The Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), Kenneth Roth, announced on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, that he will step down after three decades which have seen the New York-based NGO become a thorn in the side of authoritarian regimes and rights abusers across the world.
In a statement published by HRW, Roth, who led the organisation since 1993, will step down at the end of August 2022. Speaking in a video message, Roth said “Nothing can last forever. It is time to pass the baton.”
He expressed “great confidence” that the HRW team would continue to effectively defend human rights because, “While I am leaving Human Rights Watch, I am not leaving our cause.” The HRW in a statement noted that “Today, amid the horrific abuse taking place in Ukraine, an infrastructure is in place to hold perpetrators accountable”.
His Leadership in Perspective
Under his leadership, HRW has grown from a small-scale campaign group into a global rights organisation that has employed over 500 staff across the globe.
In 1997, HRW shared a Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to ban anti-personnel landmines (an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy) and also played a critical role in establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Evidence gathered by the staff of the Human Rights Watch during conflicts around the world helped ensure the convictions at international tribunals of figures, including former Liberian Leader, Charles Taylor, over the war in Sierra Leone and wartime Bosnian Serb leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
His role brought controversy and HRW’s statement also acknowledged that “Roth inevitably earned many enemies.” In April 2021, HRW became the first major international rights group to accuse Israel of using policies of apartheid, the segregation of blacks and whites in white-ruled South Africa, against Palestinians. But Israel vehemently denied the allegation and denounced the report issued by HRW. But in February this year (2022), a similar allegation was made by HRW’s London-based counterparts at Amnesty International.
According to HRW, “Despite being Jewish, and having a father who fled Nazi Germany as a 12-year-old boy, he has been attacked for the organisation’s criticism of Israeli government abuses”.
In recent years, Roth also became a bitter enemy of the Chinese authorities after repeatedly singling out Beijing over its rights violations. China in that regard, imposed sanctions against Roth personally and expelled him from Hong Kong when he travelled there to release HRW’s annual World Report in January 2020, “which spotlighted Beijing’s threat to the global human rights system”, the organisation noted.
Now Kenneth Roth is stepping down from his position, a search for a successor is now underway, HWR added.
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