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0:00
John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Institute of Politics. My name is Peter Jones and I'm a sophomore in the college studying government with a secondary in Spanish. And additionally, I'm a student member of the John F. Kennedy Junior Forum Committee. Uh before we begin, I just like to ask you all to take a moment to note the exits both on the Park Street side and on the John F. Kennedy Street side. Um in the event of an emergency, please walk through the doors closest to you
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and congregate in the park. Uh also please take a moment just to silence your cell phones.
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Uh now if you would join me in welcoming Bertold Bites professor in human rights, global affairs and philosophy and the director of the car center for human rights Matias Rissa. [Applause] Thank you. Good evening everyone. My name is already mentioned is Matias Rissa. I'm the director of the car center of human rights policy and I'm delighted to see such a full house for a relative newcomer in the human rights world. So thank you all for for coming out. Um but more seriously uh the
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passing of the universal declaration of human rights and the ensuing human rights movement are among the greatest achievements of human history. The core idea is that all human beings deserve certain protections and provisions and that it is a globally shared responsibility to make that come true. The exercise of power generally is legitimate only to the extent that it serves that particular purpose. For these ideas to amount to anything, there needs to be a global public that
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possesses reliable information about what governments and other p other powerful actors actually do, which in turn is work for which we also depend on international civil society actors. Among these actors, Human Rights Watch with its genuinely global ambitions has become especially important over the recent decades. uh human rights watch um um so has become especially important there which which then also makes the quality of its reporting a matter of substantial public concern. Yeah. So you
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might say uh that human rights watch is actually too significant to fail in its obligations and that in turn uh generates obligations on various sites. Human Rights Watch for one owes us unbiased and accurate reporting and it needs to accept and respond to public scrutiny. At the same time, human rights experts and others should deploy their critical powers to push human rights watch to become as good as it can be. Citizens should raise questions of their own. But at the same time, it must also
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be true that critics who offer substantive charges against Human Rights Watch also need to accept and respond to public scrutiny because and you know and actually face debate because anything else would just serve the purposes of those who are violating human rights and those need to be called out no matter what the institutional context is in which they operate and no matter no matter what else they are doing. And of course, the forum at the Harvard Kennedy School is designed to be a place of
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exactly this kind of vigorous scrutiny. And in that spirit, I'm now delighted to be able to welcome Ken Roth to the forum, who is the long-term executive director of Human Rights Watch, whose work has probably long been known to many here, and if not, that has probably changed quite quickly after the publication of a certain article in the nation on January 4th. Ken Roth will speak on the the topic of this evening is the evolution of the global human rights movement, a three decade
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perspective. And of course, this is very much a a perspective that he has not as an onlooker but as one of the central agents of change uh in this uh three decade period. After that, my colleague Katherine Siking here in the front row, the Ryan family professor of human rights policy will offer uh some commentary and then Sushma Raman who is the executive director of the car center. Unfortunately, I have to say the now outgoing executive director of the of the car center will moderate uh the
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discussion. But now without further ado, please join me in finally welcoming Ken Roth to the to Harvard University. [Music]
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Well, thank you for that warm welcome. Um, it is I'm thrilled to be here, belatedly as it might be, and I'm grateful to the Institute of Politics for for sponsoring this forum tonight. Um, I'm, as Mata said, I'm going to talk about the evolution of the human rights movement, but I'm going to do that really as an introduction to what I hope will be a broader discussion. And when it comes to the question period, I'm happy to talk about any country, any issue, you know, whatever is on your
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mind. Um, let me begin by addressing the gorilla in the room. Um, you know, I'm happy that the initial veto of my fellowship was reversed. I have to recognize though that that happened only because I was in a privileged position and was able to create a media fury backed by many of you. And the issue of critics of Israel being penalized is a real issue at Harvard and and around the world. And I'm I'm grateful that Harvard has now reaffirmed its commitment to academic freedom, but
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that was a very abstract statement. And what I've asked for and still hope to see is a more targeted statement affirming a commitment to academic freedom even for people who criticize Israel.
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Now you I recognize that some students particularly who have pro-Israel views also feel peer pressure particularly not to speak out and that's a problem as well. So I I think that it's important that you know any affirmation of academic freedom address both sides but that it be stated explicitly about the Israeli Palestinian context. And I I still hope that Dean Elundorf or the Harvard president or somebody in a position of authority can give that more targeted explicit affirmation of
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academic freedom in this context. Now the other thing you know is is a bit more focused on my case but you know we know from what Dean Elundorf has said that the initial veto was due to my criticism of Israel and Human Rights Watches. Um, we know that it was informed by people who mattered to him. The dean is hidden behind the confidentiality of the academic appointment process. So, he's not saying much else except he has been willing to violate the confidentiality to say it wasn't donors.
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So, who was it? You know, was it people who were concerned about donors? you know, was it somebody else? We don't know. But some level of transparency would be useful to ensure that what happened in my case is not replicated. And so I hope that upon reflection, you know, I don't worry. I'm not I'm, you know, willing to kind of sacrifice my privacy. I don't care. I'd like to know what happened. And I think it would be beneficial for all of us if we knew. Okay. Now to move on to the main topic.
