Eric Stover is Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley.
Stover has built the Human Rights Center into a premier interdisciplinary research and policy center that is highly regarded nationally and internationally. He is a pioneer in utilizing forensic and empirical research methods to investigate violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
Before coming to Berkeley in 1996, Stover served as the Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights and the Director of the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
With forensic anthropologist Clyde Snow, Stover launched the first forensic investigations of the disappeared in Central and South America. In 1985, he participated in the forensic investigation of the remains of the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in Sao Paulo, Brazil. During the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, he served as an “Expert on Mission” on several medico-legal investigations for the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. In 1995, he conducted a survey of mass graves throughout Rwanda for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda that provided lead evidence on several high-level accused. In the early 1990s, Stover conducted the first research on the social and medical consequences of land mines in Cambodia and other post-war countries. His research helped launch the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, which was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.
Stover has published numerous books, including Witnesses from the Grave: Stories Bones Tell (with Christopher Joyce); The Graves: Srebrenica and Vukovar (with photographer Gilles Peress); The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in The Hague; Hiding in Plain Sight: The Pursuit of War Criminals from Nuremberg to the War on Terror (with Victor Peskin and Alexa Koenig); The Guantanamo Effect: Exposing the Consequences of U.S. Detention and Interrogation Practices (with Laurel Fletcher); and Silent Witness: Forensic DNA Analysis in Criminal Investigations and Humanitarian Disasters (co-edited with Henry Erlich and Thomas J. White). He has co-produced several documentaries, including a recent PBS documentary on the forensic investigation of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre entitled “Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten.”
Eric Stover is teaching the following courses in Fall 2022:
• 262.68 sec. 001 - Human Rights and War Crimes Investigations
• 264.6 sec. 001 - Health and Human Rights
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Spring 2022 | 262.65 sec. 001 | Human Rights and Social Justice Writing Workshop | View Teaching Evaluation | Fall 2021 | 262.68 sec. 001 | Human Rights and War Crimes Investigations | View Teaching Evaluation | 264.6 sec. 001 | Health and Human Rights in Times of War and Peace | View Teaching Evaluation | Spring 2021 | 262.65 sec. 001 | Human Rights and Social Justice Writing Workshop | View Teaching Evaluation |
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A Legacy of Truth: Eric Stover’s Four Decades of Investigating the Forcibly Disappeared
The faculty director of Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center continues to help people worldwide search for an answer to the agonizing question, Where is my child?
A Life in Limbo: After Fleeing Afghanistan, Judge Basira Qazizada Finds a Stopgap Oasis in Berkeley
Now a visiting scholar with Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center, Qazizada is part of a unique program that brings threatened Afghan scholars to the Bay Area.
How Technology Might Bring War Criminals To Justice In Ukraine
Professor Eric Stover, Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center, discusses the Berkeley Protocol on Open Source Investigations and why it’s important both for the press and for courts, that information is verified
New Project Tracking Campaign to Curtail Reproductive Rights Showcases Cross-Campus Alliance
A new radio show about Texas’ abortion law strengthens the ties between the Human Rights Center and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Eric Stover Has Spent a Career Unearthing Atrocities
Professor Eric Stover, Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center, discusses his mission to shed light on acts of barbarity—and bringing the perpetrators to justice— in relation to massacres such as the Tulsa and Rwandan tragedies
Faculty Members Share Research Findings and Insights Leading Into World Refugee Day
With nearly 80 million refugees and displaced people worldwide, the school’s wide-ranging research identifies core concerns and sensible solutions.
How a racist white mob ruined ‘Black Wall Street’ 100 years ago
Eric Stover, Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center, is interviewed about the Tulsa Race Massacre and the PBS documentary he co-produced about it, “Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten”
Hushed History: Berkeley Law’s Eric Stover Co-Produces PBS Film on 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
The documentary, which airs May 31, unpacks the horrific events that killed at least 39 people and destroyed a thriving Black district — and how they were nearly erased from history.
From Economics to History, Recent Books Showcase Depth and Breadth of Faculty Scholarship
Fifteen books published in 2019 and 2020 were highlighted at a recent event, including work by Ian Haney López, Franklin Zimring, and Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.
PBS to release documentary on Tulsa Race Massacre
PBS announces a documentary premiering in May about the Tulsa Race Massacre, known as the deadliest incident of racial violence in American history, featuring Eric Stover, Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center
Rich Slate of New Spring Semester Courses Includes Computer Programming for Lawyers
The list features eight first-time offerings and eight more one-credit classes that are available to upper-class students for the first time.
Berkeley Law Center Creates First Global Protocol on Using Social Media as Evidence for War Crimes
A three-year effort by the Human Rights Center and the U.N. Human Rights Office advances the use of digital information to pursue justice against atrocities.
Human Rights Center’s Eric Stover Hopes Film on Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 Is Wake-up Call
“The Fire and the Forgotten” will air on PBS in May, on the centennial of what’s known as one of the worst incidents in American history of racial violence against Black people.
Veteran Human Rights Researcher Discusses the Tulsa Massacre, Police Brutality and State-Sanctioned Violence
Professor Eric Stover, Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center, in an in-depth interview about the Tulsa Massacre, through the lens of history and human rights
Clinic, Center Safeguard Human Rights Close to Home and Around the World
The International Human Rights Law Clinic and Human Rights Center fight injustice through litigation, policy suggestions, advocacy, research, and science-based investigations.
New Faculty Books Feted with Comic Wordplay
Berkeley Law fetes its faculty authors and their most recent books on legal theory, ocean law, juvenile justice and more.
Hiding in Plain Sight Explores the Pursuit of War Criminals, from Mengele to Kony
Six years ago, Eric Stover, Alexa Koenig and Victor Peskin teamed up to try to understand why so many states ignore their legal obligations to arrest and try war crimes suspects.