Interview

Kenneth Roth is an American attorney, human rights activist and writer. He was the executive director of Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2022. Currently, he is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Well, it’s been a lot more fun than I thought. Before, I was worried about not having this steady network of information about issues around the world and not having the colleagues, but I have to say, I haven’t missed the fundraising, I haven’t missed the management, and I’ve been able to continue doing the fun part of the job, which is to write and speak about the most important human rights issues. I’ve published a book [Righting Wrongs, 2025] and so it’s been a good three years.

I think it is largely continuing as it was. The essence of the organisation, which is careful research and documentation to support principled human rights positions, is what it does. It continues to have the ability to secure very significant media coverage and influence in key capitals to maximise pressure on abusive governments. All of that is still very much continuing.

I started in the human rights field, in part, driven by the experience of my father. He grew up in Nazi Germany and fled as a 12-year-old boy in July 1938 for New York. I grew up listening to stories about Hitler, hearing what it was like to be a young boy worried about the brown shirts beating you up in the playground, or worried about the Nazis arresting my grandfather. I became very aware of the evil that governments could do, and that was a big factor in pushing me to want to try to prevent atrocities of that sort. I went to law school hoping to do public service of some sort. Human rights were the new frontier and I was very excited by it. It was not a wise career move at the time, because there were no jobs. But it worked out for me in the end. I volunteered for six years until a job opened up. I was mainly practising as a lawyer during that time. So, that’s what got me started, but what kept me going is that it’s incredibly fulfilling to be able to make a difference in people’s lives. Even though the obstacles are substantial, I found that, over and over, if you figure out the right angle, you can force governments to behave better. And my new book is about that. It is filled with examples of how we were able to twist governments’ arms. We were able to change the cost-benefit analysis of repression, to force them to treat people better.

The first priority of the human rights movement should be the right to seek asylum. That’s the legally enshrined right. If governments are denying that by arbitrarily pushing back immigrants and not giving them fair hearings, that is something that’s worth really fighting to preserve.

First of all, I wouldn’t be doing my job if people didn’t consider me their enemy. So that’s just a hazard of the trade. To me, the fact that I’ve been personally sanctioned by the Chinese and the Russian governments and lambasted by a broad variety of abusive governments is basically a badge of honour. One of the classic responses of governments that receive a critical Human Rights Watch report is to say that we’re biased, we misunderstood, we were deceived. But that doesn’t work, because Human Rights Watch is incredibly careful with the investigations that we do, and by the time we publish, we’re right, so we welcome those debates over the facts. What governments ultimately recognise is we’re able to bring roughly 1,000 media mentions a day when we publish. Also, there has never been a major finding that has been proven wrong. Governments recognise that they’re not going to get rid of the bad press without changing the bad conduct. And that’s how we make progress. Their spin, denial and false accusations are going to get them nowhere, because we’re right on the facts. So I welcome those attacks because they’re so futile. Ultimately, governments recognise that they are not an effective way to get us to stop our reporting, that the only thing that’ll work is to change the abusive conduct that they’re engaged in.

There’s a lot behind that question. Let me divide it into three parts. First, domestically, Trump is obviously causing a lot of harm. He’s pursuing the classic autocrats’ playbook. He’s attacking various checks and balances on executive power, and has focused foremost so far on universities, law firms and media outlets. But he’s also attacked judges. He’s neutralised Republicans in Congress. He’s contemplating attacks on civil society. I think the good news is that, after the initial near-paralysis, because of the flurry of Trump’s executive orders, people have recognised that trying to appease him never works. He smells blood and seeks more. The best response is a unified, aggressive response. And we’re now seeing that from universities, law firms and media outlets. So I think there’s been a very significant resurgence in the resistance that is slowing Trump down considerably. There have been more than 200 judicial orders against his executive orders, and he’s running out of things to do without encountering major pushback. And we see signs of significant overreach.

Trump’s initial inclination is to utterly ignore human rights. He cosies up to autocrats. He admires their ability to operate unconstrained in the way he wishes he could. But even there he’s encountering the obstacle of public opinion. For example, his inclination was to give away Ukraine’s democracy to Putin, but people are outraged by that, and he’s being forced against his will to allow the continued defensive arming of Ukraine to repulse Putin. To some extent, at least verbally, he’s being forced to make concessions in the case of Gaza. He has abandoned his idea of massive ethnic cleansing of Gaza. He’s beginning to push Netanyahu for some kind of ceasefire. So I think that political reality has caught up with him, and while he still is doing a lot of harm, it’s being mitigated to some extent. Trump’s foremost concern is himself. If he sees that his inclinations to defer to abusive leaders are running into significant public opposition, he will change course. This is not a principled guy. He just does what he needs to promote himself.

