NEW YORK (Washington Insider Magazine) – After almost 3 decades as the head of one of the world’s premier advocacy groups, Human Rights Watch’s veteran leader announced Tuesday that he will be resigning as executive director this summer.
Kenneth Roth led the New York-based organization during its Nobel Peace Prize-winning campaign to eliminate anti-personnel landmines in 1997. In addition, the organisation fought for the creation of an International Criminal Court to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.
Fatou Bensouda, the former ICC head prosecutor, named Roth an inspiration.
Roth took over as executive director in 1993, when the organization had roughly 60 employees and a $7 million yearly budget. According to ABC NEWS, it currently has over 550 personnel in over 100 nations and a roughly $100 million funding to fight human rights violations.
The organization has been in the forefront of activism on several of the most contentious human rights issues in the world.
Human Rights Watch claims that this earned Roth a lot of adversaries over the years.
Roth performed fact-finding investigations in Cuba and Haiti, as well as on the Palestinian-Israeli issue and in Kuwait just after Iraqi attack in 1990. He’s been particularly worried in recent years about atrocities committed during the Syrian war, and also Chinese oppression of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.
Human Rights Watch recorded and revealed the use of “black sites” where US authorities tortured and questioned terrorism suspects after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. The organization demanded that the US government investigate and prosecute the perpetrators.
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, former Liberian President Charles Taylor, and Bosnian Serb wartime commanders Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic were all convicted as a result of the group’s reporting and activism, according to the organization.
While working as an attorney and a federal prosecutor, Roth began his human rights advocacy as a volunteer on weekends and nights. He joined Human Rights Watch as a deputy director in 1987, and shortly after taking over as director in 1993, he merged the organization’s regional rights watch groups into a single body known as Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch has announced that deputy executive director Tirana Hassan would serve as interim executive director until Roth’s successor is found. Roth will step down at the end of August.
