Why did I feel it was interesting to interview Santiago? He is an influential global leader in human rights and the rule of law, recently appointed Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) for a five-year term. With a distinguished career spanning government, intergovernmental, and civil society roles, he has played a pivotal role in advancing justice and accountability across regions. As former Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and its Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, Santiago helped shape modern human rights standards in the Americas. His leadership extended globally through positions such as Chair of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 Protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and as Executive Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights program. In his new role at the ICJ, Canton brings decades of experience to strengthen international law, promote access to justice, and ensure equality before the law worldwide.
This interview is compelling because it offers a rare blend of intellect, moral clarity, and human emotion from a jurist who moves seamlessly between philosophy, law, and art. It’s not just a discussion about institutions or treaties—it’s a reflection on what it means to remain human in an age of indifference, disinformation, and rising authoritarianism. Through references to Hannah Arendt, Kant, García Márquez, and even The Sandman, the conversation bridges ancient moral questions and modern crises, showing how empathy, hope, and justice can still anchor global action. What makes it truly engaging is its candor: an unvarnished acknowledgment of how fragile progress can be, coupled with an unshakable belief that hope and solidarity can still prevail.
Here’s our exchange:
Where are you originally from, and what was your childhood like there?
I’m from the outskirts of Buenos Aires, from a town called Villa Ballester — a typical lower- to middle-class area. Sadly, today it has become a very insecure place.
My childhood was “normal” in an unusual way. My father ran a small psychiatric clinic, so I grew up among patients — talking with them, sometimes playing with them. Only years later did I realize that wasn’t typical. I used to play a game with one patient who would lift me “into the air” with her fingers, and I had to ask her to bring me down. She truly believed it was real.
Those moments taught me early about empathy and how reality can feel different depending on where you stand. I also accompanied my father when he visited patients in public psychiatric institutions, which had a strong impact on me — showing the stark contrast between public and private facilities. Inequality became a striking reality from an early age.
What was your family dynamic, and who were the key figures in your upbringing?
I’m the youngest and only son, with three older sisters. My father was a psychiatrist, a criminologist, and also earned a degree in philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires. Our house was full of encyclopedias and books that my father would bring to the table after long discussions during lunches and dinners.
Our home was also a constant gathering place for friends. I remember one occasion when someone came into the house and stayed for a long time — everyone assumed he was someone else’s friend, but in fact, he wasn’t anyone’s friend. He had just seen a lively group and an open door, and decided to join us.
My mother had to leave school when she was fifteen after her father died. Decades later, when she was around fifty, she finished high school and began university studies.
Who were the most influential people in your childhood, and what lessons did you learn from them?
Family and friends. I had a close group of friends, and I spent hours biking and playing football in the streets.
From my father and mother, I learned curiosity, empathy, and the idea that dignity isn’t about status but about how you show up for others. From my friends, I learned loyalty.
Beyond my immediate family, we had a large extended family that gathered often. I was, again, the youngest and the only boy. I have no doubt that this shaped me. If empathy tends to live more strongly on the feminine side, I surely absorbed it from all my sisters and cousins.
What is one of your earliest memories, and how do you think it shaped who you are today?
Simple memories come first — birthday gifts, going to the cinema with my grandfather, riding a horse with him. But one memory stands out: accompanying my father as he helped families after a river flooded a very poor neighborhood near our home. I watched how he spoke to people — calmly, personally — and how they responded with enormous dignity despite their terrible situation. It taught me that dignity is non-negotiable, and that being seen and listened to is, in itself, a form of care.
Were there any cultural or family traditions from your childhood that helped define your values?
My father was a liberal, with little sympathy for the military or for organized religion. Values in our house came through debate and books.
The 1983 elections in Argentina — my first vote — which ended the brutal dictatorship, made an enormous impression on me. I stayed up all night and, at dawn, bought every newspaper I could find at the kiosks. I still have them. That morning, democracy felt tangible — the air itself seemed different.
What motivated you to study what you studied?
Although not directly linked to my studies, an event some years later — while working with President Jimmy Carter in the Dominican Republic — gave a powerful boost to my commitment to human rights.