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Um, I have been fortunate to serve as director of Human Rights Watch for three decades. I've been involved in the movement for four decades. And I'd like to talk about how I see it having evolved. And in the very quick 15 minutes that I'm allocated, I'm going to try to touch on six areas. I'm going to talk about the role of communications technology, the breadth of our concerns, our advocacy, the kind of advocacy that we do, the role of the United Nations, international justice, and the human
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rights movement. This is going to have to be telegraphic. Um, but I will touch on it and then I'm happy to talk more broadly. First, communications technology. You may think it's weird for me to start with that, but the evolution of the human rights movement closely traces the evolution of communication technology. And that is because the essence of what we do is to shame governments, to spotlight the discrepancy between their pretense of respect for human rights and
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the often ugly reality that falls short. But to do that, we need to know what's going on. You know, we need communication technology to learn about governmental conduct. And so the kind of issues that we take on are actually a product of communication technology. Let me explain what I mean. In the earliest days of the human rights movement, information moved by steamship or by sailboat very slowly. meaning you could only know about big slowmoving things. And so the first real human
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rights movements were the anti-slavery movement, the women's suffrage movement, you know, very important things, but things that were not changing day by day. Now, in the early days of the modern human rights movement, Amnesty International was founded in 1961, it was still a moment when international phone calls were very expensive. if you didn't do it very often. International travel was even more. And for the most part, you wrote letters, you know, dear minister so- and so, could you tell me
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what happened with this political prisoner? You know, and and so it was possible to report, but but it was slow. I remember when this revolutionary technology emerged, the fax machine. Because what the fax machine let you do is to send an entire page of information for the price of a quick phone call. That was revolutionary. We would sneak fax machines into the Soviet Union. You know, it was just this great way to convey information. Now, when email came along,
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that was really transformative. Um, one, it enabled, you know, suddenly a global campaign. The campaign that Human Rights Watch helped to lead to abolish anti-personnel landmines was possible because we built a global coalition initially of NOS's ultimately of governments using email. It had never been done before. Email also made possible real time reporting. Up until then, human rights reports were retrospective. You know, you would write something that happened to about the last year's worth
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of events. It would come out a few months later. it was still, you know, big picture. Email meant that we could write about what happened today to try to influence it tomorrow. That was a huge shift. And of course, today we have social media, meaning that it's much harder for governments to hide what they're doing because everybody has a mobile phone, everybody can post on social media. Um, it is much easier for us to convey information. But of course, it's double-edged because the bad guys
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also can convey information without having to go through the medium of a more responsible journalist or editor. They can just disseminate misinformation. I still think it's a big net positive, but it's double-edged. You know, there are two sides to it. Now, the breath of our concerns has also changed dramatically over the years. And let me begin with amnesty because early amnesty did three things. They fought executions, theft penalty. They fought torture and they fought political
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imprisonment, particularly prisoners of conscience. Um now when Human Rights Watch came along, you know, the big innovation we had was we looked at the full range of civil and political rights. So not just imprisonment. Um but that was still quite narrow. Over time, Human Rights Watch added the laws of war. So taking not just international human rights law but international humanitarian law to monitor how wars were fought. We added economic and social rights. But I think in many ways
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the most important thing we did was to begin to add thematic programs because one thing I noticed early on is that if you're a researcher assigned to a country you tend to focus on the big political issues happening in the capital which at that stage in particular you know tended to be the elite often male. It was ignoring huge sectors of society. And so we began to recognize that we needed to deliberately supplement our country focused researchers with people who would focus
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on thematic issues. And we began adding programs on women's rights, on children's rights, on LGBT rights, on the rights of people with disabilities, refugee rights, etc. And each of these people, you know, would develop their own network, their own expertise. um their job was you know to push the country researchers to do work on their concerns but also to do it themselves and it meant suddenly that we were able to address a much broader set of um people who were facing human rights
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problems now I should note that this evolution it sounds natural it sounds like why wouldn't you do this it was opposed by some people and I will give one example the biggest donor at the time to the human rights cause was the Ford Foundation. Their response to our proposal that we create a women's rights program was, "Don't do that. That will dilute the stigma of a human rights violation." Amazingly, um they said that they would cut our grant if we did it. We did it
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anyway. They cut our grant, you know. So, this is a different era. It's not where Ford is right now, but that was the resistance we faced. They vehemently opposed our efforts to monitor wars um because they didn't want to force local groups to report on both sides as is required under the laws of war. Um we did it anyway. You know it now is completely central within the human rights cause. But this is you know these were not uncontroversial steps. Let me say a word about um advocacy. Now
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amnesty in its initial incarnation would mobilize its members. they would protest and the like. They didn't believe in going to influential third-party governments. So, they wouldn't go to the US government or the European Union because they felt that that was using global imbalances unfairly. Now, we at Human Rights Watch took a different perspective. I didn't feel that I could go to somebody and say, you know, yes, I I could, you know, get your uncle released from prison, but I'm
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sorry I can't do that because I would be using a global imbalance. So we um started doing that initially very much in Washington. It was very US focused. Um that had to change of necessity because the US government became during certain periods very discredited as a proponent of human rights. You know we had Bush's global war on terrorism. you know, obviously we had Trump who, you know, couldn't find a friendly autocrat he didn't want to embrace, but you know, but we had the, you know, the
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traditional double standards of of US foreign policy. And so we recognized that while we were never going to abandon the US because the US is just too powerful, we needed to use them. We were going to broaden our concern. And so we gradually started building advocacy and media offices in a range of cities around the world. And so you know today we have them in in Tokyo, Sydney, Beirut, Johannesburg, Kenya, S. Paulo, Toronto and then in Europe we have them in Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin,
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Stockholm and then we have the UN offices in New York and Geneva. So it is a very multiaceted effort to figure out you know who has a relationship of influence with the target government. What does that target government want that we can prevent them from getting until they improve their human rights practices? And they always want something. They want an arms sale. You know, they want a military aid package. They want preferential trade benefits. You know, often what they want really is
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to be invited to some s fancy summit so they can be photographed with, you know, respectable leaders and show the folks back home that they're really a legitimate leader even though they're just an autocrat. So we try to you know whatever it is we try to prevent them from getting that. We've had some false starts. I opened up an office in Delhi and then Modi came along. I had one in Cairo and Cece came along. You know I had one in Hong Kong and Xi Jinping came
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along. So there have been some mistakes but um but the idea has been there to make this a genuinely global effort on the advocacy side to match the global research effort that we do. Let me say a word about the United Nations. Um, the UN traditionally was hostile to the promotion of human rights even though an ostensible purpose of the UN is promotion of human rights because the UN is a club of governments and governments didn't like to criticize each other. And
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so they um would use, you know, the kind of rhetoric you still occasionally hear talking about human rights as interfering in our internal affairs. Um now you know that doesn't resonate anymore but that you know attitude is what informed the the UN at the beginning. Now that's no longer the case but there still are real obstacles. You know the UN security council which for a brief period after the cold war functioned is now paralyzed by the veto and it's rare that we can get something
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done at the security council. Every once in a while we can step in with the general assembly where there is no veto but it's quite unwieldy. 193 nations. It's difficult to get things done there. So mainly what we do is we use the human rights council which is a smaller venue. Um it is still problematic. The human rights council was created 20 years ago to replace the old human rights commission because the human rights commission had come to be filled with like the thugs and autocrats of the
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world who were trying to undermine the enforcement of human rights. So we introduced the idea of elections to the council and for a while it worked. For a while, we were able to sort of get rid of the worst candidates, but then the government started gaming the system and only putting forward the same number of candidates as openings to prevent the possibility of a of an election. So, the commission, the council is, you know, less than ideal, but is still a very
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important venue to get things done. And just to give one quick example, for four years, we were able, despite Saudi opposition, to create a group to oversee the bombing of Yemen civilians. Um, the Saudis finally got that lifted through a series of threats and bribes in September, a year ago. And from the moment that was lifted, civilian casualties in Yemen doubled until finally there was a ceasefire, which just shows that this kind of scrutiny does change behavior.
