The coup government had basically, you know, completely tried to whitewash it or told them these are liars and they're drug trafficker, narco terrorist, communist, whatever, like through any kind of term at them.

Dylan Carnahan:Gaslighting.

Thomas Becker:I mean, that's kind of classic. It's what they do in undemocratic countries is try to diminish other people's voices that way. So I was able to document this stuff and then go on TV and say, no, here's real proof of what happened and show directly how this stuff affected people. So I feel like the way I look at it is like I have like a toolbox, and there's a lot of different tools I can use as an activist. And one of them is being a lawyer. But sometimes it's not the most traditional. Sometimes it's traditional. Sometimes it's like not at all. I mean, other things we've done. I mean, I've worked on another trial in Bolivia against these generals involved in this killing, some killings years back, and we basically took over Congress. We set up a basically a giant protest in Congress because the case wasn't moving forward. So we did a sit-in in Congress, which is very much not like a traditional lawyer move. So I'll do anything, many things on the spectrum. Really it comes down to what it requires. And so sometimes it's like holding up a banner in front of Congress on TV, and embarrassing Congress. So they say, okay, maybe we should move forward to putting on a suit and tie, and being in a courtroom, and doing making legal arguments.

Dylan Carnahan:So that's a yeah, that's rather unorthodox is the right word.

Thomas Becker:But no, I think that's fair. I would say I'm probably not definitely not a traditional lawyer.

Dylan Carnahan:I mean, I am, I do wear that hat, but I prefer to like wear many hats, whatever the situation dictates, and whatever the victims, however you can help. Can you talk a little bit about what the university network for human rights is?

Thomas Becker:So it's a human rights institution that teaches students to become human rights lawyers. So for a lot of years, I have taught principally at Harvard Law School, like in the human rights clinic. So I was, you know, I taught human rights and I taught in less traditional class form. Basically, we would work on projects and have students work on them with us, and I would teach them through it. So, you know, if we're bringing a case, I would teach them, here's how you do depositions, and here's the declaration, how you fill them out. And so I would have students come down to Bolivia with me or Honduras or whatever, wherever. And so I did that specifically at a law school for a lot of years. But now with the University Network for Human Rights, it's the same concept, but we're trying to do it in a broader way where it's not just law students, but undergrads as well. So they get the opportunity to go into the field. I'm going to go back to Bolivia next month and probably bring a student or two. I have a project in North Africa where I'll probably bring them to some refugee camps, and we'll do interviews and teach them how to be human rights advocates. And so this organization basically partners with the university. So previously, I was housed in Harvard. Now, what this organization does is it will go to various schools, overrated fancy schools like Harvard, but also ones that don't have overrated names too, so that we can try to get everybody an opportunity to do it, and tap into different ways. Because like I was saying, I think a lot of lawyers think you just need to litigate or bring a case, and I think there's a lot of space. So if I go, for instance, to the refugee camps in Western Sahara, we can build cases for the refugees about human rights abuses. But also at the end of the day, what mobilizes people is documentation through video. If you show videos of how people are suffering or victims of torture who just gotten out of jail and let them tell their stories, that's another space. Or you can bring in status engineers or statisticians from places like MIT to break down the stats on how many killings there were and why this is worse than it was 20 years ago. And so I feel like there's a space for everybody to be involved in human rights. You don't have to just be a lawyer. And so what we're trying to do at University of Human Rights is basically open up that door for people who have other skills so we can all be advocates for for marginalized groups.

Dylan Carnahan:It sounds like you're it was kind of siloed, a little mutually exclusive to kind of where you were at previously. You like you accurately put it there. You're kind of broadening it and letting more diverse skill sets kind of in.

Thomas Becker:Yeah, I mean, I think and this goes back to kind of my maybe critique or my perspective on on lawyering is that it's so like I said, it's very top down. And I think somebody, particularly lawyers who are like doing too many things at once, just kind of make too many decisions. It's easy to fit it into the formula, you know. So if some community, for example, this case I've worked on against ex president, it's taken 15 years. We finally won, but to put victims through that sort of long process, and it was worth it. And I think the message it sends to people, I mean, it's the first case against the living ex president ever in the US. So he was litigated in the United States, never happened before. So it sends a message all over the world. You can't get away with killing people. So it's worth those 15 years. But a lot of times, like victims don't have time to sit there and wait. So, for instance, last year, in a totally different set of massacres, the one after the coup in Bolivia, bringing a lawsuit would take too long. So we created a human, we did a human rights report, which we sent to Congress and all the press. And we did press around it and videos and stuff because the victimization was still happening. So you need to sometimes do stuff in the moment. And lawyers, I think, so often just think, OK, something bad happened. Now let's litigate and let's pack our suitcases or our briefcases and get ready for the next eight years of litigation. And that's just not what people need sometimes. They need change now. And this is a way to bring in anybody who has an interest and find a space for them to help bring change as well.

Dylan Carnahan:That's the immediacy of help, assistance, as opposed to kind of a, you know, and sometimes a long winded systemic process, you know, that doesn't have a direct impact right now, potentially.

Thomas Becker:Yeah. And it's I mean, boy, I mean, when I started this case, I was I had less wrinkles and I was so much younger. I mean, I was basically roughly your age, and I never thought 15, I would dedicate 15 years of my life to a case. I mean, I'm certainly glad I did. But it's, you know, to put victims to that, like a lot, if you think about it, like if something horrific happened, I there was one one of the plaintiffs we work with is their eight year old child was was shot by something in Spanish Franco Tiro, a sniper by the military. And while the pregnant mom was there and like fell back on her, I mean, just really, you know, vivid, horrible things that I'll never forget. But they don't get closure when you have to leave a case open for 15 years. You know, you don't get to move on. You have to keep every day fighting for this. You have to go in and do declarations and depositions and have the other side say, no, you guys are, you know, communist terrorists. I mean, obviously, some guerrillas or whatever an eight year old isn't, but just hear the most horrific things about you. You don't that's a really hard space to be in for 15 years of your life. I mean, this is a really unique case. Most don't take this long. So, like I said, it's the first ever against the ex president, living ex president in the US. So it's been really unique and lots of appeals and all this boring legal stuff. But still, I think a lot of times you got to put out the fire before you can even address who started it. Yeah. It's a bad cliche statement, but yeah.