In terms of your broader point, is this emboldening autocrats? It’s actually a bit more complicated than that. I know that the common wisdom is that autocracy is on the rise and democracy is in decline. I think that’s a fair characterisation of the established democracies in the West, where there has been a failure to deliver to working class society and others who feel that they’re economically stagnating and are not being served or even heard or respected by governments and are, therefore, more likely to respond to the autocrat’s appeal. That’s how Trump got elected. That’s Marine Le Pen in France, the AfD in Germany, Nigel Farage in the UK. If you look more globally, though, it’s a more complicated picture.

What we’ve seen in recent years is mass protests in country after country against autocracy and in favour of democracy. Sometimes they’ve worked. Sheik Hasina was ousted in Bangladesh, the Rajapaksa clan was ousted in Sri Lanka, Bolsonaro was voted out of office in Brazil, the Law and Justice Party lost in Poland and a constitutional coup was prevented in South Korea. So these are examples of popular uprising prevailing. It’s true that elsewhere, where the autocrats are just too ruthless – in places like Iran, Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua and Uganda – they suppress popular uprisings. But even there, the popular preference for accountable government is absolutely clear. And what we have are these autocrats who increasingly won’t even risk a managed election. They just hold electoral charades under the barrel of a gun. And as Bashar Al Assad of Syria showed us, it’s dangerous to do that, because when there is a challenge, nobody stands up for you. That’s a very risky way to proceed, which is why these autocrats are terrified of their own people. Their nightmare is a revolution, a popular uprising that ousts them.

I think that’s an overstatement in the sense that every government still pretends to respect human rights, because that’s become a key aspect of legitimacy. It’s a way of their saying that they serve the people, not just themselves. And so, when Human Rights Watch is able to document the discrepancy between this haughty pretence and the ugly reality, it is embarrassing. It’s delegitimising. It’s shameful. So that remains a powerful force. I think what you’re noting is that in the realm of migration, it has become popular to stop immigrants, and that does pose a challenge. Globally, I think there has been a sense that there is too much migration, and so various governments, not just the far right, have found it politically profitable, or at least necessary, to take an anti-migration position. Now, I think that is forcing the human rights community to refine its message, and here it’s a matter of focusing on priorities. In my view, the first priority of the human rights movement should be the right to seek asylum. That’s the legally enshrined right. If governments are denying that by arbitrarily pushing back immigrants and not giving them fair hearings, that is something that’s worth really fighting to preserve. On the other hand, I don’t think the human rights movement should be advocating for open borders. There’s no right enshrining that. The more that we are seen as endorsing open borders, the more we discredit ourselves at this moment.

Yes, exactly. The US illustrates this well, when you consider that there clearly was a mandate given to Trump to enforce the border with Mexico, and there’s quite a bit of popularity for his moves to stop what was seen as a pretty free flow of irregular immigrants into the United States from Mexico. He’s done that at the expense of the right to seek asylum, which is a problem. But overall there is considerable support for that. What we’ve seen, however, is that there is not support for immigration raids into certain neighbourhoods or workplaces that are assumed to have a large number of undocumented immigrants. And there, what the public is responding to is the fact that many of these immigrants are essentially settled. They have jobs, they pay taxes, they have families that often have US citizens in them. These people have become Americans in all but legal status. I think that there’s pretty strong public support for them staying in the United States. In an ideal world where Congress was functional, there would be some sort of effort to provide them with a path towards legal status. That’s not where Washington is right now, but there is, I think, public support for, in effect, a statute of limitations on deportation. There’s a sense that after a certain point, you don’t resurrect the past. We don’t have a law allowing effective amnesty in the case of immigration. But there should be, and I think it’s time to start thinking about a de facto statute of limitations for immigration for these cases.

UNHCR has become a massive humanitarian assistance organisation. That’s where the big money has been, and once it’s in that business, it’s more reluctant to challenge governments who may be undermining the right to asylum or disrespecting the rights of refugees.

I think that’s behind the idea of sanctuary cities. That’s why we have seen these large protests once the ICE officials started doing neighbourhood or workplace raids in the United States. There have been no protests over border enforcement. But once ICE starts going wild in cities, and people’s neighbours are picked up – people who are really integrated members of the community – there is outrage, as there should be.

