“The Autocrats Feel Emboldened:” Kenneth Roth on the Fight for Human Rights

WALTER ISAACSON: Thank you, Paula. And Kenneth Roth, welcome back to the show.

 

KENNETH ROTH: Very nice to be with you.

 

ISAACSON: You’ve led Human Rights Watch for 30 years and now you’re out with a book about it. It’s called “Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments.” Take us back to what in, first inspired your interest in human rights.

 

ROTH: A big part of it was my father’s experience. He fled Nazi Germany in July, 1938 as a 12-year-old boy heading to New York. And so I grew up with Hitler stories of what it was like to be a young Jewish boy living under the Nazis. And that made me very aware of the evil the governments could do and made me determined to devote my life to try to stop that kind of conduct.

 

ISAACSON: Are we backsliding now from the human rights fight?

 

ROTH: Well, this is clearly a difficult moment in the sense that, you know, Trump has arrived, the autocrats feel emboldened. But I actually think it’s a complicated time for autocrats. The two most prominent ones, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have both made big mistakes because they operate in an echo chamber with no debate allowed. You know, Putin invaded Ukraine. Xi Jinping is destroying the economy. When you look around the world, people living under autocracy don’t want it. They come into the streets at risk of arrest or even being shot. And, you know, sometimes they succeed in places like Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. Other times they don’t. I mean, in Belarus, Russia, Uganda, Hong Kong. But the people make their preferences clear. I think the real challenge today is in established western democracies – where people who feel left behind that democracy is not delivering to them, that they’re not respected, they’re not heard – are ripe for the autocrats’ appeal. And I think the real challenge now is to bolster the established democracies. The people who live under autocracies don’t want it. It’s the people in democracies who are having second thoughts.

 

ISAACSON: Are you talking about the United States?

 

ROTH: Well, certainly the United States, but if you look throughout Europe, the far right parties are doing well. Often, you know, most typically they don’t gain power with the exception of, you know, of Hungary with Viktor Orban. But they are threatening. And that you know, I think is a concern, and it speaks to the difficulty these governments have of really answering to the day-to-day needs of their entire society. 

 

ISAACSON: I always think of you and Human Rights Watch in places like China or Russia where there’s, you know, gross violations of human rights. Are you, do you think the human rights community should be involved in Western Europe elections now?

 

ROTH: Well, the human rights community has been involved in the West. We always have. And you know, the idea that democracies don’t violate human rights, that’s just not true. You know, think back to the George W. Bush administration, the systematic torture. They’re sending people to Guantanamo for endless attention without charge or trial. So yes, we do have to monitor western democracies, and that’s not even talking about, you know, how they wage wars. You know, if you look at how Israel is conducted itself in Gaza. So there you know, we are an equal opportunity monitor and reporter. And we’ve gotta look, you know, at the classic autocrats, but also at the established democracies

 

ISAACSON: You just said about how Israel has waged war in Gaza. Let me read you something you read. You said “No one can justify a war crime by contending that the other side committed war crimes too.” I assume you were talking about Israel. Is that what happened there? And what could we have done?

 

ROTH: Well, that is a basic rule of international humanitarian law, the Geneva conventions and their like, which is, you know, ’cause in war everybody charges the other side with war crimes. And so if that were enough to justify your own war crimes, there quickly would be no, no protection for civilians. But the rule is that, you know, even if one side, say Hamas committed war crimes on October 7th, which it did by killing and abducting civilians and holding them for months on end, that does not justify Israel’s own war crimes. It’s indiscriminate bombardment, it’s attacks with hugely disproportionate civilian consequences, the starvation strategy, the destruction of hospitals. So it’s important to keep that distinction straight and to monitor each side by the terms of international humanitarian law.

 

ISAACSON: What, what should we have done?

 

ROTH: Well, you know, I think Joe Biden never really used the leverage that he had. He pressed the Netanyahu government to, you know, end his starvation strategy to pay more attention to the bombing and the toll that was taking on civilians. The only thing he did was to suspend the delivery of these huge 2000 pound bombs that were decimating neighborhoods. But otherwise, he continued the military aid, he continued the armed sales, and Netanyahu thought that, okay, you know, I’ll put up with a few verbal protests, but he is not stopping me. He could have been much tougher and could have saved many, many lives.

 

ISAACSON: You’ve written too about it, that “No aspect of our work was more closely scrutinized than our reporting on Israel.” And I think it rebounded on you personally at times you had to deal with it. Tell me about that.

 

ROTH: Yes. Well, there is no country out there that has a more organized group of defenders than Israel. So at Human Rights Watch, we knew that every time we published something critical about Israel, we would be lambast. That was just life. And so I personally scrutinized everything we put out to make sure that it was factually accurate, that it was principled in its application of humanitarian or human rights standards, that we were applying the same standards as every place else in the world. And once it passed my scrutiny, we put it out.
When I was then accused of being antisemitic, which is a very common criticism, you know, I would say you’re cheapening the concept of antisemitism. This is a very important concept. Jews around the world are endangered by antisemitism, but if people think that this just becomes an excuse to defend Israel, you’re gonna be harming Jews around the world. And it’s important to say that. Otherwise this kind of misuse of antisemitism will continue to try to cover up Israeli war crimes and the like.

