Human rights lawyer Brian Concannon is the Executive Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH). He has worked full-time on issues involving human rights, justice, and democratic development in Haiti since 1995, when he served as UN Human Rights Officer in Haiti. Brian lived in Haiti for nine years, co-managing the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux a law office that represented victims of political violence in internationally recognized successful prosecutions of top military and paramilitary leaders. He collaborated on a daily basis with Haitian judges, police officers, top justice officials, and grassroots activists, and regularly with officials from the UN, the US—including members of Congress.
Brian returned to the US to establish IJDH in 2004, when US support for the brutal overthrow of Haiti’s elected President Aristide demonstrated that stability in Haiti required bringing Haitians’ fight for justice to the US and other powerful countries where too many decisions about Haitians rights are made. Brian has prepared influential human rights reports, published over a dozen articles in academic journals covering law, political science and public health, and dozens of opinion pieces for the New York Times, Miami Herald, Boston Globe and other outlets. He is regularly interviewed for television, print and radio reporting on Haiti by media around the world, and has testified as an expert on Haiti in dozens of court cases, for both individuals and the US government.
Brian speaks Haitian Creole and French fluently. He is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Middlebury College. He has been awarded fellowships at Harvard Law School and Brandeis University, and multiple human rights awards.