While walking through the streets of old Santo Domingo, a man who couldn’t reach Carter because of the security around him pulled me aside, handed me his card, and asked me to thank the former president for saving his life during the dictatorships in the Southern Cone.
When I told Carter in the car on our way back to the hotel, he said, his eyes filled with tears, “That’s exactly what it was all about — saving people’s lives. And nobody wanted to believe me.”
That moment stayed with me. The idea that power, when used with dignity, can save lives has guided every job I’ve had since.
When did you start working, and what did your first job involve?
I started working around the age of eighteen, in a juvenile tribunal. I began at the bottom — helping everyone, receiving requests for information about detainees. Every Monday, when I opened the office, several mothers were already waiting to find out about their sons, who had been arrested over the weekend, often for armed robbery. They were kids from my own neighborhood. I had the privilege of going to university while they were in detention. That’s when inequality stopped being something abstract for me.
How would you describe your current job and its responsibilities?
It’s an enormous responsibility to serve as Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the first organization created to promote the rule of law and human rights. Over the past seven decades, the ICJ has helped shape modern international human rights law and the institutions that uphold it. The world would undoubtedly be a more unjust place without the ICJ’s work.
My main duty is to support a group of sixty Commissioners from every region, representing different cultures, languages, and legal traditions, who speak with one voice in defense of the rule of law. When the Commission gives an opinion, it carries the moral and intellectual authority of the world’s leading jurists. To make that possible, I rely on an extraordinary staff from across the globe.
How will your background shape your leadership of the ICJ?
I sought all my work experiences deliberately — in government, multilateral institutions, civil society, and academia, both in the Global South and the Global North — in order to understand human rights from every angle. I’ve seen many times how our work fails because of a lack of understanding of the other’s position. My approach is to bridge those gaps: the independence of civil society, the leverage of states, and the norm-setting power of multilateral institutions — always under the conviction that the voice of victims is the most powerful one.
I often tell my students that the human rights movement rests on four pillars: states, treaties, multilateral organizations, and civil society. Of these four, civil society is the most important. Without it, the other three are lifeless. On the other hand, when you bridge those four pillars — engaging them toward a common goal — you see real progress.
The ICJ has described its mission as “progressively developing international law and standards.” What specific gaps in current international law do you intend to address most urgently?
After more than seventy years of the modern human rights movement, and considering today’s surge of neo-fascism, it’s sad to say that implementation, accountability, and memory are once again progressive ideas.
We have an extraordinary body of treaties, but too often they exist “in the cloud,” disconnected from daily life. The Wi-Fi isn’t working properly, and the great ideas remain up in the air. Implementation means bringing them back down to earth.
Accountability is simple: unless individuals and states responsible for violations — especially the powerful — are held to account, we will never see real progress. And memory is essential. Humanity is once again repeating the mistakes made before the Second World War. Forgetting is the first step toward repetition.
Your predecessor, Sam Zarifi, steered the ICJ through crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. What do you see as the next major global challenge to the rule of law that the ICJ must prepare for?
As Albert Einstein warned us, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Perhaps there is no “next.”
We have never been closer, since 1948, to the collapse of the principles and values that built the human rights and multilateral system. Attacks on migrants, the rollback of LGBT rights, the erosion of judicial independence, even the unlawful killing of civilians at sea — all these are becoming normalized. That normalization is our greatest danger, and we must fight it with all our strength.
You chaired the UN Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 Protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. What lessons from that investigation will you carry into your new role regarding accountability in politically sensitive situations?
It’s hard to find good lessons. You begin that kind of work wanting to make a difference, and soon realize change will be minimal — if any. But you still have a duty to speak truth to power.
The main lesson was the importance of dialogue with all parties, which at first seemed impossible. Everyone had the chance to present their views, and our findings were based solely on evidence and law. But accountability is impossible without political will. There cannot be first- and second-class countries and individuals — some above the law, others beneath it.
Given your experience at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and work with the African Commission, how will you ensure that regional perspectives inform the ICJ’s global strategies?
