Open Society and Soros Foundation
Building a Global Alliance for Open Society
about usinitiativesgrants and scholarshipsresource centernewsroom
search the site
advanced search

George Soros  |  Aryeh Neier  |  Stewart J. Paperin  |  Gara LaMarche

Bio
Aryeh Neier
President, Open Society Institute

Before joining the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the Soros foundations network as president in September 1993, Aryeh Neier spent 12 years as executive director of Human Rights Watch, of which he was a founder. Prior to that, he worked for the American Civil Liberties Union for 15 years, including eight as national director.

From 1978 to 1991, Neier served as an adjunct professor of law at New York University, and he has lectured at a number of colleges and universities in the United States (including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Duke, New York University, and the University of California at Berkeley) and at universities in many other countries. He is the recipient of three honorary doctorates (Hofstra University, Hamilton College, and the State University of New York at Binghamton) and the American Bar Association's Gavel Award.

Neier is the author of six books: Dossier: The Secret Files They Keep on You (1975, Scarborough House); Crime and Punishment: A Radical Solution (1976, Stein and Day); Defending My Enemy: American Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, and the Risks of Freedom (1979, E.P. Dutton); Only Judgment: The Limits of Litigation in Social Change (1982, Wesleyan University Press); War Crimes: Brutality, Genocide, Terror, and the Struggle for Justice (1998, Times Books); and Taking Liberties: Four Decades in the Struggle for Rights (2003, Public Affairs). Neier has also contributed chapters to more than 25 books.

He has been a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, a columnist for the Nation, and has also published in such periodicals as the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, Foreign Policy, Dissent and a number of law journals. He has contributed more than 100 op-ed articles to newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune.

Neier was born in Nazi Germany and became a refugee at an early age. An internationally recognized expert on human rights, he has conducted investigations of human rights abuses in more than 40 countries around the world. Over the past two decades, he has been directly engaged in the global debate on accountability and bringing to justice those who have committed crimes against humanity, the subject of his latest book, Taking Liberties. He played a leading role in the establishment of the international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia.

back to the top of the page
print this page

About Us  |  Initiatives  |  Grants, Scholarships & Fellowships  |  Resource Center  |  Newsroom  |  Site Map  |  About this Site  |  Contact

©2003 Open Society Institute. All rights reserved.

400 West 59th Street  |  New York, NY 10019, U.S.A.  |  Tel 1-212-548-0600

OSI-New York and OSI-Budapest are separate organizations that operate independently yet cooperate informally with each other.
This website, a joint presentation, is intended to promote both organizations’ interests while maintaining their respective transparency.