Dylan Carnahan:It's true, nonetheless. What I want to do now is kind of pivot a little bit away from you specifically. And let's kind of talk about just human rights in general here. And let's start off with what things are included in human rights.

Thomas Becker:I think the easiest way, because I'll be honest, I have family members who are like, I have no idea what you do. Like human rights is like human resources. But like, we don't get it. I think the easiest way to think of it is maybe like civil rights, but internationally or very basic rights that the whole world has. So, you know, I think a lot of countries, you know, we don't have necessarily the crime of genocide in the United States. Genocide is a crime. So you look to like international laws or international bodies because the whole world, in theory, agrees that genocide is bad or crimes against humanity or torture. These are all things that, you know, the United States and most countries in the world have signed kind of these international accords or contracts or, again, I'm thinking Spanish acuerdos, but treaties basically limiting what states can or can't do. So like I said, you can't torture, you can't go down to the plaza and gun down a bunch of people. That's illegal. So we have US laws, but we have these international laws that also protect everyone, theoretically, like Americans, Nigerians, Bolivians. And so human rights is basically like law to protect victims from egregious crimes. So it's like kind of like criminalish law, but also like civil rights law, because so often the victims of the abuses are minority groups or groups that have been targeted. So like a lot of civil rights law in the US is to protect people of color, particularly when a lot of the laws blew up back in the 60s when blacks were treated as in many ways second class citizens. It was to protect a targeted group. So basically human rights law is the same. It's to protect these kind of groups of people who are being targeted. That's a very kind of simplified version. It's like an international law version of protecting victims.

Dylan Carnahan:I want to get into more specifically kind of where they come from. Before we get into that, you've brought up genocide as a human rights violation. What are kind of some other rights that people were afforded?

Thomas Becker:Yeah, so I'm going to be a lawyer for two seconds, and I'm going to bore you, so I apologize, but it's just kind of part of the game. But in human rights, there's kind of two types of rights, basically. There's civil and political rights, and then there's social, economic and cultural rights. So civil and political rights are, you can't arrest someone without due process. You can't just throw them in jail and let them just sit there indefinitely. So a violation of that, I'll talk about, I mean, this happens all over the world. I'll try to bring up US examples so people, I think maybe contextually can understand it better. People that were put in Guantanamo without ever facing trial, some are still sitting in Guantanamo and never face trial, that's illegal, both in US law, really, honestly, but also international law. So you can't arrest somebody without letting them go to trial or letting them have access to a lawyer. Every criminal in the United States, whether they're guilty or not, there are certain rules and you can't just avoid them. So that would be a civil and political right. The right to go out and protest, the right to free speech, the right to life. So you can't be gunned down. So those are those types. Economic, social and cultural rights are more broader. Like it's harder to put a... You can put a finger on it, but they're just slightly harder to enforce. So everyone has the right to a clean environment or the right to food. So like it's harder to prosecute someone in a court. Those kinds of rights are the kind of things that states strive to do. So for instance, like if the US. Again, I'm making this US specific since we're basically talking to a US audience, but like if a lot... There were a lot of arguments on like pipelines or extracting oil, and a lot of the people opposed to it brought up US obligations to the environment. So it may not be this very specific, like I was thrown in jail without a lawyer, and then tortured in like this very concrete thing. It's broader, and they bring up kind of legal obligations. The US., you shouldn't extract oil from here because it's polluting the area. So those are like social, economic, and cultural rights. They're more like we aspire to do these things rather... It's more like you... It's more... Well, we say positive rights. You need to do something good. You need to make something better. Whereas civil and political rights are usually... You need to refrain from doing. You need to stop doing. So you need to stop torturing someone. You need to stop illegally detaining them, let them out. Usually environmental rights... Though I gave an example, you need to stop polluting, but they're usually more... You should do a better job at polluting... Making the better environment better. So you should fight to, I don't know, include more electric cars. I'm not giving the best... I mean, it's very kind of vague. You aspire to do better things. So there's like this division. I'm done being a very boring lawyer, but those are really what human rights are kind of divided into these two different types. And those are like, one are aspirational, kind of more positive rights, the others are, stop doing this, stop committing genocide, stop gunning down people, stop throwing them in jail legally. Does that make sense or did I completely confuse you?

Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, no.

Thomas Becker:You can tell me if I confused you.

Dylan Carnahan:It sounds like, you know, one, there's a, you know, the legal, political subsect, it sounds like it's more, these are inherent, do not violate them, and the kind of social rights are positive aspirations that are maybe less, the more intangible.

Thomas Becker:Absolutely.

Dylan Carnahan:And that's going to work.

Thomas Becker:You should be the professor now. I think you, should we switch roles? I can ask you.

Dylan Carnahan:You do wear a lot of hats. You know, if you need to hang one over, I can take care.

Thomas Becker:I mean, another example is like, everyone should have the right to housing. Everyone should have the right to food. You know, it's like basic things of like humanity, like people shouldn't be suffering in the streets. But it's a very different thing when you say, there shouldn't be homelessness. How do you address that is up for interpretation? You know, like, there's different ways to address that. There's different, it's, as you said, kind of more less tangible. It's not like, okay, tomorrow, I'm going to, this one thing will happen and that will resolve that. It's these kind of broader, more fluid ideas that you want to work towards. Whereas you can say when someone's being tortured and like, you know, waterboarded in the moment, that is illegal. It must stop. So those civil and political rights usually stop doing this. The others are like, because we all, I mean, left, right, center, everybody, nobody wants people suffering from starving to death, you know. Nobody wants, whether you're Republican or Democrat, you know, poverty or like polluted rivers. It's just how do you address these things are different ways. And so it pushes obligations on nation states to kind of figure out ways to address those. And if they're not addressing them right, shifting and trying other ways. And so I think you nailed it. It's intangible. It's not these like very specific. You can put your finger on it. It's more like these broad problems we need to address. I mean, there are exceptions to that. And I won't bore you with all the like legal nuances. But that's basically how human rights are divided, or at least kind of in the more traditional human rights paradigm.