The perspective of the Global South is critical and, in my view, still underrepresented in institutions — whether intergovernmental or from civil society. Let’s be clear: the problem isn’t in the treaties themselves, but in how those norms are interpreted. The concept of the “Global South” that prevails is largely the one taught in North American or European academia, not the one understood in the streets of Beirut, São Paulo, Johannesburg, or Bangkok.
Having worked within the Inter-American system, and closely with the African Commission and ASEAN, I’ve seen how regional approaches can enrich global understanding. The Global South is a lens through which international norms should be interpreted. In International Geneva and other multilateral spaces, far too many actors talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.
International law often struggles with enforcement mechanisms. How can the ICJ influence states that resist accountability for human rights violations without coercive power?
That’s the million-dollar question. Most states prefer to look away. The idea that states will voluntarily comply with human rights obligations is unrealistic. Our role is to raise the political cost of impunity through rigorous legal work, public exposure, and coalitions with other NGOs. We don’t command; we persuade and empower local actors. When you combine judicial decisions with active national and international civil society organizations, you increase the chances of achieving meaningful results.
How do you balance advocating for universal human rights standards with respecting local legal and cultural contexts that may view these standards differently?
This question takes us back to the very foundation of human rights. In 1947, before the adoption of the Universal Declaration, UNESCO asked philosophers from around the world — from Gandhi to Huxley — to reflect on whether human rights could truly be universal. They found immense cultural diversity but also one common idea: the inherent dignity of every human being, and a shared set of rights they regarded as universal. They presented these ideas to the Human Rights Commission. They understood that universality itself was humanity’s greatest challenge. Yet we remain far from achieving a truly universal understanding of human rights.
Universality is a conversation, not an imposition. Around the world, norms, legal decisions, and constitutional reforms have successfully integrated Indigenous rights and collective identities into the broader human rights framework.
And as Hannah Arendt taught us in The Origins of Totalitarianism, the true foundation of human rights is “the right to have rights” — the political space where each human being can appear, be recognized, and be heard. Without that space, universality remains only theory.
As former Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, how do you see digital surveillance, online disinformation, and platform regulation reshaping this fundamental right today?
Today, the public sphere is largely privatized and algorithmic. The masters of the algorithms shape what billions of people see, think, and believe — not to promote truth, but simply to make more money by keeping us engaged. The longer someone stays on a platform, the more profit it generates. This logic rewards outrage and deepens polarization.
Freedom of expression no longer means protection only from the state; it must also include protection from unaccountable private power. Artificial intelligence compounds this challenge — it can generate misinformation, distort evidence, and manipulate emotions.
We need a global human rights framework for the digital age, based on algorithmic transparency, due process, and proportionality. Once again, as Arendt foresaw in her analysis of totalitarian propaganda, truth can disappear behind fake images and the loud screams of demagogues.
Many governments invoke national security or “fake news” laws to justify restricting speech. How should international legal bodies respond to this growing trend?
This trend is spreading rapidly. “Fake news” has become a political weapon used to silence dissent. Yet international law already provides the tools we need: restrictions on expression must be lawful, legitimate, necessary, and proportionate.
What we need are independent courts — and a global reaffirmation that truth cannot be defined by power. That is precisely the main problem today: the independence of the judiciary, the branch of government most capable of stopping authoritarianism, is not only under attack but increasingly delegitimized by governments that question its value. Once governments decide what is true, democracy dies.
Access to justice “for all without discrimination” is a core ICJ mandate. What strategies will you use to make this goal real for marginalized communities that are often overlooked by formal legal systems?
For most people in the world, justice — in a broad sense — is a total abstraction. Whether due to geographical, political, linguistic, cultural, or economic reasons, justice simply doesn’t exist for them. Laws are written in the sand.
At the ICJ, we focus on strategic litigation linked to real needs. Justice must travel to where people are; otherwise, it’s an empty promise. A justice system that does not reach the poor, the migrant, or the persecuted cannot claim to be just. In many countries, the law is the sword of the powerful rather than the shield of the vulnerable — when it should be exactly the opposite.
How can international legal organizations like the ICJ remain relevant to ordinary people who may see human rights law as distant, slow, or ineffective?