 

ISAACSON: And you think there have been Israeli war crimes? 

 

ROTH: Oh, there is no question that there have been Israeli war crimes. I’ve written extensively on this. The use of these huge bombs to decimate entire neighborhoods is completely contrary to the rules of war that say you’ve gotta target particular military targets, not treat entire neighborhoods as fair game. You know, similarly, Israel, it’s now becoming clear by just the Israeli media’s own reporting, would justify killing up to 20 civilians just to go after one Hamas fighter. That’s a clearly illegal war crime, disproportionate attack. And then finally, if you just look at the starvation strategy, the fact that during the current temporary cease fire, suddenly the food is flowing in, people are okay, just highlights how much the starvation up until the beginning of this temporary ceasefire was a deliberate Israeli policy.

 

ISAACSON: And I know that can’t be justified by Palestinian war crimes, but what did you think when you saw this past week when the bodies of the Israeli hostages and the way they were treated and how they were returned?

 

ROTH: Hamas is despicable. I never defend Hamas. You know, they’re a military dictatorship in Gaza. The atrocities they committed on October 7th were horrible. They have, should never been holding the hostages. They’ve been mistreating them. They’ve been forcing them to go through these, you know, charades to demonstrate Hamas’ power. All of that, you know, many of, much of that is a war crime itself. But as I mentioned, that does not justify Israel’s own war crimes. Just as you know, Hamas’ tendency to hide behind civilians, to use human shields does not relieve Israel of the responsibility still not to launch indiscriminate attacks, not to attack when the harm to civilians will be disproportionate.

 

ISAACSON: And what do you think in terms of human rights issues of the plan Trump has been pushing, I think, to clear Palestinians out of Gaza?

 

ROTH: Yeah, I mean, this would be, you know, not only a massive war crime, it would be a crime against humanity. Article 49 of the fourth Geneva Convention prohibits forcibly deporting or expelling the civilian population of occupied territory. Trump is just ripping that up and saying, let’s do it anyway.

Now, you know, the rest of the Arab world is saying, no way. They remember 1948, the so-called nakba war catastrophe where Palestinians were forced out of the new state of Israel, given a one-way ticket and never allowed back. That clearly, you know, as Trump has said, is the plan with the 2 million Palestinians that are living in Gaza today but the rest of the Arab states are saying, no way, we’re not gonna be complicit in that war crime.

 

ISAACSON: When you talk about human rights abuses, you often focus rightly, I think, on Vladimir Putin and what Russia has done, and then what Russia’s doing in Ukraine. What would happen if in the next two weeks there is a peace imposed, I could say, or maybe just a peace agreed to in the region in which Putin gets to keep a lot of disputed territory and Ukraine is not allowed in NATO.

 

ROTH: Well, you know, Walter, I think that in fact, those two possibilities are quite likely, but that’s not really the issue. I don’t think anybody feels that it’s gonna be possible for Ukraine to recapture the territory that Russia has occupied. Formal NATO invitations are just not on the table. But what Ukraine is looking for is a real security guarantee. A guarantee that Russia won’t use a ceasefire to just re-arm and reinvade in a year or two. And that is what, you know, Trump needs to offer. The Europeans are very much willing to put that on the table. But if Trump just says, take the ceasefire, go home, we’re not gonna worry about anything else. That will be essentially, you know, the appeasement, the 21st century equivalent of Neville Chamberlain. That will be, you know, a horrible deal that Trump, the supposed master negotiator, would be complicit in.

 

ISAACSON: What is the role of shame that you use in pursuing human rights?

 

ROTH: Well, in today’s world, every government has to pretend to respect human rights. This is a basic aspect of their legitimacy. Now, we know that many governments don’t. And what Human Rights Watch does in a sense, is shine a spotlight on that discrepancy. We investigate carefully what they’re doing, report on the misconduct. And that difference between pretense and reality is embarrassing, it’s delegitimizing and it’s shameful. Governments go to great lengths to resist it.

Now, it doesn’t mean that a dictator has personal remorse. I’m not trying to do, you know, a psychological conversion here. But in order to maintain legitimacy, in order to maintain this pretense that they’re serving their people, not themselves, they wanna be seen as human rights respecters. That’s what gives Human Rights Watch the power to show that that pretense is not reality.

 

ISAACSON: So Human Rights Watch, you know, does it in a private way, fighting for human rights around the world. And I think you sometimes pressure the US government to take stances in favor of human rights. How do you divide up what a non-governmental organization like yourself should do and what you think the US government should do?