Dylan Carnahan:And you kind of brought up there, you briefly like name drop city states. And that kind of brings up where do these human rights come from? You've brought up like declaration treaties. You know, is this society at large? Is it the UN? Is it, you know, a specific country? You know, I mean, you even bring up, you know, United States is like, hey, human rights, love them. And then it's like, all right, Guantanamo. Yes.

Thomas Becker:So following World War II, basically most of the nations in the world sat down and created a set of laws to stop things like the Holocaust from happening again. And so I'm giving you the very condensed version because there's all sorts of different like international institutions and regional groups that like so, you know, the US is part of the Inter-American system, so there are a set of laws that work for South America, North America, all the countries of the Americas. Europe has its own laws. I mean, so there's like, there's like, you know, you can go small, which is like US law to like regional, and there are regional laws that we're bound by. And then there's just kind of the big international laws. So I'll kind of talk more about the big international laws. And the there are really honestly kind of what we were just talking about. There are two big covenants, one on civil, ICCPR, the one covenant on civil and political rights and one on economic, social and cultural rights. Those are kind of the two big international treaties that people have signed on to and are bound by those laws. To make things more complicated, states can sign on and actually say, we agree with these laws, but they can decline jurisdiction. So the United States, often what it does, it will say, I sign on, I believe in these laws, but we're not going to let some court digest for it. So most nations actually do give, like, will ratify an agreement and allow, you know, like in the Inter-American system I just brought up, there's an Inter-American court, and you can be held accountable before this court. The US has said, we agree with these laws, but you're not going to ever let us, like, you're not going to hold us accountable, unfortunately. So a lot of times, so like Bolivia can get brought before the court and can get punished and the victims can get justice there. If you and I are tortured here in the US, the court doesn't have jurisdiction over us. It won't be able to do anything about it. But the US is still bound by it. That's the kind of complicated thing.

Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, and I guess that brings up, you know, laws are great and all, but without enforcement, it really is kind of empty. So, you know, with your work obviously being one way to do this, kind of who upholds these rights?

Thomas Becker:Well, I'm going to say two things. One, I think, and this is why I as a lawyer try to jump outside being just a lawyer, or at least like a traditional lawyer, because I think really how you move things in the US, what's going to get somebody out? People made the arguments on Guantanamo and why it's illegal. It's, I think, universally across the world, holding someone detained without being able to see a lawyer or finally get court. I mean, we in the US, we have a speedy trial, a law on speedy trials. It's avoided that. I think the whole world kind of agrees it's bad. I think most Americans agree it's bad. But really what's going to make the change is public pressure. And this is why doing human rights reports, talking to the press, interviewing the folks in Guantanamo who have been tortured and showing how they've suffered, that's what moves the needle. Then Congress steps up and says, okay, this is bad, we shouldn't be torturing people. So a lot of it's public pressure. So there's, that's not a very strict enforcement mechanism, but really at the end of the day, that's how things move a lot of times. But there are avenues where, I mean, the US is part of other institutions and our own laws. A lot of times, US law will incorporate international law into its law. The case that I, with the victims and others, brought against the ex-president of Bolivia, he fled to the United States after massacring people. We brought a trial against him in the US, and we used international law that Congress has said, okay, we're bound to that law. And so US courts actually allow some of these cases in US courts. And what you do, and I won't bore you too much, but a lot of times, when you bring an international case into US court, then you can pull in local crimes. So for instance, we brought a trial for extrajudicial killings, which means basically it's murder. That's the international term for it. And crimes against humanity, which is like a lot of murdering, a lot of people are committing these widespread abuses. But then we were able to tack on US laws, which is wrongful death or negligence or these other things. So a lot of times like US allows certain, there are certain crimes that are so egregious that we do have jurisdiction over whether we've kind of signed on or not. But in this case, like Congress, US has, even if it's signed on to a certain accord and said, but we don't recognize the jurisdiction, Congress in a lot of times has taken the laws from those and incorporated into US laws. So they passed statutes saying, okay, we're going to allow these international laws and you can bring cases for these international laws in the US. Because we think even though you can't go to the Inter-American Court, we believe it's so bad to commit genocide. We don't want genocide. You know, people who massacre people coming and living in the US. So there are certain statutes in the US that allow this to happen. That's a very long-winded way of saying US courts actually, you can litigate human rights cases in US courts. They just use a different body of law and then you bring in US law and attach it on to it.

Dylan Carnahan:There's a couple of things I want to digest there. The first that you brought up, chronologically speaking, was this kind of implementation and use of PR, really. It sounded like documentation and exposure is a big part on creating change on the human rights front.