By transforming norms into tangible results. We should measure our work not by documents or statements, but by what people actually feel: safety from arbitrary power, truth for victims, reparation for loss, and freedom from fear.
Human rights must recover their moral language. They were never meant to be bureaucratic; they were meant to be revolutionary in defense of human dignity. The momentous revolution achieved in 1948 for the benefit of humankind is rapidly vanishing in the desks of authoritarians and in society’s fading memory of a world without human rights. Neo-fascism is gaining ground, while progressivism sleeps. We have to return to the trenches and revive the spirit of 1948. It remains a magical moment.
The ICJ is composed of 60 jurists from every region. How do you foster consensus among such diverse legal traditions while keeping the institution agile?
The ICJ’s strength lies precisely in its diversity — different legal systems, cultures, and languages united by a single purpose: justice. And in practice, it’s not that difficult. The lesson of the ICJ, after more than seventy years, is that when you rely on evidence and law, and pass all of that through the lens of the victims, there will only be one voice that unites all the different cultures, legal systems, and societies. That was — and still is — the magnificent beauty of the Universal Declaration, and that’s what the ICJ is all about. However, when you mix evidence and law with politics, you risk destroying human rights. Unfortunately, that has happened since the very beginning of the human rights movement. Fortunately, the ICJ has maintained a strictly human rights–based approach and has never deviated from its principles, even when doing so might have been politically convenient.
Global attention is shifting toward issues like climate change, digital privacy, and corporate accountability. Where should the ICJ focus its resources to have the greatest impact?
Given the world today, the answer could fill several books. A minimalist answer would include: ensuring the independence of the judiciary; universal ratification and compliance with human rights treaties; implementation of judicial and quasi-judicial decisions; modification and strengthening of the multilateral human rights system; and a victim-centered approach.
You’ve led human rights programs both inside and outside of government. What is the hardest lesson you’ve learned about engaging states that resist international scrutiny?
States respond not to courtesy, but to consistent pressure — from law, public opinion, and moral authority combined. You can speak truth to power, but only persistence transforms it. The hardest lesson is realizing that progress is not linear; it advances, retreats, and advances again. Our task is to keep walking, even when the path seems to vanish, particularly at a time when progress is becoming more difficult.
Looking ahead, what would success at the end of your five-year term look like to you—not just for the ICJ as an organization, but for the international rule of law as a whole?
Success would mean that the ICJ has effectively fought the current backlash against multilateralism and human rights, and remains recognized as the authoritative legal voice on the rule of law and human rights, as it has been for decades.
Which book, film, or piece of art has influenced how you see the world, and in what way?
Films — I can name many — but if I had to choose one, it would probably be the first Blade Runner. The cinematography, the poetry, and the message of empathy and the meaning of humanity are unparalleled.
For works of art, there are countless examples, but one I value enormously and have written about is Turner’s The Slave Ship — a sublime painting, proof that art can awaken moral truth, even before Picasso’s Guernica. I often tell my students that modern human rights were born not in 1948, but in 1781, during the voyage of the slave ship Zong from what is now Ghana to Jamaica. The crew threw over 130 enslaved Africans into the sea to claim insurance for their loss — an atrocity later defended in court as a financial dispute rather than mass murder. That is the image Turner captured in his painting. It triggered, together with other factors, the foundations of the human rights movement: civil society activism, the first international court, advocacy in the first multilateral congress (Vienna, 1815), and pins and posters to mobilize society. A new book on that story, Zorg, was recently published; I highly recommend it.
I’m also a fan of Harold Bloom, the literary critic who passed away a few years ago. Every book of Bloom’s opened several new doors for me to explore.
When you look at younger generations, what gives you hope and what worries you?
Youth and hope belong together, like sound to a mosquito, as García Márquez once said when referring to the relationship between journalism and freedom of the press. The young can dream of the future, while our own (over fifty) is becoming shorter.
What worries me is how social media and disinformation are shaping their sense of reality. We live in such a fast-paced environment that I hesitate to predict how they might react. The new generations — particularly social influencers — wield enormous power. A single tweet from Shakira, Taylor Swift, or a K-pop star advocating for human rights and the rule of law could have more impact than all human rights organizations combined. But will they use that power? So far, very little — unfortunately.
