Kenneth Roth ’80 Discusses 30 Years of Righting Wrongs at Human Rights Workshop
Kenneth Roth ’80 drew from his nearly three decades at Human Rights Watch at a talk detailing the strategies the organization has used to fight human rights abuses around the world. At the Feb. 20 event hosted by the Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for International Human Rights4, Roth described how advocates can apply political pressure to advance human rights when avenues like courts are not available. The talk, “Does Human Rights Advocacy Make a Difference?,” was part of the Human Rights Workshop5 series.
Now the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Roth was previously executive director at Human Rights Watch, or HRW. In his nearly 30 years with the organization, Roth conducted investigative and advocacy missions around the world. He has also written hundreds of articles on human rights issues, including the conduct of war, the foreign policies of the major powers, the work of the United Nations, and the global contest between autocracy and democracy.
The purpose of human rights activists, Roth believes, is to alter the political calculus of governments and global actors who have made the decision to violate human rights. These actors deem their violations “rational” according to a cost-benefit analysis of what they can get away with or do to stay in power. Ultimately, according to Roth, advocates must make it more costly for these actors to blatantly violate human rights.
In the talk at Yale Law School, Roth explored his book, “Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments.” The book offers an insider’s view of the strategies used by Human Rights Watch to put pressure on governments to respect human rights. Roth began his talk by noting that, while most people are purportedly pro-human-rights, they tend to view human rights activism as well-intentioned but ineffectual. Roth complicated this narrative with a career of counterexamples.
While law students may be trained to view courts as the ideal path to sustained remedies to human rights abuses, Roth showed that other paths are possible. He discussed how Human Rights Watch usually operates in areas without a dependable court system or where there are no judicial remedies available — often because judges have been killed, compromised, or corrupted. In these environments, he said, activists must exert targeted political pressure that mimics the remedies sought by a court.
According to Roth, such political pressure is guided by several undercurrents. First, whether or not world leaders feel personal remorse, global actors in today’s world must at least purport to respect human rights in order to seek legitimacy and global recognition. Careful documentation of violations — so-called “naming and shaming” — is therefore delegitimizing, he noted. Second, Roth explained, activists can deploy the knowledge gained from such investigations in sympathetic capitols worldwide, urging friendly governments to condition attendance at summits, arms sales, or military aid on compliance with international human rights norms. Third, and only in rare instances, activists can seek prosecution of violators, either through the International Criminal Court or through domestic courts via the doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction, according to Roth.
Roth then turned to some of the case studies in his book. He detailed one on the Idlib province in northwestern Syria, where human rights advocates say Syrian and Russian armed forces repeatedly bombed civilian infrastructure, as documented in a HRW report. The challenge for the organization, Roth said, was that Syrian President Bashar Assad “had effectively no reputation left to lose” because he had dropped chemical weapons and barrel bombs on his own civilians. Yet at the time, Roth explained, Russian President Vladimir Putin still cared deeply about his reputation in Europe, and Assad remained dependent on the Russian Federation for assistance. HRW thus conducted a three-year investigation and chain-of-command analysis, concluding that Putin wanted to maintain relations with Germany, France, and Turkey. HRW then gradually pressured all three governments to raise the Idlib issue on their diplomatic agendas. Starting in March 2020, the strategy proved successful: the bombings stopped.
Turning to another case study, Roth discussed the M23 rebel group in Eastern Congo, which was effectively controlled by the Rwandan government. When Rwanda President Paul Kagame invaded a decade ago, HRW began documenting how the Rwandan government was providing military support to the M23 group. Kagame publicly denied providing the support initially, but HRW produced three comprehensive reports demonstrating the link between the Rwandan government and the M23. The international community then began recognizing the crisis.
Ultimately, HRW advocated for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his British equivalent, Foreign Secretary William Hague, to call Kagame and condition military aid on his cutting ties with the M23. The strategy was successful, and M23 crumbled without Kagame’s support. Eight years later, the M23 has seen a resurgence. Though Kagame continues to present himself as a respected statesman, the International Criminal Court has reopened their investigation against him.
In his book, Roth describes other advocacy strategies HRW has pursued. In China, the organization sought to stop Xi Jinping’s detention of Uyghurs. It advocated to deprive Hungary and Poland from their EU subsidies to stymie the risk of autocracy within Europe. In the U.S., it gathered evidence to advocate against the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo under former President George W. Bush and to reassess the U.S. military’s proportionately analysis in bombings.
Looking to the present, Roth discussed strategies for steering U.S. President Donald Trump toward respecting human rights. In a recent Guardian essay6, Roth writes about what he has learned from three decades of dealing with autocrats and how to apply those lessons to Trump. He writes that Trump sees himself as a master negotiator, so to hit him where he cares, advocates must show that he is a bad dealmaker on human rights. For instance, Roth writes, the temporary ceasefire in Gaza suggests that Trump has the capacity to apply pressure in a positive direction. However, he continues, Trump’s subsequent push for a deal to force two million Palestinians out of Gaza “would be a blatant war crime.”
To reroute Trump, Roth writes, advocates should urge him to be the master negotiator behind a Middle Eastern deal that would appease the Saudis with the assurance of a concrete pathway to a Palestinian state and move Netanyahu away from his steadfast opposition to a Palestinian state. In this way, according to Roth, Trump may be in a better position than former President Joe Biden to negotiate with Trump-like leaders.
Regarding Ukraine, Roth writes, activists should similarly frame negotiations with Russia as an opportunity for Trump to show off his negotiating skills — and if Trump capitulates and cedes vast territory to Russia, he will be perceived as the ”21st century Neville Chamberlain.” According to Roth, activists should present human rights as an opportunity for Trump to make deals, while making it clear that Trump will be seen as a bad businessman if the deals fail.
Finally, Roth spoke about his time at Yale Law School. When he was a student, the Law School offered a single human rights course and it was ultimately canceled, according to Roth. Now, human rights opportunities abound. Yet human rights courses continue to emphasize the judiciary as the primary mechanism for effective remedies, Roth said. He implored students to explore the political process as a less-studied but parallel legal method of advocacy.