Thomas Becker:Yeah, we call it naming and shaming. So you really figure out who's committing these abuses and you make a big thing of it. And this works kind of across the two different types of categories of rights, civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights. So if ExxonMobil displaces indigenous communities or Chevron or many of the big oil companies, not all, but have gone into the Amazon and hired death squads to displace people and then started extracting oil, and then the oil polluted the Amazon because they didn't follow proper regulations. Those are economic and social and cultural rights because folks socially have been impacted by environmental destruction. But hiring death squads is certainly civil and political rights. So that's one example where you say, Exxon did this or Chevron did this, and you make sure that their shareholders know this is bad for business. You do big campaigns. I mean, they've done this on like sweatshop campaigns for Nike, for instance. That's when you target a corporation. Or if you target a country that's, you know, South Africa, I think is probably the best example when they had apartheid and basically treated blacks as second class citizens, literally like made them live in different areas, weren't allowed to go into white areas, completely abused them. There was a worldwide campaign to not trade with South Africa because we did not want to help their economy. We did not want, by we, I mean, our resources in the US, but in Europe and South America, the nations did not want, yes, to perpetuate the abuses. We didn't want our money strengthening a country that's doing that to people. And really what helped the downfall of apartheid was international cooperation, was people saying, you guys are bad, we're not going to do business with you anymore, or we're going to put you on TV, or at the Olympics, we're going to protest what you're doing and expose the world how bad you are. Those are the things that really moved the needle. And this is where I think it's interesting that us from kind of the international community can be involved. I mean, certainly people in South Africa were fighting to end apartheid on the ground, but I think that collaboration between people in country and then those of us outside, and there's a space for all of us. You can be a human rights lawyer like me and commit kind of your whole life to that, but also just kind of folks who don't necessarily work in that can also say, I think this is bad. I'm going to stop. I'm not going to go to Exxon because they just did this to this indigenous community. I'm going to buy my gas from, I don't know, Texaco or whatever. There's ways for everybody to be involved, and there's like a spectrum. I feel like people feel like, oh, I don't even know where to start. I don't know what to do, and then don't want to get engaged. Or they feel they have to drop everything and become a bodyguard for rebels in southern Mexico. There's a spectrum between bodyguard, putting yourself in front of bullets, and doing nothing. And I think this is where human rights, there's a space in all that, and it's sometimes legal, it's sometimes pressure, it's everything, which I think is interesting. I think it's cool that my apolitical family in rural Missouri can still fight the good fight from there, and hopefully make a difference in Burma. Yeah.

Dylan Carnahan:Now, we've talked a lot about recently, just case-specific to the United States. And in going to these other places, what I'm curious about is how are human rights viewed differently across the globe, at least in your experiences?

Thomas Becker:I think, really, it's so country-specific. Are you asking how are they implemented or what are the abuses like?

Dylan Carnahan:I guess, culturally, we have our lens that we look through when we talk about human rights, although not all of us are able to give a specific definition. I guess, how do people see that in different areas of the world?

Thomas Becker:I think the US can be very hyper fixated on the US, and we don't look out as much as we probably should. I think most other countries have more of an international consciousness in terms of our world in the US is our world, and we don't really know what's going on. Truthfully, I lived most of my adult life in Bolivia. I have a bunch of family members that don't know if Bolivia is Botswana in Africa or Bosnia in Eastern Europe, which I understand. That's not me criticizing it. I think we have an insular perspective a lot of times. I think a lot of other countries, part because they're smaller and part because maybe they're not as kind of the top of the food chain, but they look outward a lot more. So human rights is very much, I think, part of most countries' legal institutions and discourse. So people, if you go to Botswana or Bolivia, people hear people protest in the streets and they're never saying, you know, Viva Human Rights, or you're like, we need to fight for our human rights. That's very much part of other cultures. They are more aware of kind of think international, maybe not necessarily like the nuances of international treaties, but they know this is a violation of my human rights. And so I think that one, everyday people are more aware of human rights as kind of like an approach or kind of a paradigm for protecting humans. But I also think that most nations also incorporate human rights much more in their own law. So in Bolivia, for instance, their own Constitution says they have like here are all our laws. I don't even know how many there are. But one of the like, one of the articles of the Constitution says any international human right that is not embodied in this or that has stricter obligations has precedent over our own law. So for instance, if Bolivia's law is like, you know, I'm making this up to simplify it. But like, let's say Bolivia says, you know, you must allow, allow, I don't know, a prisoner to see an attorney within 22 weeks. And international law says, no, it must be within one week. Then you have to do it within one week. That's not a real thing. I'm just making up things that I think that like the number for time makes it easier to understand that like, if it's a stricter law or more protections for the victims, Bolivia actually has to follow the international law.

Dylan Carnahan:They'll adhere to that if it isn't incorporated in there.

Thomas Becker:Yeah, it basically supersedes their law. And there are a lot of countries that do that. The US, our constitution was written way before, you know, these international human rights bodies or accords existed. And we're very hesitant to try to change our constitution. I think in some ways it's a good one, but in some ways I think Americans are like, it's the best, we're not touching it ever. And so we don't necessarily have that, but I think a lot of other nations have either updated their... I mean, a lot of these nations existed way before the US, but they've either added that into their constitution or just amended things to say, look, international law, human rights law is part of our law. So I think that we are in many ways behind on human rights. We should look to the rest of the world for guidance on how to kind of implement this stuff. And abuses happen in the US all the time. I mean, unarmed African Americans being shot by police, that George Floyd murder, that was a crime in the US. If that took place, and the cop that was held responsible through our US legal system and used criminal law. But if this happened in another country, they would use their criminal law, or not every country, but many countries would use criminal law, but also the international law component. This is an extrajudicial killing. This was someone gunned down outside the color of law. So you can kill someone in death penalty, for instance, legal, but you can't shoot or stick your knee on an unarmed person and kill them. So other countries would use both their law and international law.

Dylan Carnahan:And that's kind of what you're going back to when that was kind of exemplified in your case against the ex-president of the Bolivian president. Is that you're saying, hey, we brought this to the United States, and we have these international violations, right? And then we can add on like kind of state-specific or, you know...

Thomas Becker:Yes.

Dylan Carnahan:Okay, this is also a homicide or, you know, that's... And you're able to kind of double-dip in that regard almost in the...

Thomas Becker:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have such a complex US legal system because we have federal law and then we have state law. So where you bring the... We brought the trial in Florida so we could look to state law. We also looked to federal law. We also looked to international law. It's a super complicated case, but in general, yes. But what you're saying...

Dylan Carnahan:And that's kind of what you're saying foreign governments would do. That's where they would go.

Thomas Becker:It's what they do as the norm. That's kind of like normally what they do. This case in the US was an exception. So there are moments or opportunities, these windows where you can do it. So I guess the way I look at it is like, here's the body of law in Bolivia. All this law can incorporate international law. In the US, there's a little spot here, a little spot there, a little spot there. But in general, we are very insular and focus on US law. But there are these spaces. So in the case against the Bolivian ex-president, we used a statute. I won't bore you with all the stuff. Actually, it's kind of interesting that there was a statute for pirates that the founding fathers created called the Alien Tort Statute. And this was to go after... Someone decided to mow his lawn directly next to me while we're doing this. Technology is great. Is that too loud?

