Amnesty International Secretary General Anges Callamard says every government has a moral responsibility to uphold international law. Photo/ Getty Images
‘Thank you, Mr President.’ Donald Trump won’t be hearing those words any time soon from Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s fiery Secretary General, who’s also fired some broadsides at New Zealand before her visit here next week.
Human rights activist Agnes Callamard doesn’t romanticise heroes.
Her grandfather Leon, a leader of the French resistance during World War II, was publicly executed by the Nazis four days before the Allies liberated Paris.
Every year, on August 15, her family still gathers to commemorate his death at the place where he was shot, a ritual that marked the rhythmic beats of her childhood. In his family life, however, Leon was no saint.
“I learned from very early on that you can be a hero and you can be an asshole,” says Callamard, whose candid and often contentious advocacy as Secretary General of Amnesty International has frequently seen her viewed as both. “But as a child, I knew there was a way of being in the world and the greatest price to be paid.”
Responsible for Amnesty’s global strategy and leading its human rights work, Callamard is visiting New Zealand next week for the first time since taking up the role in 2021.
As an activist dedicated to holding those in power to account, she’s ruffled enough feathers to become a potential target herself.
She shrugs off questions about that, but there are certain airlines she won’t fly with, certain countries where it might be unwise to catch a connecting flight. No need to be stupid and give people a chance to do stupid things.
“Self-awareness is a mark of good leadership,” says Callamard, who has conducted human rights investigations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
“I know that I am a risk taker. So, I try to control it to a certain extent and I certainly control it for my colleagues. Maybe less for me.”
In her previous posting, as the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, death threats followed her 2019 investigation into the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Her report concluded there was “credible evidence” the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and other senior officials were responsible for Khashoggi’s assassination.
In the Philippines, she came under attack for her investigation into the extrajudicial killings related to President Rodrigo Duterte‘s war on drugs. (Duterte was arrested for crimes against humanity in March.)
An equal opportunity critic, Callamard also found the United States’ drone attack that killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in 2020 had breached international law, citing a lack of sufficient evidence to show it was justified by an imminent threat to life.
That strike was ordered by US President Donald Trump, then in his first term. It’s fair to say their relationship has deteriorated since then.
Amnesty International’s latest annual report, released in April, warns the “Trump effect” is accelerating a global human rights crisis – thrusting the world into a “brutal new era characterised by intermingling authoritarian practices and corporate greed”.
The White House views it differently, referring to Trump as “the peace President” after last week’s announcement of a US-led ceasefire deal in Gaza.
The first phase of the plan had just been revealed when the Herald spoke to Callamard, who flies into Auckland on Tuesday.
The future of Gaza, and the necessity for sustained diplomatic pressure towards a two-state solution, will undoubtedly be on her agenda when she speaks on “humanity, justice and hope in action” at free public lectures in Auckland and Wellington.
Last December, an Amnesty International investigation found Israel had “unleashed hell” and alleged it was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. About 67,000 people have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, including, at last count, 224 humanitarian aid workers in the two-year war since Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing more than 1200 and taking 251 hostages.
Callamard says her staff on the ground in Gaza have been facing starvation and – for the first time in her career as a human rights activist – she has been powerless to help them.
Despite expressing an “enormous sense of relief” at the break in hostilities, any sense of optimism is tempered by the lack of a framework for peace that addresses the conflict’s root causes.
Also evident is her barely contained fury over what she bluntly describes as America’s complicity in a live-streamed genocide.
“Donald Trump has come up with a peace plan. Great. Before that, the US has been providing Israel with weapons that have been used to exterminate entire generations of families; to bomb schools, hospitals and universities to oblivion,” she says.
“The brutality of what was happening meant a ceasefire had become absolutely crucial. But the fact that Donald Trump could muster the kind of influence to bring Israel to negotiate is not new.
“From day one, the only country that could make the genocide stop, besides Israel, was the United States. So the fact that they have suddenly decided to use this influence, are we supposed to thank them?”
Callamard, who’s based in London, has been in Fiji and Tuvalu this week to present an Amnesty investigation into climate displacement in the Pacific. The impact of rising sea levels has already made some coastal areas uninhabitable.
