Richard Dicker

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Richard Dicker (@DickerRichard) is Senior Legal Adviser for Advocacy at Human Rights Watch, and served as Founding Director of the organization’s International Justice Program between 2001 and 2022. He has worked at Human Rights Watch since 1990. He started working on international justice issues in 1994, when Human Rights Watch attempted to persuade governments to bring a case before the International Court of Justice charging the government of Iraq with genocide against the Kurds.

Dicker later led Human Rights Watch’s multi-year campaign to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC).  He went on to spend years leading advocacy efforts urging the creation of effective accountability mechanisms in various countries. He monitored the Slobodan Milosevic trial in The Hague and made several trips to Iraq before and at the start of Saddam Hussein’s trial.

A former practicing attorney representing plaintiffs in employment discrimination suits in New York, Dicker graduated from New York University Law School and received his LL.M from Columbia Law School. He currently teaches part time at Columbia and UCLA Law Schools and is a Senior Fellow at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute.

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