René Blattmann

In early 1994, Swiss-Bolivian lawyer René Blattmann receives a late-night call from Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, which significantly changes his life. Over the next three years, he implements a comprehensive reform of the legal system as Minister of Justice and Human Rights, including the Ley Blattmann (Lex Blattmann), which primarily benefits the indigenous population, the majority of the people, who had previously been subjected to the arbitrariness of the judiciary. Thanks to the reform, René Blattmann enjoys great popularity in the country and thus runs for the next presidential election. When he withdraws his candidacy, former dictator Hugo Banzer Suárez returns to power in 1997 – along with the old order.

After leading the human rights department of the two-year UN peace mission in Guatemala, he runs again for the presidency in Bolivia in 2002 – unsuccessfully. René Blattmann ultimately reaches the pinnacle of his career when he is elected as a judge at the newly established International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2003. He is involved in the proceedings and the first judgment of the court: Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2012. Today, René Blattmann lives near Basel.

Journalist Maurus Held narrates the tension-filled story of René Blattmann, whose life spans Latin America and Europe and his commitment to human rights in a literarily compelling manner.