Dylan Carnahan:No, I can hear you fine.

Thomas Becker:Okay, perfect. So we usually... And again, I'm going to try not to bore you. Courts don't have jurisdiction over crimes in other countries. So if someone robs me in El Salvador, I can't bring a case in the US. I can only really bring a case in El Salvador. But the US created this law to go after pirates, because no one had jurisdiction over pirates. Like, they're on the seas. What country gets to adjudicate it? No one. So we created this... I mean, we, the founding fathers, created this law many, many years... I think it was 1781 or... I mean, decades ago or centuries ago to go after pirates for egregious crimes. So the worst crimes in the world, like, you know, crimes that we all agree are crimes. So you go to any country and everyone agrees genocide is bad. Killing unarmed people is bad. So the US allows cases in our courts for the most egregious crimes. So we were able to bring, like I said, this came against the ex-president for crimes against humanity and extradition feelings, because they're like the top tier crime. And that's how they opened the door to international laws, because our founding fathers basically created this statute saying, look, we don't want these horrible, horrible crimes. Someone's got to hold these people accountable. If it's not going to happen over there, we're going to do it. So that's how we were able to do international law and then bring in the state and US laws in that. Does that make sense? But it's a very specific thing, so you can't do that for all types of crimes. There's limitations.

Dylan Carnahan:That's the little dot you're talking about? That kind of all clicks there. Now, kind of being more case specific and going back to...

Thomas Becker:By the way, sorry, I feel bad for your poor listeners. I'm giving like a class on human rights. This is...

Dylan Carnahan:No, this is good.

Thomas Becker:Try stuff.

Dylan Carnahan:We want education. What are some examples of common human rights violations that you've seen?

Thomas Becker:Well, so as I mentioned like last year, end of 2019, I was in Bolivia during these massacres. So I, you know, documented people being just gunned down by military forces as they ran. Following the killings, I went into the jails and interviewed people who had been basically captured and illegally detained and tortured while in jail or sexually assaulted. They also, I'm going to speak specifically. I'll talk about a couple of different like scenarios, but the government in Bolivia, there was kind of a coup government that was in power for about a year. They shut down media stations, limited free speech. Those who criticize the government were arrested for sedition or terrorism. I allegedly was on the list of seditious terrorist people that were going to get arrested. So they illegally detained people, they tortured them, they gunned them down. That's one incident. In Lebanon, I mentioned earlier, this was a war in which Israel and Hezbollah were fighting, and both sides were using weapons illegally, but I was in Lebanon focusing on the use of weapons by Israel, where they were bombing civilian areas. So there are international laws that prohibit, doesn't matter how egregious the war is, you can't bomb hospitals, you can't bomb schools where children are, and this took place. And so we documented, we analyzed the bombs, where they came from, we interviewed witnesses and victims, we interviewed military officials from Israel to see where their coordinates were and why they shot these missiles in these places. So that's another example. In Western Sahara, I work with victims that have been tortured, disappeared. That's something that we don't really have in the US, but disappearances where they kill people but don't... Well, actually, nobody knows. People, usually it's like a dictatorship or a big bad government makes people go away. And usually they're killed, but nobody really knows. And this is part of the actually why it's like such an egregious crime is because there's no closure for the mom and dad or whoever. Usually younger people like activist types are disappeared. And they don't know if their child's still out there or not. They don't know if they're rotting in a detention facility like in Guantanamo for decades. They don't know if they've been killed and buried in the desert. So I was working on a project on disappeared in Western Sahara of activists who have been mostly killed. There are probably some that are in jail that nobody knows about. But that's another form of human rights abuse. I work with people in Honduras where death squads have come through and massacre people in villages. This goes on and on. There's some bad things that happen out there.

Dylan Carnahan:Outside of kind of the, I guess, direct implications of some of these things like maiming or killing someone, how do these violations impact the victims?

Thomas Becker:I mean, so really what happened, I'm going to go back to this recent Bolivian example in part because I've been talking so much about it. I feel like at least set the stage a little bit. The ex-president came to power in a coup and in her first week carried out two separate massacres. And what that did is it instilled in not just those victims, but others in the population. If you go out into the streets, you're going to get gunned down. So it's not about, it doesn't just affect the person who was killed. It affects all the country or all those who have different opinions because they're scared. I was scared and I was attacked when I was there. Groups in the streets attacked me. Police working with civilians to arrest people illegally or beat them up. And it sent a message like, don't speak out. Same with me documenting the abuses. The fact that I was on a list of seditious people and meant if I returned to the country, I was probably going to get thrown in jail. And what that does is it sends a message like I wasn't able to do my work. Like I did the work, but I wanted to go do follow up work, but I was going to probably get thrown in jail and I wouldn't have been able to do the work. But that fear limited what I was able to do. And that's how they were able to be successful. Yeah. I mean, and so a lot of these abuses are carried out not just to like harm those individuals. It's generally part of a broader pattern of abuses or part of a broader strategy. So everyone in Bolivia, I think, was affected by those. The families, you know, are certainly affected by the loss of their loved ones. But the fear that, you know, again, the government can come after them. None of them wanted to speak out about what took place. They erased all their, you know, ranging from like erased like their cell phone phone numbers because they were worried the police would come by and be like, okay, you're with this family and who are your friends and start going through, you know, the community of the village and finding people. And just like the re-victimization, the lack of, you know, these families try to seek justice, bring trials in the country, and it never happened. And so going day after day, trying and being told, no, no, no, and being told you're a terrorist or you're, you know, whatever language they want to use, this re-victimization takes it basically like institutionalized or structuralizes the victimization of people where it becomes like not just this incident, but just like the norm for them. Their everyday life becomes like they're constantly being re-victimized. And this is why it's so important to address these things so that, you know, like it's not just about, I mean, I think in the US we certainly commit human rights abuses here, but you don't have like this is an extreme example, but like living under this coup government, being afraid to like like this conversation we're having right now would have been a seditious conversation. And they passed like, you know, BS laws that actually criminalized these conversations. This would be considered misinformation, you know, and you and I could get in trouble. In fact, actually, people who had blogs or who had, I mean, I remember I went to the jail and interviewed a person who simply owned the domain of a website that criticized the government and said that they were carried out a coup and carried out massacres. The domain owner was arrested for sedition and terrorism and thrown in jail. He didn't even write the article. He just like literally it's like own the website and someone wrote an article on his website. And the person who wrote the article also was thrown in jail. You know, it really creates an atmosphere where, you know, you're not free to do the things that you and I generally do every day. That's not to say the US doesn't commit human rights abuses. It certainly does. But like these are extreme examples where it's just like wildly. Yeah, it's just not a it's a frightening situation.