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Um, let me say a quick word about international justice because I don't have a lot of time here, I realize. Um, there was nothing on the international justice front for basically 50 years after Tokyo and Nermberg. Um, I remember in the early 90s trying to get some government to sue Saddam before the International Court of Justice for his 1988 onfall genocide against the Kurds and nobody would do it. They were all, you know, afraid. It was just too unconventional.
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Um today you know Gambia has gone and and and sued um Myanmar for genocide against Rohinda. So you know things are getting better in that sense. Um we finally got the tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. These were consolation prizes for not having stopped the genocide but nonetheless they really did bring to justice most of the architects of the slaughter in Bosnia. um the architects of the genocide in Rwanda but not Kagami or his senior leaders for
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sumearily executing 30,000 people as they stopped the genocide. So there were you know there was some selectivity there with the international criminal court um that was obviously a huge victory in terms of creating a permanent institution of justice. Um, we defeated the US effort to exempt any American from ever appearing before the court. Mainly because the Clinton administration wanted to prevent territorial jurisdiction. They didn't want the court to have jurisdiction
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based on where the crime was occurring because it might be an American who committed that crime. We won that battle. Um, Trump of course tried to, you know, impose sanctions on the ICC prosecutor because she had the audacity to open investigation into US torture in Afghanistan and Israeli war crimes in Palestine. But Biden has lifted those and indeed has even gone back on this objection to territorial jurisdiction in Ukraine where he's endorsed ICC action in Ukraine even though Russia has not
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joined the court. Now, will he maintain that principle if the prosecutor goes after Israeli war crimes in Palestine? We don't know. But at least it's it's sort of a step in the right direction. Final comment is on the movement. And here um first I want to stress that you know the entire concept of shaming depends on public morality. You know if if you shine a spotlight and people applaud, you get nothing. You know, that's actually one of the dangers of populist autocrats who are able to kind
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of engender that kind of applause. But so we need the public. But what the human rights movement has shown is that you also need people who are dedicated really professionally to collecting information in a reliable way, writing it up and disseminating it in a way that will move governments. And that's not a movement in the sense that, you know, it's not a bunch of people mobilized in the street. It really does take a professional staff. Now, the good news, and I've seen this dramatically change
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in my time in the movement, is that um while, you know, human rights defenders were pretty exotic in the early days and sort of few and far between, today there are professional human rights activists in were working on every country either in that country or nearby. Um if you even look at the human rights watch staff we have 80ome nationalities spread around the world you know it has become a genuinely global movement now it doesn't mean that we always win but it
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does mean that you know there are people every place watching. Now Martin Luther King is famous for saying that you know the the I think it's what the ark of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. You know with all due reference to Dr. King I don't believe that. I actually believe that it is in the nature of governments to violate human rights. It's always convenient to repress the opposition to somehow violate human rights to stay in power.
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The duty of the human rights movement is to always push back to raise the cost of human rights violations to change the costbenefit analysis of repression. And the good news is that between our stronger movement and our strengthened tools, we are much more able to push back today than we were right when I started this work three decades ago. Thank you very much.
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Um so Ken Roth, he is the preeminent leader of one of the two most important human rights organizations in the world. um and he's been not just on the front line but leading the front line as he's shown for these 30 years. So it's a little difficult to comment on on this because I haven't been uh there. I've been mainly in academia. Um but um and I really appreciated uh that he spoke to my international law and global justice class today specifically about the very
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very careful and detailed use that human rights watch makes of the legal documents when they crafted their report on uh apartheid in uh Israel and Palestine. Um, so I thought today that instead of trying to kind of comment on what you just said with which I'm mainly in agreement, I thought I might supplement it with uh very briefly because I was given five minutes to uh some of from some of my own research on uh human rights and transnational advocacy in the world and especially in
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Latin America. So Ken's position starts in New York and it's linked now I didn't realize to how you know 80 offices around the world. Okay. uh but it's it still is kind of from New York flowing out and I want to suggest that there are kind of alternative ways of mapping the human rights movement in the world and some of them that I've done research on and participated in you know start in places like Buenocides or in Ptoria and and reach out towards the north uh and
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it's important for to make this point because some people including academics today not just repressive governments but academics make the argument that human rights started in and come from the global north and are imposed on the global south against their will as if the people of the global south would never have thought of human rights if they hadn't been told by Jimmy Carter or by Ken Ross. Um and uh and so I just wanted to to briefly begin by started starting my own story as a 24 year old
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in Washington DC sent with a Ford Foundation internship for two years uh to work with a small human rights organization called the Washington office on Latin America. And so we're talking, you know, 1980 Washington DC. And what I can tell you is that human we were there to receive human rights groups that were coming from all over Latin America to bring the their cons human rights concerns to uh uh the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights, which was there, but also to the
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US government. And very often these were eloquent spokespeople who were doing things like testifying in the US Congress to say, "Please stop your military aid to our repressive government." Um, but so I look back and think, you know, everything I learned about human rights when I was 24 years old came from colleagues that were coming from Latin America who had made this already their cause. These were, you know, Argentina alone had five important human rights organizations,