One of the issues she’ll be raising here is New Zealand’s lack of specific climate-related visas for Pacific Islanders impacted by climate change.
Our current immigration pathways that exclude older people, and those with disabilities or a medical condition, have also been called out for violating international human rights law.
In fact, according to Amnesty International’s scorecard, New Zealand has little cause to be smug.
Its 2025 report, “The State of the World’s Human Rights”, criticises new legislation that undermines Māori rights, including the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, the abolition of the Māori Health Authority and the erosion of Māori wards.
Also highlighted is New Zealand’s fall by seven places to 41st in the Climate Change Performance Index, and the undermining of environmental protections under the Fast-track Approvals Bill.
Callamard has noted New Zealand’s decision not to recognise Palestine as a state, a stance that was out of step with traditional allies such as Britain, Australia, Canada and France but a similar position to countries such as Singapore, South Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. It’s clear Callamard thinks it’s time we lifted our game.
“There have been moments in your history where New Zealand not only was able to punch above its weight, it actually set the tone for how the international community should act on certain matters,” she says.
“We are living in a complete vacuum of moral leadership from the powerful states. The US? China? Russia itself leading a massive war of aggression. Europe de-united and ridiculous at many levels.
“When I speak about the disintegration of the international legal system, it is not just that international law is violated. It has been violated before.
“What is happening now is that those who are violating the law are arguing that the law does not apply to them, or that the law is irrelevant. And that is why we are entering a different era.
“Every government in the world has a moral responsibility to help us avoid falling completely into the abyss, and come together to reset some of the rules.
“Under no circumstances should New Zealand hide behind its size, or its lack of economic or military power, to say it has no vote to play.”
Amnesty International has been closely monitoring what it calls “absolutely shameful” events in Britain, where hundreds of protesters have been arrested for supporting Palestine Action, designated as a terrorist group by the British Government.
Amnesty has its roots in England, where it was founded in 1961 to campaign for the release of prisoners of conscience, before widening its brief to include economic, social and cultural rights.
Hundreds of current projects include supporting prisoners on death row, highlighting the plight of asylum seekers, an annual Write for Rights global letter-writing campaign, and the case of a young woman imprisoned in Angola for criticising the country’s President in a TikTok video.
Before the Paris Olympics last year, Amnesty called for the ban on Muslim women wearing hijabs while competing in France to be overturned, because it was excluding them from sport.
About 85% of the organisation’s budget is funded by members – more than 10 million of them. Amnesty’s profile may have fallen in recent years, but the global membership is increasing.
Callamard believes collective action remains a powerful tool, with Gen Z leading the way.
“In Hong Kong, all the young people who were marching are either in prison or outside Hong Kong. There is nothing they could do against China,” she says.
“But Iran is ongoing. In Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the governments moved out. Let’s see what will happen in Morocco.
“In just one month, you have an enormous movement of young people who are so influential and inspiring in their determination to ensure they are heard.
“You should not underestimate the influence of those movements. It’s bringing governments to fold.
“The question is, how do we sustain that? How do we move from a government falling to bringing social change? That is much deeper and that’s always a more difficult transformation.”
Just as the people who killed Callamard’s grandfather were never held personally liable, many other perpetrators of human rights violations will never be held to account in a criminal court of law.
Justice is a slow process that comes in many forms, and she’s made peace with that. Truth-telling, she believes, carries its own power.
Now in her early 60s, she hasn’t lived a traditional life and has never had children. “I don’t know how I would have managed it,” she says.
One of her most transformative experiences as a young woman was the year she spent in the late 80s earning a master’s degree in international and African studies at Howard University in Washington DC.
One of only a handful of white students at the majority black college, Callamard later realised it had been like living in a completely different country.
“It gave me access to a side of the United States that you do not access if you live in white America.”
A more conventional pathway might have led her into politics. That, however, would have required Callamard to curb her tongue.
“Will I get a big job at the UN? No, probably not,” she says, when asked what being a gadfly has cost her. “But I’ve never had that kind of ambition.
“I’m more than privileged compared to so many others, and I intend to use every bit of influence, power and energy that I have to do the right thing.
“All I have is people’s attention and that’s good enough for me.”
Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior writer who’s been with the Herald since 2020.