International Forensic Program

About the Program

History of the International Forensic Program

The mobilization of the forensic sciences in the investigation of human rights violations is a relatively new field, one in which Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has been a pioneer. Since its first forensic investigation, a 1987 review of a death in police custody in Kenya, PHR has conducted assessments and investigations in many nations around the world, including the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Guatemala, Afghanistan, Argentina, Honduras, South Korea, Iraqi Kurdistan, Israel and Palestine among others. In addition to its investigations, PHR has held trainings for professionals new to forensic work.

PHR has been fortunate in attracting dedicated and talented professionals whose work led to the inception and evolution of the International Forensic Program. While the bulk of our participants are commissioned temporarily for individual assignments, there has been a discrete group of staff that made the IFP what it is today.

Robert Kirschner

Initial forensic projects were carried out by board member and forensic pathologist Robert Kirschner, MD. As early as 1987, Dr. Kirschner was investigating police custody deaths in Kenya. In 1988 and 1989, his PHR work included investigations into the treatment of political prisoners in Czechoslovakia, deaths in custody in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and the extra-judicial executions of Jesuit priests in El Salvador and human rights defenders such as Myrna Mack.

When PHR's International Forensic Program was established, Kirschner became its first Director, a position he held from 1995 to 1997.  Kirschner led a forensic pathology team during a forensic investigation as part of PHR's efforts to support the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and he played an important role again in PHR's work for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. 

Dr. Kirschner's reporting helped lead to the Israel High Court's ban on shaking, a technique used in interrogations that could lead to severe and irreversible cerebral injury and possibly death.  Kirschner also had an instrumental role in developing the DNA Reunification Project, which has helped reunite several families torn apart during the 1980 - 1992 civil war in El Salvador.

Eric Stover

Another primary role in the history of the Program was played by Eric Stover. As Director of the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in the mid 1980s, Stover organized and participated in the first forensic investigations into the fate of the disappeared in Argentina. Stover became PHR's second Executive Director in 1992, and participated in forensic investigations in Guatemala, Iraqi Kurdistan, Mexico, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia. He also played a significant role in developing the DNA Reunification Project with Robert Kirschner.  Stover is the author of numerous articles and books on medicine, science, and human rights, including The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions, Witnesses from the Grave: The Stories Bones Tell, The Graves: Srebrenica and Vukovar, and A Village Destroyed: War Crimes in Kosovo.

Stover is currently the Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.

Clyde Collins Snow

Clyde Collins Snow, one of the foremost practitioners in the field of forensic anthropology, became PHR's first forensic consultant in 1992 and served in that role through 1996. His work with PHR was a continuation of a long-standing collaboration with Eric Stover and Dr. Kirschner, working in South and Central America through the auspices of AAAS. Snow led PHR forensic teams as PHR's Senior Forensic Consultant through 1996. He also participated in PHR's forensic investigation in Croatia during which a mass grave in Vukovar was discovered.

The team of Kirschner, Snow and Stover brought PHR into the international arena as a leader in the forensic investigation of human rights abuses.

William Haglund

In 1998, William Haglund, PhD assumed the role as Director of the International Forensic Program. Haglund came to PHR from the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where he served as Senior Forensic Advisor from 1996 through mid 1998 for the ad hoc International Tribunals for The Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR). He has participated in PHR's forensic investigations since 1993. A death investigator and forensic anthropologist, Haglund has led PHR's forensic projects in Cyprus, Guatemala, Honduras, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Somalia and numerous other countries. In 2006, he became the Senior Consultant to the International Forensic Program and Stefan Schmitt took over as Director of the International Forensic Program.

Stefan Schmitt

In 1992, Schmitt helped set the foundation for an independent non-governmental forensic team documenting mass graves in Guatemala with the help of Dr. Clyde Snow and the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team. Internationally, Stefan Schmitt has provided expertise in forensic anthropology and human identification while forming part of human rights investigations in Iraq, Honduras, Bosnia, Croatia, Rwanda, Algeria, Afghanistan, and Liberia.

PHR pays homage to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and their pioneering efforts to field scientific experts in the investigation of human rights abuses.