He currently works with victims of the former dictator of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, is a lawyer for the ousted president of Niger Mohamed Bazoum and is a member of the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua.
His father, Ervin Brody, a Hungarian Jew, who was a major influence in his life,[2] survived forced labor in German camps during World War II, eventually escaping to join the Soviet Red Army and participate in the liberation of Budapest before emigrating to the United States and teaching at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Brody received his Bachelor of Arts in political science from Fairleigh Dickinson University where he was student government president and a leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement.
He was called "the leading expert in the country on career-counseling malpractices.”[3] Brody left his position as Assistant Attorney General to research and uncover a pattern of atrocities against Nicaraguan civilians by US-funded "contras."
Brody conducted a speaking tour of over 60 U.S. cities and appeared as co-counsel with the Center for Constitutional Rights in litigation in U.S. federal court to stop U.S. aid to contras.
In 1995, Brody helped found the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Haiti to prosecute human rights crimes committed during de facto military rule.
[15] In 1997, Brody was Deputy Director of the United Nations Secretary General’s Investigative Team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, charged with probing atrocities committed by troops loyal to Laurent Kabila.
Most notably, Brody directed Human Rights Watch’s participation in the landmark case of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet before the British House of Lords.
Brody called the Lords’ decision in the Pinochet case – that the Chilean did not enjoy immunity and could be prosecuted on the basis of universal jurisdiction despite his status as a former head of state – a "wake-up call" to tyrants and a “spark of hope for victims.”[17][18] In the wake of the Pinochet case, Brody began working with victims to pursue other former exiled leaders including Hissène Habré of Chad, Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, Jean-Claude Duvalier and Raul Cédras of Haiti, and Idi Amin of Uganda.
[20] In April 2010, Brody spoke at a rally of over 60,000 in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, noting the irony that Judge Garzón was prosecuted for attempting to apply the very principles that he had successfully promoted internationally.
His other HRW reports on counter-terrorism issues include The Road to Abu Ghraib (June 2004),[26] which investigated the roots of the prisoner abuse scandal and The United States’ 'Disappeared' (October 2004),[27] which looked at the long-term incommunicado detention of al-Qaeda leaders in "secret locations".
After what the Toronto Globe and Mail called “one of the world’s most patient and tenacious campaigns for justice"[31] waged by the victims with Brody’s support, Habré’s trial by a special African Union-backed court in Senegal finally began on July 20, 2015 and ended on February 11, 2016.
The New York Times, among others, hailed the case as “a Milestone for justice in Africa.” On April 27, 2017, an appeals court confirmed the verdict and ordered Habré to pay approximately US$130 million in victim compensation.
Also as a result of the victims’ campaign, on March 25, 2015, a Chadian criminal court convicted 20 Habré-era security agents on charges of murder, torture, kidnapping and arbitrary detention.
[34] The Washington Post called the book “An absorbing saga that raises a disturbing question: How do brutal fascists like Habré and other murderous heads of state evade a courtroom reckoning for so long after falling from power?”[35] In October 2024, as he was about to give a public conference in Chad to present the French edition of his book, “La Traque de Hissène Habré: Juger un dictateur dans un monde d'impunité,” the Chadian police interrupted the event.
His passport was confiscated and armed men escorted him to the offices of the secret service, the Direction générale du renseignement et de l'investigation (DGRI) where he was held in police custody for two hours before being expelled on an Air France flight to Paris.
In October 2016, he represented the journalist Amy Goodman, host of the television and radio show Democracy Now!, who was charged with criminal offenses for her reporting on an attack against Native American-led anti-pipeline protesters at Standing Rock, North Dakota.
[41] In 2023, the Gambia government and ECOWAS took on board the proposal and created a joint task force to work towards a hybrid tribunal to prosecute the worst crimes of the Jammeh era.
[43] In December 2023, Brody was an observer on behalf of The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) at the decision by the Hof van Justitie, the highest court in Suriname, confirming the conviction of former president Desi Bouterse for the 1982 murders of 15 political prisoners.
Brody, who currently lives in Barcelona and a small village near Carcassonne, is a regular commentator on French and Spanish media on issues of war crimes, international relations and US politics.