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including the first mother's group and the first grandmother's group, the Madresa de Mayo, the AASO, um, in the world. Now, of course, there's mother's groups all over the world. They're in Turkey and and and elsewhere. Um and uh so
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I remember for example um that uh that I remember the press conference where a a small human rights organization called Helsinki Watch decided it would become a global human rights organization and added a piece called America's watch. So that was its first step to being what is Human Rights Watch today. Uh and so that was a moment where uh where with a very important moment in human rights history, but it was a moment where at least in terms of my work, the the um the human rights
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world was already being filled by activists who were coming to us from Latin America and you know there was there were offices around who were receiving activists from Africa uh from the Philippines and other parts of the world. Um so then these colleagues once there was uh a transition to democracy in some of these countries then these colleagues and groups went on to do very very innovative work within their countries. Right? So we have in Argentina the first
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truth commission really the first real truth commission in the world is there. Some of the first uh uh times ever that a country has put its own leaders on trial for mass atrocity were the Argentine trials in 1985. By the way, there's a great new movie out called Argentina 1985 feature film that tells this story. It's already gotten a golden golden globe. So if you have Amazon Prime, excuse me for doing an advertisement, but you should see Argentina 1985. You should see this
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movie. Okay. Um, but so the the the first in Argentina had the first forensic anthropology group that worked on human rights. What does that mean? The first group that ever decided that they were going to exume graves for human rights investigation purposes and to help the victims learn where their loved ones were. Um, so they um I could go on with with other things. Argentine groups helped draft the convention of the rights of the child including something still
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called today the Argentine articles which said that children have a right to an identity right um the they worked on the uh con the regional convention on disappearances and then later on the international convention against disappearances the first treaty Latin American women's rights activists wrote the first treaty in the world on violence against women the bellen parah uh convention and uh which had would had firmer enforcement mechanisms than the other women's convention seaw now um so
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one of the reasons that human rights watch has been so successful in its work that it's part of this global network of people deeply committed to the cause of human rights and these ideals resonate broadly with people in all different regions of the world I've just told part of this story the Latin American part that I know from my own research research, but there's a story there of similar stories from Africa, Europe, Asia, and of course from the Middle East. Uh, for example, I believe, and
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maybe Ken will correct me, that the first group to use the term apartheid with referring to uh um Israeli uh policy towards the Palestinians was an Israeli human rights organization. what Ben Sullen um and and so uh the the the point I want to leave us with is that uh human rights watch uh and the evolution of the human rights movement has not just been an evolution of it has also been an evolution of human rights watch reaching out to all parts of the world and creating its its amazing
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network but it's also been a movement of people really rising up people living in repressive of society is really rising up to demand their rights. Thank you.
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Uh thank you so much to Matias and Katherine for setting us up for uh today's conversation and thank you to the forum and all of the staff here for creating this welcoming environment. And a particular thank you to Ken Roth who has really been a personal colleague, friend um advisor incredible brilliance and generosity of spirit. So I think we could spend an entire day uh, having a conversation with you, Ken. And I'll I'll start with a few questions and we'll definitely open it up for audience
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Q&A. I'm reflecting on the fact that this year we will be commemorating the 75th anniversary of this uh universal declaration of human rights which is really a milestone document of the history of rights and I'm wondering if you could comment on the role of technology in this current environment. You started your remarks commenting on the human rights movement closely matching the evolution of communications technology and we're now living in a digital age and how should human rights
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movement defend rights in this digital age. Well, I mean as I said you know communication technology has given us new tools and beyond what I even said. I mean you know today you know the investigators in Ukraine are are scraping videos and photographs from social media. um corroborating it, matching it with satellite imagery and having evidence, having visual evidence to match our traditional testimonial evidence. So that all strengthens us. I think what you're alluding to S is that
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um you know social media because it is such a democratic form of communication. It does lend itself to abuse and we can see you know hate speech or or you know incitement to violence coming through it. We can see disinformation, misinformation and getting that right you know the the right balance between freedom of speech and you know the concern with just you know not spreading all of this is tricky you know and the standards we developed are standards for governments but the social media
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platforms are private and so this is um you know I think we're all grappling with this um I I think you know first of all that the the tendency to look at whether you take something down or not is much less important than looking at whether the algorithm promotes it because if you put up a piece of misinformation and it just sinks, it doesn't really matter. But if it spreads because the algorithm is programmed to maximize engagement, you have a problem, you know. So um I think we're grappling
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with you know we're used to thinking about say in a US context um the there's the distinction between advocacy of even violence which is protected versus incitement which can be prohibited. The difference being you know can you introduce speech to rebut speech or is there a direct connection between the words and the violence in which case the words have to be prohibited. That's incitement. How do you deal with incitement when the words sort of in this context, you know, say
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with a Harvard debating, you know, would be fine, but somebody's picking it up on the other side of the world is going to shoot somebody because of it. You know, these are real complexities. So I think this these you I don't have simple answers to this but there's a um these are some of the challenges we face in trying to apply these core principles you know on the one hand freedom of speech on the other hand protecting people um in this world which is just so diffuse in communications terms.
