Kenneth Roth
Encyclopedia
Kenneth Roth is an American
attorney and has been the executive director
of Human Rights Watch
since 1993.
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-ed
s, and articles in academic journal
s, 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.
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:
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.”
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
“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.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
attorney and has been the executive director
Executive director
Executive director is a term sometimes applied to the chief executive officer or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. It is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though in recent decades many U.S. nonprofits have adopted the title "President/CEO"...
of Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
since 1993.
Background
Kenneth Roth, a graduate of Yale Law SchoolYale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
and Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, was drawn to human rights causes through his Jewish father's experience of fleeing Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
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-ed
Op-ed
An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite the editorial page , is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper's editorial board...
s, and articles in academic journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
s, 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 NeierAryeh Neier
Aryeh Neier is an American human rights activist who serves as the president of the Open Society Institute and had earlier been Executive Director of Human Rights Watch and National Director of the American Civil Liberties Union....
to be deputy director of HRW and since 1993 (when Neier left to become head of George Soros
George Soros
George Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
’ Open Society Institute
Open Society Institute
The Open Society Institute , renamed in 2011 to Open Society Foundations, is a private operating and grantmaking foundation started by George Soros, aimed to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform...
), Roth has been the organization's executive director
Executive director
Executive director is a term sometimes applied to the chief executive officer or managing director of an organization, company, or corporation. It is widely used in North American non-profit organizations, though in recent decades many U.S. nonprofits have adopted the title "President/CEO"...
.
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
NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor is a non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem, Israel whose stated aim is to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy makers, journalists, philanthropic organizations and the...
for allegedly being biased against Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Gerald M. Steinberg
Gerald M. Steinberg
Gerald M. Steinberg is an Israeli academic and political scientist.-Biography:Gerald M. Steinberg obtained his doctorate in government from Cornell University, in 1981. M.A. Government Department, Cornell University, 1978. M.Sc. Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, 1975. B.A...
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
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, 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
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
(ADL) referred to Roth’s rhetoric as a reflection of "classic anti-Semitic stereotype about Jews".
In reaction to Richard Goldstone
Richard Goldstone
Richard Joseph Goldstone is a South African former judge. After working for 17 years as a commercial lawyer, he was appointed by the South African government to serve on the Transvaal Supreme Court from 1980 to 1989 and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa from 1990 to 1994...
's recantation of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, known as the Goldstone Report, was a team established in April 2009 by the United Nations Human Rights Council during the Gaza War as an independent international fact-finding mission to investigate alleged violations of international...
report, HRW Founder Robert Bernstein
Robert Bernstein
Robert Bernstein , sometimes credited as R. Berns, was an American comic book writer. He is best known for his work superhero work on DC Comics' Superman, and in establishing the origin and most of the mythos of Aquaman....
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, 2011Doctor 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.