These interviews highlight the work of several individuals active in the human rights movement. At some point in their lives, the issue of DNA technology and how it relates to human rights has become an important aspect of their work. The interviews were conducted by Harry Kreisler, Executive Director of the Institute for International Studies at U.C. Berkeley, as part of project entitled, Conversations with History. Conversations with History can be found in its entirety at: http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations

Peter Neufeld
A cofounder of the Innocence Project, discusses the important role that forensic DNA evidence can play in the criminal justice system. With a passion for social change and a strong desire to prevent civil liberty violations, Neufeld feels that it is essential that the process of DNA testing become established as normative evidentiary procedure and that incarcerated criminals are given access to the technology if they believe that it can offer information on their guilt or innocence. With the irrefutable evidence that DNA can provide, Neufeld hopes ultimately to reform the U.S. criminal justice system.

Shari Eppel
Discusses the ongoing work that she is pursuing to identify murder victims of political terror in Zimbabwe. In Matebeland, exhumation and proper reburial is critical, not for purposes of forensic inquiry, but because of its critical role in assuaging the spiritual unrest of violently murdered and improperly buried ancestors. The exhumation and reburial process has come to play a critical role in healing and rebuilding as families and communities attempt to reconcile years of political unrest and violence. Eppel discusses the experiences that led her to this current project and the human rights implications of her work.

William Haglund
Is a forensic anthropologist and Director of the International Forensic Program of Physicians for Human Rights. Haglund discusses his journey from domestic to international forensic work. Most notably, he has worked with the prosecutor's offices for the UN ad hoc international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda exhuming mass graves and identifying bodies to be used later as evidence in war crimes prosecutions.

Eric Stover
Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. Stover previously served as the Director of the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and as the Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights. He discusses the role the forensic sciences and DNA analysis has played in identifying the remains of the "disappeared" worldwide.