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We could spend uh probably a day on this topic alone and actually the car cent's program on technology and human rights aims to grapple with these very issues. Another issue I think that has really evolved in complexity over the past 75 years is the issue of economic inequality. Uh according to Oxfam's recent report inequality kills the wealth of the richest 10 men in the world has increased dramatically since the pandemic while the poorest 99% has really uh suffered economically and in
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many other ways. How well do you think the human rights movement in general and human rights watch in particular has tackled this issue of economic inequality within and across countries? Yeah, I mean that distinction is a very important one because um human rights law particularly the concepts of economic and social rights principally speak to how a government allocates available resources to meet the most basic needs of their citizens. And so we do have the tools to address inequality
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kind of within a country. Um and and if a government says, "Oh, we don't have enough money, but they're not taxing at an adequate level." That's something that we can address. What is harder where international law is much weaker is the duties between countries. And there, you know, is a concept the right to development, but that's not in treaties. It's it's softer law. and it doesn't really specify who has to do what. It's it's much less prescriptive in that sense. And so I think the human
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rights movement to be honest is less successful in addressing kind of the intergovernmental transfers that are required. The proponents of the right to development actually wanted in in the early days wanted it to be unconditional. You know, give me my money for development. What they didn't want was the scrutiny that should go with that. you know, not simply um are you taking available resources to meet the most basic needs of your people, but also are you allowing a free media, a
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free civil society to scrutinize what you're doing with that money to to decide what's most important. And and you know, a good example of a nonhuman rights approach to development is Xiinping's belt and road initiative. you know, a1 trillion dollar infrastructure development program with zero transparency, zero attention to any of the rights that should surround this. And what we've seen is it turns into, you know, not only a debt trap, but almost an invitation to corruption. And
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I my sense of it is almost designed for that. I mean, they're actually perfectly happy to be buying off elites in these societies so they'll then vote with China, the UN. Um, but it's a terrible way to meet the economic rights of people in those countries. Thank you for that. I'm also curious about your views on the struggle between democracy and autocracy. I think um over the past decades, we've seen increased enthusiasm for democracy as a way to expand rights and freedoms. Uh we think
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of the movements in Latin America that Katherine alluded to as well as movements in Eastern Europe. Um and now it seems that democracy is really uh under attack in the United States, in Brazil, in India and many places around the world. So what is your viewpoint of the struggle between democracy and autocracy? And how does it connect to rights? Well, first of all, I think it's directly connected to rights. In other words, you know, what is democracy? It's, you know, not only periodic
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elections, but it's also the conditions of free debate, um, you know, political competition that make those elections meaningful. And it's the rule of law. It's the ability to hold governments, um, to the law, which is how you enforce rights. So, democracy understood fully, not just as an electoral event, is very related to rights. I think that you know most people when they think about the the struggle between autocracy and democracy are thinking about you know do people prefer
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the autocratic form of government and here you know China says oh we're the superior model you know democracies are are too slow too divisive too messy too short-term oriented to get things done now we've had you know real examples of the fallacy of that approach in the last couple of years because you know the The downside of autocrats is that um because you know they surround themselves with sickopants, they don't allow public challenges, they tend to make bad
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decisions. So Putin invades Ukraine, you know, Xiinping has zero COVID and then drops zero CO with zero preparation, you know. So it's um you know, we've seen the the dangers of that. It used to be that autocrats and not so much Xiinping but even Putin and you know Orban and Erdogan would um have what they would call managed elections. So they recognize the importance of elections for legitimacy sake but they would um tilt the playing field and and censor and undermine free political
41:52
parties and the like so that they would win. Um what we've seen over the last couple of years is there's been this massive outpouring of support for democracy against autocracy with people taking to the streets in you know in Hong Kong and Myanmar and you know Russia Bellarus Iran Sudan you know Nicaragua Cuba I mean you've seen this really all over the place to the point where autocrats today don't trust managed elections anymore. So you see these complete charades like what
42:23
Bellarus did what what what you know Putin did um Ortega Nicaragua and so these are you know they don't confer any of the legitimacy that is sought from this charade um these are just zombie democracies that are existing by virtue simply of repression which is not a sustainable strategy. It doesn't confer any legitimacy at all. So from the perspective of an autocrat, it's a hostile world out there. But before we get too complacent, we should recognize that within established democracies,
42:57
there are people who are losing faith with democracy. And I think that is because on the one hand the democracies are not delivering to certain people who feel left behind by the economic progress, by the urban elite, by cultural shifts, you know, by demographic shifts. And these people are have are susceptible to the populist appeal that certain autocratically inclined politicians in the west are making which is basically an anti-rights appeal. It's, you know, taking some
43:32
disfavored minority, you know, it could be LGBT people, it could be asylum seekers, you know, it could be racial minorities, demonizing them, gaining the approval of a sufficient segment of society. It may not be a full majority, but it could be 30%. Um, and therefore making progress. And so that's the threat that we face within democracies, which I feel, you know, on the one hand, yes, you got to fight against the populists, but you also have to improve upon the delivery of the democracy.
44:01
We've got to find ways to reach out to those who feel left behind to show that democracy does serve them as well. Uh, terrific. U before we move to the audience questions, I'm going to ask you one more question and it's I'm going to take the prerogative to ask you a two-part question. Okay. And um you alluded and so did Katherine to the issue of Israel. And while we could touch on many countries when we talk about human rights, we could delve more deeply into China or even the
44:30
United States. Um I wanted to ask you about uh Israel on on Human Rights Watch's website page on Israel Palestine. The opening paragraph reads, "Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians." And I'm wondering if you could explain for our audience the definition of apartheid and why you would apply it to this context. I know you touched on this in Katherine's class, but I think it would be helpful
44:58
to address that here since your opening remarks alluded to this issue. And a follow-up question that I have for you, um, this is the two-part question, relates to the issues of NGO accountability and legitimacy. So, um, democratically elected governments are ostensibly accountable to citizens and human rights movements, social movements like the abuelas that Katherine referenced are accountable to their members, their base. So, who is Human Rights Watch accountable to when
45:30
developing such reports? Okay. Um, quickly, okay. Um, I mean, first our aparttheid report um, we very deliberately were not making an historical analogy to South Africa. We were applying international law and there are two treaties that define apartheid. One is the UN convention against apartheid. The other is the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Um, in essence there are three elements to the crime. An intent to dominate by one racial group over
46:00
another. race understood broadly to include ethnicity and religion. Um, second is oppressive discrimination, not mere systematic discrimination, but oppressive quite severe discrimination. And third is what are known as inhumane acts, which are just like particularly bad examples of that repression. We had a 200 plus page report. Um, the case is actually overwhelming and and so it wasn't really a close call. The big question we were asked is like why didn't you do this earlier? And the only
