Kenneth Roth


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

Early life

Born in the United States of America, Kenneth Roth, a graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, His parents were Jewish refugees from Germany, he converted to Christianity and was married in an Anglican church.

Career

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. His short-lived effort in electoral politics ended in failure, and he began a career in human rights, focusing on the Soviet imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981.
He joined Human Rights Watch in 1987 as deputy director. His initial work centered on Haiti.
Since 1993, Roth has been the organization's executive director. His tenure has been very controversial, and in 2009, HRW founder Robert Bernstein issued numerous condemnations of Roth's bias, including in an opinion article in the New York Times.

Criticism and controversies

Under Roth's leadership, Human Rights Watch has been criticized for perceived biases and misconstructions.

Venezuela

On December 17, 2009, 118 scholars from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, México, the UK, the US, Venezuela and other countries publicly criticized HRW in an open letter to the HRW Board of Directors in response to an HRW report, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela. The report was criticized for bias against the government of Venezuela and its President, Hugo Chavez, stating that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility." One of the letter's authors, Hugh O'Shaughnessy, accused HRW of using false and misleading information, and said the HRW report was "put together with the sort of know-nothing Washington bias..." Roth responded, stating that the letter misrepresented "both the substance and the source material of the report."

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 …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.

Allegations of anti-Israel bias

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 he accused NGO Monitor of disregarding basic facts, "fictitious allegations of bias" and a "fantasy-based discourse" which "does a deep disservice to Israel". Similarly, HRW founder Robert Bernstein issued numerous condemnations of Roth's bias, including in an opinion article in the New York Times.
In August 2006, during the war between Hezbollah and Israel, Roth letter to the editor of The New York Sun was criticized as antisemitic: "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." An editorial in The New York Sun decried this statement as a slur on the Jewish religion and breathtaking in its ignorance, a form of supersessionism, de-legitimization of Judaism, and antisemitism.  And the head of the Anti-Defamation League referred to Roth's rhetoric as a reflection of "classic anti-Semitic stereotype about Jews", arguing that disproportionate retaliation was justified and necessary against Israel's Arab enemies, and that Israel's actions in the war were justified as legitimate attacks on military targets against an enemy using human shields.
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."
An analysis of his tweets by NGO Monitor alleges that Roth shows "significant levels of sarcasm, vitriol, and deep-seated hostility" towards Israel.
On April 26, 2015, Roth drew criticism for attacking Israel for sending humanitarian aid to Nepal during the April 2015 Nepal earthquake, due to its blockade of Gaza, which he saw as a humanitarian crisis of "Israel's own making".

Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission 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 as "superficial" and said that his allegations of corruption were based on "poor methodology." EHRC also called his recommendations a "contradiction" that called "for the promotion of human rights at the expense of human rights programs and their implementers."

Syria and Iraq

Roth said that there was "sectarian" and "violent" persecution by Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, and Roth said that the locals were not being alienated by ISIS. Foundation for Defense of Democracies Deputy Director for Research Oren Kessler criticized Roth's tweet as the "Worst tweet ever". Roth said that "Assad's atrocities" are being stood up to by ISIS.
Roth said that the Syrian revolution was deliberately being poisoned by the June 2011 setting free of Zahran Alloush by Assad. After the death of Zahran Alloush, Roth said that it was an attempt to level the field to only ISIS or Assad as part of a plan by Assad.
In October 2019, Roth said that Turkey and its allies have previously unlawfully killed, arbitrarily arrested, and wrongfully displaced civilians and the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria operation risks repeating these abuses unless they take steps now.

Published articles