Dylan Carnahan:Now, the something we really haven't totally specifically gone over is what are what are the consequences for these violators or governments that do create these violations? What happens?

Thomas Becker:Boy, it really depends on and this is where being like strategic about well, it's taking advantage of whatever is is available and not available, but also being strategic about it. You can get some can get thrown in jail. Some can, you know, the case we brought in the US against the ex president of Olivia. We don't have a law that allows us to put them in jail for crimes they committed in another country. So it's a civil case. So we want a $10 million lawsuit for the victims. But in theory, this will the victims will then be compensated for the loss of their loved ones. A lot of times, you know, there's different court systems. There's the International, the ICJ International Court of Justice. I don't think it's Spanish, La Corte Internacional de Justicia, where you can bring cases against states. So it's not against the individuals. So, you know, in the coup government of Bolivia, you wouldn't be able to bring it against the ex president who like authorized or oversaw these massacres. But you can bring it against the state and then the state then has to either compensate the victims or, you know, move forward with justice. I mean, there's different so it can be jail time. It can be, you know, equivalent of fines or paying money to like an entire state being getting in trouble, which means sanctions can mean sanctions, like if they don't follow the rules that are imposed on them, which really then shuts down the economy. So it forces them. It pushes them into actually like doing the right thing.

Dylan Carnahan:And that's kind of what you mentioned with South Africa is kind of that. We're going to shame you. We're going to put, you know, there's consequences to your actions. We don't support you. And that's kind of a deterrent for you to act in that manner.

Thomas Becker:Absolutely. Actually, South Africa is a perfect example because I think it actually incorporates the three things I just said. I think the main thing that made apartheid end was the collaboration of all the people fighting certainly on the ground, but international pressure. But there were also cases where police killed people and then they brought trials against them. But then there were also civil cases against corporations that actually did business and used slave labor, where these cases were trying to hold these corporations accountable, and they would have had to pay a big fine. Eventually, there was a big South African case that was thrown out, and a bunch of my friends and colleagues worked on it. But there were like three ways to go after it. You go after the state, you go after the individuals who carried it out, and you go after the individual and try to criminally prosecute them. And then civil cases, so this case against the corporations that worked with South Africa, was brought in the US to hold them accountable for using slavery. And that's in many ways, it's not so haphazard, but you throw it at the wall and see what sticks. Because a lot of times, I mean, this is the downside, victims of human rights abuses, the system is, I feel like, not meant, it's always an uphill battle for the victims. The victimizers usually are rich and powerful and have economic and political connections. And, you know, it's an unbalanced field, I feel like. And so you have to work twice as hard. So, like I said, sometimes you try all three things, international pressure, you try criminal trials, you try civil trials, because, you know, maybe one will advance and the others won't. And so, because it's hard, victims don't get justice as much as they should. That's the hard part of human rights. Honestly, people ask me what the hardest part for me is, I get death threats, literally, before we got on this, I just checked my Twitter and had about 12 or 13 threats of people saying, you know, I'm going to kill your family and all that, you know, I've been attacked, I've been thrown in jail, I've been kidnapped, you know, those things are bad. But the hardest part for me is knowing that, like, a lot of victims won't get justice. It's really hard. The system set up, those who are rich and powerful generally stay rich and powerful and can avoid justice a lot of times. Doesn't mean they don't get justice, but not winning, seeing someone suffer and not being able to achieve that justice is really one of the hardest parts of doing this work.

Dylan Carnahan:Now, I kind of want to focus on a different perspective and kind of rationalize this a little bit more. What are reasons a government or someone would violate another person's human rights? It seems like there are consequences for doing so. There's a lot of negative externalities with that. What's the reason for doing it?

Thomas Becker:I mean, I don't think there are enough consequences. I think the fact that I'm going to use the US as an example, and this is not me just dumping on the US or just bringing it home because I think it's a little easier to understand. The whole world knows Guantanamo. Torturing is illegal. The whole world knows it. Holding people illegally for a decade and a half is illegal. We have certain rights. We know this. I think that at least the US is such a powerful country, so it's maybe unique because we're in many ways the top of the food chain, but there's not enough accountability. Since the US doesn't sign these, they sign agreements saying, we believe these laws, but we're not going to be bound by the jurisdiction of X, Y or Z. I think that's problematic. I think it allows us to get away with that. Now you think of countries with more extreme abuses, like the ones that took place in Bolivia. I think people commit the abuses to stay in power. I think there's a disregard for human life. A lot of the folks that do kind of rise to the top of power can care less about human life. They want to maintain that power. And if it means gunning down indigenous protesters to send the message, we're in charge, don't you dare go out into the streets, they'll do it. And I think they don't care. And if they don't, if they're not mechanisms to hold them accountable, why would they stop? And I think a lot of these nations, so again, I keep going back to Bolivia, this Bolivian coup government was really savvy at carrying out these killings, doing these horrific things, but they hired PR team, a US based PR team called CLS Strategies, who actually was the first company in the US punished by Facebook for putting out fake news and creating fake accounts. But they hired PR teams to really like sell their images something different. And they got away with a lot of this stuff for quite a long time, because, you know, while they're repressing people on the ground, they have all these beautiful images of them like recuperating, recuperar, is that an English word? Recovering democracy, and meanwhile, they're like jailing opponents and, you know, shooting unarmed people. I think there's not enough international accountability. I mean, I think this is the weakness is that like no nation wants to be held by international standards because it limits what they can do. So a lot of these countries don't sign on to like the jurisdiction of a court, or a lot of them just don't listen. And they say, basically, what are you going to do about it? And, you know, sometimes they'll, like I said, there will be sanctions, but it's such a political thing. So like, let's say you're country X and your allies are Y and Z, and you've created, you've violated this crime, and the whole world agrees they're crimes, but X, Y and Z do trade with each other, and you go before the UN and they say, should we do sanctions? Y and Z are going to vote no, because it's their trade partners, so it's in their economic interests to not do it, even if they think, yeah, it's pretty bad what they did. And so I think you need to, like, strengthen these international obligations to make countries stop doing really bad things. And I think you need to make laws, like stronger laws, like corporations, in my opinion, should not be using slave labor. This happened with Unical in Burma. This happened with Chevron. This happened with, I mean, the list goes on and on all over the world. They use slave labor or they hire desk squads to, like, take over communities and never get held accountable. So I think, you know, there could be laws, and a lot of countries will have law, like Europe is stricter about this. If you want to do business in Europe, you have to have, you know, a clean human rights record. If you do these things, you're not allowed to trade with us. You're not allowed to enter our ports. And I think the US doesn't have these sort of restrictions like they should. I think they could strengthen that, and it could actually really minimize a lot of abuses.