I do think UNHCR has lost its way somewhat by chasing the money. This began when Antonio Guterres was High Commissioner for Refugees. The core function of UNHCR is protection: to ensure that refugees find a safe place and are allowed to seek asylum. But UNHCR has become a massive humanitarian assistance organisation. That’s where the big money has been, and once it’s in that business, it’s more reluctant to challenge governments who may be undermining the right to asylum or disrespecting the rights of refugees. Obviously UNHCR, like every UN agency, is facing a financial crisis today, and there may be an opportunity in that crisis, if it does return to its core protection mandate.

The fact that something is written is not enough. You need to build public support for it, so that when governments fall short, they do feel shamed. The Global Compacts are not actively cited. I don’t know that they really move governments the way that refugee law and asylum law do.

I think the idea that when one arrives at a border, one can seek asylum remains an important right and is worth enforcing. The difficulty has been, first of all, that countries are not investing enough in asylum adjudication, so you get these large backlogs. And if the mere filing of an asylum claim is seen as allowing de facto forever entrance into a country, that’s not good. That undermines the right to seek asylum. I would be happier to see some greater investment in asylum adjudication instead of simply more and more border enforcement. The other factor in this is that when an asylum claim is fairly heard and is rejected, people have to be returned. That’s not something that human rights defenders like to say, but it’s actually essential if you’re going to preserve the right to asylum, because it does have to be something for people who are genuinely fleeing persecution or war.

Is there real consensus behind them? I mean, does this represent a moral standard that the public wants to uphold? That’s the test for any international treaty. Now, the fact that something is written is not enough. You need to build public support for it, so that when governments fall short, they do feel shamed. The Global Compacts are not actively cited. I don’t know that they really move governments the way that refugee law and asylum law do.

On the narrow question of migration, Trump’s proposal to ethnically cleanse 2 million Palestinians from Gaza would be a massive crime against humanity. Fortunately, that has gone nowhere. I mean, even the Egyptian and Jordanian governments, despite their huge dependence on US military assistance, have said they’re going to have nothing to do with another Nakba. So, this proposal is dead in the water. It has legitimised the far-right Israeli dream of solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem by getting rid of the Palestinians, but no one else is buying into that. I do think that that is the real motive behind the Israeli genocide in Gaza today. It’s not to kill every single Palestinian, obviously, but it’s to create conditions of life that are so miserable, that are so unsuitable to life that, as the far right puts it, 2 million Palestinians would, so to speak, ‘voluntarily depart’. Now, that is genocide. I don’t think it’s going to work in terms of the goals. What we’re seeing is more akin to what Myanmar did with the Rohingya, killing 30,000 to send 730,000 fleeing to Bangladesh. That’s still genocide and I think the world has to come to terms with the fact that genocide can be not just an end, it can also be a means to a very different end.

Is this an indictment of international systems or institutions? No, that’s not the problem. If you look at what international institutions have done, they’ve responded quite strongly. Obviously, the UN Security Council has been stymied by the US veto, but the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council have both spoken out repeatedly and forcefully. The International Criminal Court has charged Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant for their part in the food deprivation strategy. The International Court of Justice has issued several provisional orders to prevent genocide. So, the big international institutions have done their job. The problem is that the Netanyahu government is essentially looking to a constituency of one, which is the US President. Biden said the right things. He said, don’t bomb Palestinian civilians. Don’t starve them. But he continued the arms sales and military aid with the exception of the 2,000-pound bombs and essentially gave a green light to Netanyahu. So far Trump has done largely the same thing. But, ironically, I think Trump is in the best position of any US president to really twist Netanyahu’s arm to stop, because somebody like Biden or Obama were always worried about attacks from the right if they pressured Israel too hard. Now there’s nobody to the right of Trump. Trump owns the far right in the United States, so he has the political manoeuverability to squeeze Netanyahu, and we’ve already seen how he has differed with Netanyahu on a variety of issues. As we speak, there is a renewed effort along those lines. I have not given up on Trump to do the right thing for the wrong reason here. We know that for Trump, his regard for Israel is not a principled one; this is a guy who stands primarily for himself. He would love a Nobel Peace Prize, so if he feels that Netanyahu is an obstacle, that he stands in the way, he’s going to start pressuring Netanyahu. Overall, therefore, this is largely a failure of the US government. So far the US government has been aiding and abetting genocide and war crimes. Might that stop? Maybe. I think, in an odd way, despite Trump’s horrors, Trump is our best bet in a while to really squeeze Israel to stop the atrocities.