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real answer I can give is that um we for too long accepted the the defense that tends to be given which is yeah there are bad things that are happening to Palestinians. We know we know but there's the peace process. You know the peace process will fix this and you know 55 years of occupation with no end in sight. A government that is extending the settlements that is turning the West Bank into Swiss cheese that is you know moving away from any prospect of of a
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two-state solution. we just couldn't accept the peace process as an answer. So our view is like fine you know whatever ultimately comes out of this if it's a one state two states confederation it's not our position we don't care whatever but in the meantime there is what there is and we want equal rights within this one state reality there are not equal rights there is this system of apartheid with you know if you just take say you know area C of the West Bank you know these very nice
47:20
settlements with Israeli civil law um and and all the freedoms you would expect in a democratic nation and right next door, a little Palestinian village in area C with severe restrictions on even adding a bedroom, you know, passes to have to get through checkpoints and and restrictions on where they can go. And it it, you know, a military rule rather than civilian rule. It's just blatant apartite is not even close. And when we, you know, when we issued the report, the Israeli government really
47:48
didn't have much to say. You know, they couldn't find anything wrong with factual nature. They couldn't find anything wrong with legal analysis. They resorted to the usual name calling. you know, you're biased, you're anti-Sematic, whatever. But, um, you know, that for me is a victory because they're they're not able to rebut it. Um, later they came back and said, "Oh, well, you know, but what about, you know, Palestinians have rights within Israel? They have a passport. They they
48:11
can vote." And if you read our report carefully, we actually didn't find a part within Green Line Israel. Um, you know, we found the three elements of the crime came together in the occupied territories. So, anyway, that's a quickie narration there. I'm happy to answer more questions. our accountability. Um the I think it was Tunisia once that said every NGO has to have a popular election and anybody can take place and that's basically killing civil society. It's saying that civil
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society has to just replicate elected governments and the role of civil society I think if properly understood is um as an alternative voice to government. So yes, government has a certain legitimacy that comes from an election. Um, civil society can be anybody coming together. It can be two people in somebody's living room. You know, it can be a big group. It doesn't matter. You know, everybody has a right to join together however they want and to speak on issues of public concern.
49:08
What is the accountability in that context? It's your ability to influence people. You know, civil society only has influence in so far as it's able to persuade people of the correctness of its views. And so, you know, why does anybody listen to Human Rights Watch? I mean, we still are a tiny group. We're, you know, 550 staff. Um, they listen to us because we're super careful and objective in our factf finding and we're principled in our reporting. We apply human rights
49:37
principles as carefully as we can even handily to 100 countries around the world. Um, because we've developed a reputation for that and we are operating super publicly. Everything we do is out there. you know, everything we do is subject to criticism and scrutiny. Um, we pass that scrutiny and therefore we have influence. So, that's the accountability. It's not an election. It's a different form of accountability. Thank you. Uh, we're going to open it up for audience Q&A. And if you could line
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up at the four mics. There's uh two mics on this floor and there's two above. uh we'd like you to briefly identify yourself and your affiliation at the university and a single sentence that ends with a question mark would be terrific. Um and just in the interest of time I might call on a couple of questions and then rotate it around. So I'll start with you and then go over to the right and then I'll go um to the next two after you answer these two questions.
50:38
Thank you so much. Um hello, my name is Janna Ramadan. I'm a senior at the college. college. I study government and Middle Eastern studies, originally from Boston, Massachusetts. Um, so I'm going to put my question in the beginning and I'm going to cheat and give a little bit of context just as to where I'm coming from. Um, but essentially the question is underscoring the point that you raised in the very beginning about academic freedoms and the reason why that's important, especially as you
50:59
recognize your positionality as someone with the career in human rights, advocacy, and work in comparison to students and scholars that maybe don't have that protection. but also noting the fact that there is likely some level of racialization into who is considered an objective and credible individual in the human rights advocacy space. And so how does identity also come into the fold when thinking about advocacy and protection of individuals, especially students? And this is coming from a
51:25
place where I'm a Palestinian American if the kofia and the necklace didn't off. I also served as president of the Institute of Politics for the 2022 year. And every time we asked to invite a Palestinian American or a Palestinian speaker, they were denied. And if you look at the IOP and the HKS's recollection of inclusion of Palestine, there are only 12 instances from 1988. Two of them um are about Palestine alone. The others are all about Palestine in relation to Israel. And
51:52
then you only have six that include individuals that speak to some degree in favor of Palestine or Palestinian human rights existing and being protected. So in thinking of the space of myself as a student being unable to push even in a position of authority or agency within the student hierarchy that exists but also recognizing that being Palestinian could be used against me in my credibility. How do you believe that academic freedoms and identity come into place and how do we push it further
52:18
since institutions are currently lacking?
52:29
It's going to be tough to beat that question, but we're gonna we're gonna take one more question because I said we would on this side and then we'll have Ken respond and then move up to the uh next floor. Hi, I'm Hamza. I'm a student at the Kennedy School. I signed a very angry petition to get you here. So, I'm glad you're here. Thank you. I had the privilege of interviewing the Israel Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir. And I would like to ask you the same question I
52:56
asked him which is that independent of the legal case for why it's apartheide the convention and whatnot do you think it helped the human rights cause to use the term apartheide in other words more broadly still is naming and shaming always an effective tactic okay good questions um first you you mean you're just confirming what I was suggesting at the outset which is there is a need for a statement of support for academic freedom with some specificity about discussion of Israel Palestine and
53:30
it's not enough to say oh I allow critics of of Israel because I mean if you look at the fellow who was here they you know they had the PLO chief negotiator um he was an easy choice because he was seen as so clearly pro Palestinian that he didn't sort of carry special resonance with the general public um I think Why did they veto me? Why did the dean veto me? You know, because Human Rights Watch is actually seen as impartial. And so our criticism of Israel resonates. Um that's why, you
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know, there are all these like little micro groups that aren't running around that, you know, act as if the Israeli government has never committed a human rights violation in the history of the world and then criticize anybody who criticizes Israel as if we're biased. you know, they epitomize bias and they have the audacity to charge bias. So, um, and and it was, you know, I think groups like that that influence the dean because he didn't know better. Um, so this is a real problem. You you
54:33
mentioned Omar. I mean, you know, the Israeli government expelled the human rights watch researcher. Um, I think a big part of why they did that was because his name was Omar Shakir. you know, if it had been John Smith, they would have been much less likely to do that. Now, it happens to be that Omar is Iraqi American, not Palestinian, but nonetheless, you know, it was the Arabic name that made him like more expendable. You know, there is a big problem that
54:58
you identify of always feeling you need to balance. And why do we always need to balance? You know, what's wrong with allowing, you know, a pro Palestinian perspective today and there can be a pro-Israeli perspective tomorrow? Um, there are what, 10 Waxner fellows here who are all Israeli government officials, you know, zero Palestinian officials. I mean, there's plenty of pro-Israel tilting going on here, you know. So, why can't we have a forum which just portrays the Palestinian perspective?
