How to Battle Abusive Governments? Kenneth Roth on the Strategies and Impact of Human Rights Watch

“The ability to shame depends foremost on the public sense of right and wrong. You can cite a human rights treaty but that is not going to be enough to persuade people. You got to be able to show them that the government’s conduct is wrong in a waythat they feel viscerally.”

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy,Kenneth Roth – who is about to publish Righting Wrongs. Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments – explains what has made the strategies of Human Rights Watch distinct in the world of humanrights-related advocacy and activism, and discusses cases where they managed to have a real impact; considers how the extension of the catalogue of human rights over time has shaped their interests and profile; reflects on HRW’s relationship with different types of governments; and explains how HRW has related to the question of humanitarian intervention and drawn on international humanitarian law across the decades.

Kenneth Roth acted as the executive director of Human Rights Watch between 1993 and 2022.

Righting Wrongs. Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments is published by Knopf.