Well, in Myanmar, obviously, the treatment of Rohingya has been overshadowed by the military junta’s treatment of the entire Burmese population since the coup. So I think that’s part of what’s going on there. But the disaster that is actually worse than Gaza, in many respects, is Sudan. And there, you’re absolutely right that it gets just a tiny fraction of the attention that Gaza gets, even though the United Arab Emirates has been arming the Rapid Support Forces, the militia that has been responsible for a lot of the atrocities. That’s hugely unfortunate. Why does Eastern Congo get so little attention when Rwanda has invaded? What Rwanda did in Eastern Congo is the exact same thing that Putin did in Ukraine, but Ukraine gets much more attention than Eastern Congo. So, part of this is just the African discount. You have to add several zeros before people notice Africa, which is just racism. Part of it, I think, in the case of Gaza, is the fact that Israel was a sophisticated Western military fighting without significant opposition. And then, to make matters worse, the Israeli military is completely funded, armed and supported by the US government. So this is, essentially, a major Western war against a largely defenseless people. I think that’s behind a lot of the outrage as well. It’s one thing to be upset about a distant war. It’s another thing to observe a war that is made possible through the actions of one’s own government.

Obviously, the far right has found it profitable to demonise immigration and to say that there’s too much immigration, and the centrist parties are preemptively adopting the same policy and end up legitimising it. So this is a broad problem throughout the West. I think there are some lessons to be learned from it. One is that the human rights movement probably was not sufficiently attentive to the rate of immigration, and there may be a limit to how many people within a society can effectively integrate, and that rate may have been exceeded. You generate opposition that way. Some of it is just racism or Islamophobia, people who come in who are just different, and part of it also is the way that integration happens. People clearly panic if they feel that a country has lost control of its borders. They’re much less concerned with immigration that comes in lawfully through an airport or a sea terminal. Still, I think the rate issue has become paramount.

Immigration, per se, … isn’t a human rights issue … We have to recognise that there is no right to immigration, and that governments have got to manage it in a way so that immigrants are welcome for very practical reasons – they provide a workforce, they help to address demographic decline – but it has to be done at a speed that society is comfortable with and is able to integrate. Otherwise, you get far-right opposition.

But immigration, per se, actually isn’t a human rights issue. I do think we have to recognise that there is no right to immigration, and that governments have got to manage it in a way so that immigrants are welcome for very practical reasons – they provide a workforce, they help to address demographic decline – but it has to be done at a speed that society is comfortable with and is able to integrate. Otherwise, you get far-right opposition.

Climate change is going to significantly drive migration. How much of that migration aims to the north versus just other places nearby is an open question. Some

Climate-induced migration should be understood as one aspect of adaptation, and whether that’s paid through money or through the admittance of people is an open question. It’s something that should very much be negotiated.

climate migrants clearly will try to get to the north, to the West. I do think that there is some responsibility there, given that, historically, greenhouse emissions have largely been caused by the West, and that therefore there is a duty on the part of the West to do something about that. Part of that answer is migration. Obviously, other parts of it involve mitigation or adaptation. But in terms of offering climate-induced migrants a legal right or status to migrate, that’s another thing. I’m not sure it would be useful, because if you try to broaden the right to asylum to include people fleeing climate change, you would just destroy the right to asylum. There’d be too many people, and you would destroy the possibility of people fleeing persecution or war to still get preferential treatment.

I think that through the whole COP process, this is something that should be addressed. So far the focus is much more on the financial aspect. How do you pay for mitigation efforts? How do you pay for adaptation? But I think that climate-induced migration should be understood as one aspect of adaptation, and whether that’s paid through money or through the admittance of people is an open question. It’s something that should very much be negotiated.

Well, clearly the push factors are strong. Between armed conflict and climate change, there are significant factors pushing people to migrate. At the same time, the resistance to migration is the strongest I’ve seen in a long time. So it’s not clear how many doors are going to be open. Necessity, particularly in agriculture, construction, nursing, home and health care, is going to drive a need for immigration which is briefly being ignored but can’t be ignored for the long term without real consequences for the existing members of society in the West.

Attacking immigrants, like attacking LGBTQIA+ people, is a classic far-right thing to do to divert attention from the fact that these parties don’t have much of a governing policy for their working-class base and, once they gain power, do they really want to completely undermine the workforce by enforcing immigration law so severely? Even Trump now is starting to make exceptions and saying he’s not going to cut into hospitality services or agriculture. They need workers. That list will expand over time, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump is reduced to strong border enforcement combined with high-visibility but token raids that actually do nothing to significantly curtail the immigrant population in the United States.

Attacking immigrants, like attacking LGBTQIA+ people, is a classic far-right thing to do to divert attention from the fact that these parties don’t have much of a governing policy for their working-class base and, once they gain power, do they really want to completely undermine the workforce by enforcing immigration law so severely?