Though several of the world’s current human rights crises can be attributed to several potentially valid explanations, “a big part of the problem has been a seeming pragmatism that Obama has sometimes been championed for, but has too often degenerated into a short-sightedness that has repeatedly led us into trouble,” said Kenneth Roth ’77 P’12, executive director of Human Rights Watch, at the start of a lecture Thursday evening.
Roth delivered the 89th annual Stephen A. Ogden ’60 memorial lecture to a crowd of mostly students and faculty members in Metcalf Auditorium. President Christina Paxson began her introduction by saying Roth “began his training” for his current work while at Brown, where he devoted a large part of his undergraduate career to studying the “morality of public policy.”
Roth focused on contemporary human rights crises during his lecture, entitled “Making Sense of Today’s Tumultuous World.”
Compared to Obama’s pragmatism, Roth said, “I will argue that a more principled approach, even if in classic terms may be seen as less realist and less pragmatic, would actually have been more productive and will provide us a compass going forward for trying to extract us from some of these messes.”
Roth presented a case-by-case analysis of violence in the Middle East and North Africa, beginning with American involvement in Iraq.
“I think what Obama has done since the formal departure from Iraq has significantly contributed to making things worse,” Roth said. He added that past support of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shaped U.S. policy and that “the United States continued to support Maliki even when there were many signals that we should stop.”
Maliki’s distrust of the Iraqi military led to a reliance on Shiite military forces and an abusive sectarian rule, he said. Sunni tribes that had opposed al-Qaeda joined with ISIS because they felt safer there than under Maliki. “Obama largely ignored these abuses until ISIS arrived.”
Roth also criticized the U.S. role in Egypt.“The U.S. attitude towards Egypt has basically been to support whoever is there at the moment,” he said. Roth added that the problem with Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the current president of Egypt, is “his reign is actually the most brutal we’ve had in memory,” citing Sisi’s treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood, methods of torture and the silencing of the press. “Despite this horrible record, the U.S. is sort of embracing this guy,” Roth said.
Regarding the crisis in Gaza, Roth said in the absence of national justice, the persistent warfare should be assessed by the International Criminal Court, an intergovernmental organization that tries international crimes. Palestine could join the court, but it is “under enormous pressure not to do so” from the United States and the European Union, he said, adding that the United States is again “sticking up for friends” and “allowing principles to slide.”
In Nigeria, “Boko Haram has been allowed to flourish” with minimal criticism from the United States, Roth said.
“In times of tumult like we’re in today, you need some kind of guiding compass to prevent a resort to shortsightedness,” Roth concluded, advocating for a “more principled approach” going forward.
After the lecture, Kimberly Saltz ’17 was one of several audience members to pose a question to Roth.
“I’ve been hearing a bit about how when certain groups show one issue prominently it tends to shape diplomacy. … I was wondering what your thoughts on that were,” Saltz said.
“I tend to be more worried about human rights issues being neglected,” Roth answered.
Another audience member asked about how Human Rights Watch addresses “organizational gaps” in making humanitarian crises more visible to the general public. The student cited a moment from a course last semester, in which her professor was unaware of a church bombing in Nigeria that the student had read about online. She questioned why the human rights violation had not gotten more media coverage.
Roth replied that the organization uses the press as a means of motivating governments to action, though continued coverage is not always necessary after a quick United Nations response to incidents.
The nonprofit first goes in with a research staff to conduct “on-the-ground investigations,” when human rights violations come under its radar, he continued. With “limited staff” covering over 90 countries, “I’m not sure there’s a lot more we could be doing,” Roth said.
Roth joined the nonprofit, nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch in 1987 and has since worked to conduct investigations and missions, with special attention devoted to international justice, counterterrorism and the United Nations’ work, according to the Human Rights Watch website.
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