If you could spend a full day with any historical figure—not for their fame but for their mind—who would it be, and what would you ask them?
Breakfast with Hannah Arendt, lunch with Kant, and dinner with Hamlet.
If you had to teach a class on something completely unrelated to your career, what would you teach and why?
Photography. I practiced it as a child but never had a formal class. I used to develop my own black-and-white photos in my room, covering all the windows with black cardboard to stop the light. Once, I won an award from a German university for a photo of a fainting Che Guevara beside a brilliant Coca-Cola sign on the streets of La Paz, Bolivia.
If you could ensure that one value or principle is never lost in society, which would it be?
Allow me two: empathy and hope.
Empathy is what today’s far-right leaders lack — they simply don’t care about the vulnerable. Hope is what keeps the world moving, that “little thing with feathers that perches in the soul and never asks anything of us,” as Emily Dickinson wrote.
There’s a scene in The Sandman TV series that captures hope perfectly: When the King of Dreams enters Hell to reclaim his stolen helm, Lucifer decrees he may win it back only through the oldest game — a battle of imagination and transformation. If Dream loses, he will remain imprisoned forever, and dreams will vanish from humanity. Before a roaring infernal court, they face each other, naming what they “are,” each force defeating the last until one loses:
- Lucifer: I am a wolf, predator of the world.
- Dream: I am a serpent, poisonous and coiled, striking the wolf.
- Lucifer: I am a hawk, soaring to devour the serpent.
- Dream: I am a hunter, who kills the hawk.
- Lucifer: I am an angel, transcending the mortal hunter.
- Dream: I am a world, vast enough to contain angel and hunter alike.
- Lucifer: I am a supernova, burning and consuming the world.
- Dream: I am the cosmos, infinite and eternal.
- Lucifer: I am anti-life, the darkness, the end of all things.
Dream collapses. Lucifer, sensing victory, leans close, smiles mockingly, and whispers: “What power have you in Hell?”
And Dream, almost dead, responds: “Hope.”
Hell falls silent. Hope has beaten the Devil, and it always will. It keeps every victim of injustice, every survivor of human rights violations, standing and reminds us that even in the worst circumstances, hope endures.
Humanity is facing radical changes. To name just ten: geopolitical instability, climate change, economic inequalities, technological risks, public health challenges, political polarization, resource scarcity, humanitarian crises, misinformation, and disparities in global healthcare access. If, in an imaginative exercise, you had the power to solve one of these problems, which one would you choose and why?
If I could solve one, it would actually be two: indifference and poverty.
Indifference is the root of all others. Once people refuse to be indifferent, everything else — climate change, inequality, injustice — could be addressed. And poverty, because no human being can be truly free, equal, or dignified while condemned to live without the minimum conditions for survival.
What do you think humans owe each other, if anything at all?
Justice, dignity, and above all, the Kantian categorical imperative: to act only according to principles that could be universal laws, and to treat every human being never merely as a means, but always as an end in themselves. I consider this the foundation of the current universal system of human rights.
Interviews often focus on the latest positive news, or interviewees only share what went well. Could you share something from 2025 that didn’t go as expected and what you learned from it?
2025 was not an easy year. The rise of neo-fascism and isolationism, attacks on human rights, democracy, civil society, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights all intensified. It was a stark reminder that progress is never permanent. The lesson: resilience and solidarity are more necessary than ever.
What personal goals—if you feel comfortable sharing them—do you have for 2026?
To spend more time with my family and to steer the ICJ successfully through the global storms ahead.
In your final moments, what work-related news would you want to hear?
That fascism is truly dead, and that humanity finally learned the lessons it had long refused to remember.
Here, again, I recall Hannah Arendt, who wrote in Eichmann in Jerusalem: “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil.” That ordinariness — the transformation of normal people into agents of cruelty — is what we are witnessing again today.
Our challenge, once more, is to remain human, to resist indifference, and to remember that even in the worst moments, in “the strangest sea,” as Emily Dickinson wrote, hope is always our most powerful weapon.