55:29
What's the fear? you know, is the fear that somehow the the Kennedy School is putting its impremature on a pro Palestinian perspective and somebody people who matter to the dean are going to get upset. You know, we have to change this and and so that's why I feel that we really need to, you know, get a much clearer transparency about who these people who matter are. Um, and we need a much clearer articulation of commitment to academic freedom, not just in the nice abstract, which anybody can
55:57
say, but in this context explicitly. Um, okay. Did I'm sorry, you're gonna have to repeat. Um, Hamsa asked you about the Omar report and Oh, yeah. Did it Did it Well, did it make I think it did make a difference um in that I mean, first of all, this is the reality. So, it's not as if we were just sort of saying should we or shouldn't we, you know, we we we did the analysis. You know, it just the facts were overwhelming. So, you got to call it as it is. Um the I hope that what the
56:33
report accomplished is to wake people up from their complacency. Um because there was this complacency about the peace process. You know, yeah, the Palestinians have it bad, but you know, we'll work it out when there's peace. Or you hear, oh, there's no partner in peace. You know, there's all these usual rationalizations. Um, but you know, here you have a government that, you know, under Netanyahu for years and even more so now with this far-right government is
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committed to making a two-state solution impossible. Um, forever kicking the problem down the road. Nonetheless, people are living under this regime and and so we just had to call it for what it was. And the apartheid label because it's accurate, I hope, wakes people up to say this is not acceptable. Um, so that was the aim. You know, does shaming always work? No, of course not. Um, but shaming does tilt the costbenefit analysis and and you know, I've been very pleased with the media response to
57:25
the report. Um, we've had, you know, quite a few governments embrace the analysis. It still is anathema in Washington. You know, there still are certain Western capitals that won't look at it, but I think the tide is turning and and, you know, we've had experience building global coalitions despite Washington's opposition. And that's what we're going to have to do here. So, if we could take uh two questions consolidated at the top levels. Yes. If you want to get us started.
57:54
Hi. Uh my name is Robert. I'm a sophomore at the college. Thank you for joining us today. Mr. Roth. I guess my question I want to come back to the Israel Palestine thing. Um so I'm not a person who studies human rights. I study economics. Not not my forte at all. I I don't pretend to know the first thing. uh when it comes to studying human rights. Um and you come here and you say Human Rights Watch is not biased. And then I look at Robert Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, and he's
58:25
saying the exact opposite, that Human Rights Watch has become incredibly biased when it relates to Israel, criticizing the methods that are used and the information that's relayed to the public. I don't know what the right answer is in terms of what Human Rights Watch is doing, but we're being told two very different things by two very high up officials in the human rights world. So, I was just wondering, how does Human Rights Watch and you yourself typically respond to this criticism? Okay.
58:54
Hi there. Um, my name is Ivana Tuni Yang and I'm a first year MP student here at the Kennedy School and I have a more academic question. Um, I heard you frame an approach to advocacy as a sort of costbenefit analysis and of oppression and a give and take, withholding things from governments until they uh rectify human rights abuses. Would you characterize that for Human Rights Watch as a political strategy, an expression of organizational values or somewhere in between?
59:20
Okay. Um, well, why don't I take it backwards? Um, the the um it's mainly a strategy. In other words, it reflects core values. I mean our values are to defend human rights, you know, to allow people to live lives in which their rights are respected. So that's the core value. Um we are then a very pragmatic organization. Um you know it's not enough to just kind of you know hold the candle and saying we stand for human rights. We want to get things done. We want to make people's lives better. So
59:49
we do try to figure out how do we move governments and you know we don't have a police force. We don't have an army. We don't have an aid budget. You know we don't have any of those kind of tools. Um, we have basically two things. We have the ability to shame through our factf finding. Um, and we have the ability to enlist influential governments to use their clout on behalf of the cause. And so those are the strategies that have proven themselves over the years to work. You know, not
1:00:16
always, but a lot. And and so that's how I would explain that. It's it's a, you know, a pragmatic application um of our defense of those values. Um, in terms of your question, look at the, um, you know, Robert Bernstein, it was, I be honest, it was a bit of a tragic situation. I mean, he did break from the organization. In the end, he reconciled before he died. But, you know, there were two key premises. I mean, one, he said that we were focusing too much on Israel. And just I mean, go to our
1:00:43
website, like look at our work on Syria, look at our work on Egypt, look at our work on Saudi Arabia, on Iran. I mean, it's just it's just not true. But, you know, just go to the website. That's the easiest rebuttal there. Um the other thing he said which was you know his conceptual point Bernstein um was involved with human rights watch Katherine was referring to this in the Helsinki watch days. So when we were really looking at um dissident in the Soviet block and for him that was
1:01:15
the model of what we should do. So we should be there you know when there is a a dictatorial government um no democracy no civil society we should be trying to protect those dissident now that's very important but the organization evolved a lot from that you know it's a global organization now his view though was that we should not operate in countries where there is a civil society where there is a democracy we should be limiting ourselves to dictatorships and protecting dissident in those
1:01:44
dictatorships and I just don't agree, you know, I mean, at the time I I sort of jokingly say, I've got a a two-word answer to that. George Bush, you know, because, you know, here's a democracy and George Bush was torturing people and putting them in Guantanamo and, you know, and it was like completely clear at that point um that of course we have to deal with democracies, you know, and and of course Israel is a democracy within the Green Line. It's not a democracy in the West Bank, East
1:02:12
Jerusalem or Gaza. So, I just disagreed with his critique, you know. Um, he's entitled to make it. Um, you know, I I felt badly for him because it was such a break from the principles he'd followed most of his life. Um, but he's just wrong. Let's take two more questions. I know we're running over a little bit, uh, but we'll just try and squeeze in two more questions before we wrap up and we'll go with the two folks on the ground floor here. Go ahead. My name is Victor. I'm a sophomore at
1:02:40
the college studying government. Um, you alluded that there are improvements that democratic societies can make to be more inclusive of minority perspectives. I wanted to ask what those improvements might look like and how you envision achieving them.