 

ROTH: Well, Human Rights Watch, in addition to reporting on human rights violations, and, you know, shining, shining a spotlight of shame on the abuser. We also go to influential governments that purport to support human rights in their foreign policies. Not just the United States, but most of Europe and parts of Latin America and the like. And so that, in a sense, diplomatic side is very important because we will say, okay, what does the target government care about? And how can we deprive them of that until they improve their human rights practices? And they always want something. You gotta look at what they want. So it could be, you know, a military aid package, it could be an arm sale, it could be preferential trade benefits. Sometimes it’s just getting invited to a fancy summit so they can be photographed with legitimate leaders to show the folks back home that, you know, I’m okay ’cause look who I hang out with. So we will go to the leader of a democratic country and say, don’t give them that until they change. Now, you know, traditionally we do this a lot with the US government. Under Trump, I don’t have great confidence. But, you know, we’ve lived through Trump before and we’ve done it with others.

I described in the book – in fact, I open up – an effort to get Putin to stop bombing civilians in Idlib province in northwestern Syria…and this was during the Trump administration, the first one. Trump was not gonna be a reliable ally here, but it was by turning to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and the Turkish president Erdogan. We persuaded those three to pressure Putin to stop bombing hospitals and apartment buildings and markets and the like in Idlib. And it stopped in March, 2020. It stopped entirely for three years. It revived a little bit after that. And then that was the territory from which this rebel group came to overthrow the Assad government. So that made a huge difference for the people on the ground. They no longer feared death from the skies. And that was possible really, because we worked with democracies to put pressure on the target.

 

ISAACSON: You know, you begin your chapter on China by arguing that it’s the biggest threat to human rights today. And here’s a sentence that was sort of notable. “Beijing’s actions, if unchecked, portends a dystopian future in which no one is beyond the reach of Chinese censors.” Unpack that for me.

 

ROTH: Well, the Chinese government is in my view, the greatest threat because it devotes enormous resources from the world’s second largest economy to try to suppress criticism of it around the world. So it’s not simply that it represses dissent within China, but it uses the threat of denying access to the Chinese market to censor people around the world. It uses transnational repression. If you’re a, you know, a Uyghur dissident in New York, your parents back at home are gonna be threatened if you don’t shut up, you know? And so they are really quite ruthless in trying to prevent criticism. They go the next step. They’re actually trying to rewrite human rights law, which is quite detailed about, you know, not only things like freedom of the media or free, you know, free speech, the right to due process, also economic and social rights, the right to housing and all. They wanna reduce everything to basically, are we expanding the economy? Do we provide security? And are people happy? You know, however they measure that. And this is a kind of a radical dumbing down of the very detailed human rights standards to try to make Xi Jinping look good. To say the economy’s growing, that’s all you need to know. And that would is a real, you know, a real threat to the human rights movement. Nobody else is attempting something so radical.

 

ISAACSON: There have been these cuts in USAID and DOGE, Elon Musk going and cutting th – how does the perhaps potential decimation of our soft power affect our ability on human rights?

 

ROTH: Well, you know, with the global effect of USAID, on the one hand, you know, it’s an incredibly important institution to provide, you know, basic healthcare, basic education, basic sanitation, you know, things that people need in poor countries all the time. The other thing that I’m worried about is that by destroying USAID, Trump is essentially giving a gift to autocrats because a big part of what USAID does, this may not be as widely known, is that it promotes human rights defenders, independent journalists, democracy promoters, you know, the kinds of independent voices that autocrats hate. And a lot of these are being forced to shut down because Trump has turned off the spigot.

 

ISAACSON: Let me read something your successor has said, ’cause this dealing with Trump may be the biggest issue you face now along with China and Putin. And the current executive director said, wrote last November, “Donald Trump has made no secret of his intent to violate human rights of millions of people in the United States.” Is that, do you think the Human Rights Watch will now take on Donald Trump? 

 

ROTH: Well, we have to, you know, in other words, if his deportation scheme with undocumented migration leads to, again, family separation or needless detention or, you know, various physical abuses against migrants, we’re gonna have to look at that. If his, you know, attacks on DEI reintroduces racial discrimination into the criminal justice system, we have to look at that. And of course, in his foreign policy, you know, I do still think that there are openings to move Trump. Because, you know, on the one hand, yes, this guy, you know, can’t find an autocrat, he doesn’t want to cozy up to, you know. He flouts human rights standards, but he also sees himself as a master deal maker. And that gives us an opening because if he ignores human rights, he’s gonna make bad deals. You know, in Gaza, he want, he played a useful role in forcing that Netanyahu to agree to the current temporary ceasefire. If he wants his bigger, you know, regional deal, the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, he’s gonna have to push Netanyahu to accept a Palestinian state. If he did that, he would deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. So I think that we can, you know, push him in a positive direction, playing on his ego, playing on his desire for recognition. And, you know, it may or may not work, but I think this is our best strategy to try to make progress.

 

ISAACSON: Ken Roth, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.

ROTH: Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed our conversation.