Dylan Carnahan:And so, I guess, with someone that doesn't have a lot of exposure to kind of have as broad of a worldview outside the United States or, and they're looking at the present time, today's world, and they might think that it's, this is crazy. How do we have human rights violations like this still happen today? And it seems like that's in part due to accountability and direct consequences for acting in that manner.

Thomas Becker:Absolutely. Sorry, bug just blew my mouth. This is, I'm in rural West Virginia, as you can hear by people like mowing next to me and bugs flying around, you caught me while I was traveling. No, I mean, I think the accountability thing, you nailed it, is such an important aspect of this. And, you know, so for the victims in the case against Bolivia's ex-president, for them, it's not that they don't care about the money because, you know, they will share it amongst their community. I mean, they lost the breadwinners of their family. A lot of them, you know, their children can't afford school because dad was killed. And so certainly that's a helpful component. But to them, it was never, this trial was not about money. It was about holding people accountable and sending a message, a powerful message, you can't do this anymore. And something we struggle with in the US is a lot of times these dictators or generals, people, particularly from Latin America, who carry out these abuses, flee to the US and live here without a problem. And I think this case, for instance, was really important on several messages. Sending a message to Bolivia, if you kill unarmed people, you're going to go to jail. You can't get away with it. Or if you try to flee and go to the US, wherever you go, the victims will follow you and you'll be held accountable. And it really slowed down a lot of the abuses in Bolivia. But it also sends a message in the US, like we're not going to be a safe haven anymore for these like egregious human rights violators. So really, that kind of accountability resonates across the world. Now people in Honduras or something, or El Salvador, who are going to kill people think, well, whatever, I can get away with it. And if I have to go escape, I'll just go to the US where my cousin Juan Carlos lives, or where I have political connections. And now that message has been sent. Actually, you can't do that anymore because now you're going to get held accountable. And I think the more victims push forward and can do cases like this, I mean, I think, again, we need to change laws and strengthen that. But if, for instance, the US doesn't have strict laws on that, then you go through the court systems. And these victims in Bolivia really changed the landscape for human rights in many ways, certainly in Bolivia, but in the US and created this precedent. I know there's people all over the world that are now scared. I spoke to some folks actually in Sri Lanka, this small island nation south of India, which you would think would know nothing about Bolivia. And I spoke to one of the ethnic minorities, the Tamils there. And there was civil war and the government basically slaughtered the Tamils, many of the Tamils, there were all these egregious abuses. And I spoke to some Tamils who said, reach out to me and they're like, we heard about the case in Bolivia. We saw what you guys were able to do in the US court. And it gave them all this hope that like, maybe we can do something. And so they actually brought a case against the former, I believe he was the defense minister who fled to the US, because they'd heard about this on some like message board, you know what I mean? In an island off India. And I think these things can have an impact when they see, okay, there is accountability. So I think you nailed it. If people understand they're going to be held accountable, they're going to stop doing it or they're going to turn it down quite a bit.

Dylan Carnahan:Now, kind of talking about people here in the United States and looking a little bit outward abroad, how can people protect their rights and help the rights of others?