1:02:56
First, I'll say I'm a I'm a Jewish American and I'm extremely happy that you're here. I also signed as many petitions as I could. Uh, my name is Danny Fster. I'm from the Neman Foundation for Journalism. Um, and so a lot of the work that you talked about human rights doing, you use the word reporting, you use the word investigating disseminating information. It sounds like journalism. How do you see the two different the two roles? Um, and do you think that local media
1:03:25
around the world gets its legitimacy from the reputation it builds locally? So when local media are reporting on this, it's just kind of impossible to have this notion of it being a biased western sort of thing. So you know what role do you see getting funding for local media around the world? Um and how do you see your role in journalists roles? Okay. Am I correct that you worked in Myanmar? What's that? Did you work in Myanmar? Yeah. And uh Human Rights Watch did a
1:03:51
lot of I was uh imprisoned there. Yeah, I know. I know. Exactly. I remember you. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in human rights watch did a lot of a lot of lobbying to get me out and I appreciate it. It's great to see you.
1:04:12
Okay. Um I mean Daniel let me start with you. The there are many similarities between what Human Rights Watch does and what what journalists do. Um journalists obviously have a broader mandate you know and and so we in a sense have the luxury of focusing on human rights issues whereas journalists often have to you know deal with economics and culture and whatever. Um but there's a um you know there's there are many parallels and we often will do joint investigations. um the
1:04:43
you know local journalists there's always the question of you know so how do you get your voice heard and um the question you're asking about local journalists also could ask I mean Katherine was making the same point can be asked about local activists and in an ideal world you would just say you know go talk to the local activist you know they'll tell you what's going on um and and that does happen in some cases, but you know, just given the biases of the world, um, and the fact that, you know,
1:05:15
if you're an international journalist, you're not going to know who all the local activists or local journalists are, but they'll know Human Rights Watch. You know, we often play this intermediary role. Um, and we try as much as we can to to give credit to the local partners in this. Um, we actually will often portray them in, say, our videos. We sometimes will jointly publish with them. um they're they really are key actors in this but you know it's a challenge as you undoubtedly
1:05:41
saw from your work in Myammar to you know get your work onto the the global scene even if it's very respected within the country. So I I hope that somewhat answers your question in terms of um I mean let me if I could change your question a little bit because um there there are I think two issues. I mean one is um obviously many minorities in democracies um face discrimination um face inequality you know face all kinds of hardships um the irony is that they tend to be um advocates of
1:06:23
democracy participants in democracy you know they're they're they're trying to make democracy work the at least in you know certainly in the US and Russia and Hungary and Poland. I mean these places where there is a domestic turning on democracy, it actually isn't the disavored minorities. It's the um ethnic majority typically outside of the cities sort of the conservative rural ethnic majority. um still could be a minority within the country but but a majority of um the dominant group and
1:07:01
why are they turning on democracy um you know it's partly that they see the cities advancing and they're not you know partly it's economic um partly I think it's um it's cultural like in this country there's a sense that the elites are looking down on the center of the country you know and and there's just a a resentment of that which is understandable Um, partly it's discomfort with demographic changes in a much more mobile world where every country is becoming more multicultural,
1:07:32
more multithnic. Um, you know, it's hard to I mean, there are a variety of factors. Not all of them can be answered. You know, it's not we're going to like we're going to stop diversity, you know, that's just not going to happen. Um but I think there are things that can be done that will um make these people feel that they are heard by government, respected by government, that their concerns are being addressed, you know, in in an economic sense or social sense
1:08:00
or whatever, you know, that they're valued citizens. And we're not succeeding with that right now, you know, and that's, you know, that was the appeal of Trump. I mean, the irony of Trump is that um when he spoke with resentment about the elite, I mean, you could on one hand laugh and say, "Here's this, you know, super rich guy. What's he talking about?" But he um you know, never was accepted by the Manhattan elite. He was always the guy from Queens. And so when he spoke
1:08:28
resentfully of the coastal elite, he meant it. It had been his experience and therefore he could connect with people who shared that resentment. Um, so you know, we're not going to try to replicate Trump, but we need to find a way that government does speak to people. This is, I think, one of Joe Biden's strengths. Um, is it going to be enough? I don't know. You know, but but that's the challenge before us to try to recognize that, you know, democracy is facing an internal challenge and we do
1:08:58
have to, you know, find ways to answer to everybody even if those people might be considered, you know, Republican or conservative or, you know, whatever the that variation is in their particular country. Ken, before we wrap up, uh, I'd like to ask you a question on a more uplifting note. uh so much of our conversation has focused on the violence that we as humans and the policies and institutions we create have perpetrated, right? And so I'm curious as you've done this work
1:09:27
over the decades, uh what brings you joy? What gives you hope? Well, you know, I I mean, I wouldn't do this work if I wasn't a basically hopeful person, you know. So, I I do um believe that it's that it's possible through our joint efforts to make things better. Um and I've seen this play out over and over and over again. Um you know, I recognize that I in a sense, you know, traffic in misery. I mean, I'm dealing with people's stories, you know, all the time. I don't let myself dwell
1:10:05
in that. I don't get immersed in it. I I I recognize I need to know what's happening, but I'm deploying that information. I'm trying to use that information to make things better for people. And personally, I like that battle. Um, and it's fulfilling because I can see how it's paying off in improvements in people's lives. So, that's, you know, that's why I'm hopeful and it also kind of re-energizes that hope. Well, please join me in thanking Ken Roth for joining us. Thank you.
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