Kenneth Roth - Biography

Kenneth Roth is an American attorney and has been the executive director of Human Rights Watch since 1993.

Background

Kenneth Roth, a graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, was drawn to human rights causes through his Jewish father's experience of fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938. His father would keep his three young sons quiet as he cut their hair by telling tales of their grandfather’s butcher shop in Frankfurt, Germany. As they grew older, he told them about living under the Nazis as a young boy and fleeing Germany in July 1938.

Jimmy Carter’s introduction of human rights as an element of US foreign policy in the late 1970s further inspired Roth to take on human rights as a vocation.

Prior to working at HRW, Roth worked in private practice as a litigator and served as a federal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington DC.

During the early years of his work in human rights movement, Roth focused on the Soviet imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981.

Roth joined Human Rights Watch in 1987 as deputy director. His initial work centered on Haiti, which was just emerging from the Duvalier dictatorship but continued to be plagued by brutal military rule. Since then, Roth has traveled the world over, pressing government officials of all stripes to pay greater respect to human rights.

His online bio on the HRW website states he has "special expertise on: issues of justice and accountability for atrocities committed in the quest for peace; military conduct in war under the requirements of international humanitarian law; counterterrorism policy, including resort to torture and arbitrary detention; the human rights policies of the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations; and, the human rights responsibilities of multinational businesses."

Roth has published numerous articles, newspaper op-eds, and articles in academic journals, covering a wide range of issues, including "Domestic Violence as an International Human Rights Issue", in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives; "The Case for Universal Jurisdiction"; "The Charade of US Ratification of International Human Rights Treaties"; and "The Law of War in the War on Terror - Washington's Abuse of Enemy Combatants" His twitter handle is @KenRoth.

Human Rights Watch

In 1987, Roth was hired by Aryeh Neier to be deputy director of HRW and since 1993 (when Neier left to become head of George Soros’ Open Society Institute), Roth has been the organization's executive director.

Under Roth’s leadership, Human Rights Watch has grown eight-fold in size and vastly expanded its reach. It now operates in more than 80 countries, among them some of the most dangerous and oppressed places on Earth.

During Roth’s tenure, Human Rights Watch has documented war crimes in Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq and Sierra Leone. Human Rights Watch researchers have testified at international tribunals. The organization has also done extensive work on child soldiers. The work of Human Rights Watch has helped to convict Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, Peru’s Alberto Fujimori and Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, among others, for crimes against humanity.

As a founding member of the International Campaign to ban Landmines, in 1997 Human Rights Watch shared the Nobel Peace Prize for helping bring about the Mine Ban Treaty.

Human Rights Watch History:

Criticism

Under Roth's leadership, Human Rights Watch has been criticized by the governments of numerous countries for perceived biases.

Rwanda

Fred Oluoch-Ojiwah, of Rwanda’s New Times newspaper, questions Roth’s impartiality and equates his criticism of Rwanda’s human rights record to a “love affair” with the “genocidaires” that carried out the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.

“As a western human rights personality [Roth]…will always fail to understand the intricacies and complexities surrounding the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi. Wrapping it up simplistically the way he has done will only serve to undo the gains already registered in driving the very delicate process of bringing forth a new dispensation in Rwanda and by extension the African Great Lakes region,” Oluoch-Ojiwah wrote.

Israel
Kenneth Roth has been criticized by the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor for allegedly being biased against Israel. Gerald M. Steinberg has been a long-time critic of Roth's role as head of Human Rights Watch from 1993. Writing in a 2004 Jerusalem Post article in response to Roth's op-ed in which Roth accused NGO Monitor of disregarding basic facts, "fictitious allegations of bias" and a "fantasy-based discourse" which "does a deep disservice to Israel",

In August 2006, during the war between Hezbollah and Israel, Roth rejected criticism of HRW’s allegations against Israel, writing in a letter to the editor of the The New York Sun: "An eye for an eye — or, more accurately in this case, twenty eyes for an eye — may have been the morality of some more primitive moment. But it is not the morality of international humanitarian law which Mr. Bell pretends to apply." In response, the head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) referred to Roth’s rhetoric as a reflection of "classic anti-Semitic stereotype about Jews".

In reaction to Richard Goldstone's recantation of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict report, HRW Founder Robert Bernstein said to the Jerusalem Post in April 2011, referring to Roth, that it "is time for him to follow Judge Goldstone’s example and issue his own mea culpa.”

Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has taken issue with the credibility of Roth’s accusations that Ethiopia’s government is corrupt and uses international aid funding for “repressive purposes.” The EHRC accused Roth of impartiality caused by a desire to “appease…wealthy financiers.” It cited his evaluation of the Democratic Institution Program (DIP) as “superficial” and claimed that his allegations of corruption were based on “poor methodology.” EHRC also called Roth’s recommendations a “contradiction” that called “for the promotion of human rights at the expense of human rights programs and their implementers.”

Honors/Awards

Doctor of Humane Letters, Brown University, 2011

Doctor of University, University of Ottawa, 2010

Doctor of Laws, Bowdoin College, 2009

William Rogers Award, Brown University, 2009

Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, Tufts University, 2004

Recently Published Articles

“No Safe Haven?,” Foreign Policy, May 26, 2011

“New Laws Needed To Protect Social Media,” Global Post, April 14, 2011

“Falling for Empty Talk on Human Rights,” International Herald Tribune, January 21, 2011

“Eat, Drink Human Rights,” Los Angeles Times, January 23, 2011

"9/11 Justice for New Yorkers," Guardian, November 16. 2010.

“Canada no longer leads on human rights,” Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 2010.

“The Abusers’ Reaction: Intensifying Attacks on Human Rights Defenders, Organizations, and Institutions,” Brown Journal of World Affairs, Spring/Summer 2010.

“Empty Promises? Obama’s Hesitant Embrace of Human Rights,” Foreign Affairs, March–April 2010.

“Geneva Conventions Still Hold Up,” Foreign Policy in Focus, Dec. 30, 2009.

“Don’t smear the messenger,” Jerusalem Post, Aug. 25, 2009.

“Death Squads: A Murderous Plague,” Far Eastern Economic Review, May 20, 2009.

“The power of horror in Rwanda,” Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2009.

“Justice or impunity: What will Kenya choose?” East African, April 3, 2009.

“G20: The summit must not forget human rights,” Guardian.com, April 2, 2009.

“Ballots and Bullets,” New York Times Book Review, March 22, 2009.

External links

• Official HRW Biography of Kenneth Roth