Thomas Becker:I mean, I think there's various ways to get involved internationally. There's institutions that like, I think things like, you know, Amnesty International are kind of like the generic, but it's kind of like the big one-stop shop, where if you're like, I don't even know where to start, they have things where you can get involved from passing out leaflets, getting signatures, to doing phone campaigns, like calling Congress people, to actually getting involved in projects and interning, to literally going to another country and working there, or documenting abuses in the US. So that's one example of many places to start if you're like, I just don't even know where to go. I think there's abuses that take place in the US all the time. I think raising this stuff is always delicate, and people don't like talking about political issues, but unarmed black people being killed, I think, certainly is an issue. The stats show that people of color are disproportionately being killed, and I think you can get involved in that. And I think people did get involved in various ways and protested last summer. But also there's ways to actually hold people accountable, and there's organizations, the National Lawyers Guild, groups that work with communities to actually... I'm bringing that up as one example, where you can actually get involved in issues domestically, because these things happen. I think there's people on death row in the United States who have been there illegally. So there's something called the Innocence Project, where you can work, again, from the smallest thing, at just literally calling the governor and saying, please stay this execution, to actually getting involved in the case, or doing public awareness campaigns. So I think there's all sorts of abuses that take place in the US. And it's not always... We keep talking about state actors. A lot of times it is state actors, but sexual assault, for instance, that's a human rights abuse. In the US, we don't use the discourse and say that's a human rights abuse, but it's a human rights abuse as well. Again, internationally, human rights is incorporated into domestic law. But I think there's survivors of sexual assault or abuse that certainly need assistance, and you can get involved that way. I think that there's homelessness. Homelessness is a human right, or the right to housing, the right to food is a right. And there are ways to get involved where you're not litigating it in the US. Well, you can litigate it, but working with communities. It's such an interesting broad concept that I feel like it's hard for Americans to kind of conceptualize, because it's so not part of what we've ever learned, but it's so much what the rest of the world refers to things that a lot of... Basic rights. I mean, it really comes down to basic rights, and I think there's ways to get involved to protect our basic rights. And it's just looking at what are the most vulnerable populations and how do we make sure they're being protected. And sometimes that's us. Sometimes we're protesters that are getting beat up by cops. That's not saying all cops do that, but in one circumstance, a cop may hit an unarmed protester, or it could be a counter protester coming up and beating them. So there are ways that we can push back on that, and there's ways to get involved. And I'll put in a plug, there's an organization, the National Lawyers Guild, which is such a boring sounding name, but it's way not that boring. They do really interesting. They have just little primers for like, know your rights. So ranging from, if you're going to go out and protest, here are the rights you have. Here are the rights you have. You don't have to tell the police A, B, C and D. Here's what happens if you witness another crime. Here's what happens if you're a prisoner and your rights are being violated. Here's what happens if you've been sexually assaulted. So they have primers for all these different types of themes, and I think it's a good place to start if that, and maybe Amnesty International, which is a bigger org, where you can start to be like, this is what interests me. I think a lot of people are like, I don't know where to start, but I'm kind of interested in women's rights. That's a space where you can start and start opening a book into, not really literally, because it's way more fun than opening a dry law book. But opening a window into how you can get involved and protect yourself and know your own rights. Because really, we don't know our own rights. We're getting pulled over. I'll be honest. If a cop pulls me over, I'm like, yes, sir, whatever you want. But really, the cop doesn't get a look in your car unless he has probable cause. There are all these requirements. And most of us don't know our basic rights, and these things kind of give you the clip note versions of what our rights are.

Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, it's one of those things that, you know, if you're not literate in that, then you kind of give it away in a certain way.

Thomas Becker:Absolutely. I mean, this goes back to kind of like not to go full circle, but like what I was talking about originally, being a lawyer, having a toolbox of a lot of things and trying to approach things different ways. And what I don't like about the law is I'm not very literate in it, but I'm pretty literate in law. And it's such a privileged discourse or like knowledge base that others don't have that a lot of times, a lot of things become top down where like I'm up here and the victims are down here and I'm doing all the work. Where I think what I'd rather do instead of because I do have this discourse, I can do a lot of it. But what I'd rather do is empower them to kind of come up here with me and be able to like at the end of the day, like I don't need to be saying that cop violated that person's right when they went through the car illegally. I'd rather people know you can't actually go through my car in the first place. You know what I mean? Then it actually makes me have to do less work. And the more we can empower people, hopefully, I wish I could fade away. I don't want to. I mean, I like my work, but I would rather others be empowered to advocate for themselves rather than me have to do it with fancy lawyer words that, you know, most people unfortunately don't know. There's a lot of concepts, you know.

Dylan Carnahan:There's a asymmetry there and you can leverage that to help those people. You'd rather it not be there and be a level playing field.

Thomas Becker:Exactly. You nailed it.

Dylan Carnahan:Now, just to kind of look back here, where can people learn more about you and the University Network for Human Rights?

Thomas Becker:So we have a web page. I think it's unitedforrights.org. unitedforrights.org. Maybe it's humanrightsnetwork.org. I should know this. Man, I'm going to get axed. I'm going to get fired. I know our Twitter is unitedforrights. I have a Twitter where I talk about human rights issues, which is Mr. Tommy Becker. Not very professional in terms of lawyers, but I talk about human rights issues all the time. And half of it's in Spanish and half of it's in English, because a lot of the work I do is in Latin America, though I usually try to do if I tweet about something in both. University Network for Human Rights, we have a website. The Twitter at University Network is unitedforrights. I think I'm lying. I think it's humanrightsnetwork.org is our website.

Dylan Carnahan:I'll include it in the outro. We'll get it, take care of it. We'll be in the show notes. We'll put it out on social. I'd like to say...

Thomas Becker:On Harvard's website, too, there's a bunch of the cases and projects I've worked on. You could just boringly type in my name and Harvard. If you're interested in other projects, I've worked on cases, human rights issues I've worked on as well.

Dylan Carnahan:You can check it out.

Thomas Becker:Google does a lot. You can find some really ridiculous pictures of me all over the web. Pretending to be a lawyer in a suit. I look like a little kid. My mom used to dress me for church when I was a little kid, and I'm kind of uncomfortable. That's me in court usually. And so you'll find me uncomfortable in a suit all over.

Dylan Carnahan:Well, all right, then, Thomas. I'd like to thank you for your time and educating people. It was not dry. It was not dry. Just to reiterate, it was very informative. And once again, I thank you for lending your time to us. And thank you for all of the work that you've done.

Thomas Becker:Thank you. This is fun. I hope it wasn't too boring. Tried to not be too professory. It was nice. I actually got to do this in English. I've been doing in the Spanish all week, other interviews. So this is my brain is like English, much easier. Anyway, thank you. This has been great.

Dylan Carnahan:That wraps up our conversation with Thomas Becker. We talked about the difference between how the US and other countries view human rights, the various tools human rights advocates can use to create change, the impact human rights violations have on victims, as well as the turmoil victims have to go through to seek justice. Go ahead, if you enjoyed the episode, follow Thomas Becker on social media. You can find him at Mr. Tommy Becker. Go to the Human Rights Network via their website and figure out how you can get involved at humanrightsnetwork.org. Check out Alisa Jefferson's music, which is out on all streaming platforms. And you can find additional information on her at alisajeffersonmusic.com. And lastly, go ahead and show some love and follow Simple Questions Podcast on social media. And check out the show notes on simplequestionspodcast.com. For the next episode, we will be talking about pushing your body to compete at one of the highest levels possible. And we're going to have a fantastic athlete on to talk to us about their experiences and how they train to compete. With that, I thank you for listening and I ask you to keep asking questions.