Kenneth Roth
@KenRoth
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Former Human Rights Watch executive director (1993-2022). Now visiting professor, Princeton SPIA. My book "Righting Wrongs" just published by Knopf.
New York and Geneva
Joined December 2008
This isn't the first time the US government stood on the wrong side of an essential human rights challenge. In my new book, "Righting Wrongs," I explain how the human rights movement repeatedly circumvented and overcame US obstruction. We can do it again.
penguinrandomhouse.com
From the long-time head of Human Rights Watch, the fascinating and inspiring story of taking on the biggest villains and toughest autocrats around the world ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST...
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Rejecting Netanyahu's stonewalling, "a 58% majority of Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognize Palestine as a nation." Now will Trump get the message and allow it to happen?
reuters.com
A 58% majority of Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognize Palestine as a nation, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, as Israel and Hamas considered a possible...
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Amid ongoing Israeli attacks, “the systematic destruction of Gaza City is already underway”: UN rights office.
news.un.org
In recent days, the Israeli military has escalated attacks across Gaza City, reportedly deciding to take full control.
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Republican senators including Rubio were thrilled when the ICC charged Putin. But suddenly the ICC disregards national sovereignty when it prosecutes Netanyahu. In each case the court had jurisdiction because crimes were committed on the territory of a member state. #hypocrisy.
The @IntlCrimCourt continues to disregard national sovereignty and facilitate lawfare through efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, and prosecute American and Israeli nationals. In response, I am sanctioning four additional ICC officials. We will continue to hold accountable.
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Trump accused the Smithsonian Institution of focusing too much on “how bad slavery was.” Why won’t it highlight the “good” side of slavery?
nytimes.com
The remark, made as the president has ordered a wide-ranging review of museum exhibits, added to his pattern of minimizing Black history.
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The Trump administration imposes sanctions on two International Criminal Court judges and two deputy prosecutors, mainly for advancing war-crime charges against Israel's Netanyahu and Gallant. Trump and Rubio risk ICC prosecution for obstructing justice.
state.gov
Today, the United States is sanctioning four individuals, currently serving on the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Department of State’s designations are made pursuant to Executive Order...
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Xi Jinping’s ongoing political purges reflect his insecurity, especially following governance failures such as “the ‘zero Covid’ debacles, regressive economic measures and contentious foreign policy moves.”
nytimes.com
China’s “bedside eavesdroppers,” the online posse parsing rumors for power shifts, have a lot to work with as Xi Jinping pushes aside his own political appointees.
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Trump says, “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible.” Not by ethnically cleansing Gaza (or consigning Palestinians to endless apartheid rather than a state) or by succumbing to Putin’s quest to destroy Ukraine’s democracy.
nytimes.com
President Trump cast his effort to broker peace in Ukraine in existential terms.
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Netanyahu claims that Australia's prime minister is "weak" because he will recognize a Palestinian state in response to Israel's genocide in Gaza. The Australian government has an appropriate response to Netanyahu:
The government has responded to Benjamin Netanyahu calling Anthony Albanese a "weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia's Jews". "Strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry", Tony Burke has told the ABC
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Ecuador should expedite closure of ~240 oil wells operating in the heart of Yasuni National Park in the Amazon rainforest after the Ecuadorian people voted to halt all oil drilling in the one of the most intact sections remaining in the Amazon River Basin.
hrw.org
Ecuador’s government should expedite the closure of the approximately 240 oil wells operating in the heart of Yasuni National Park in the Amazon rainforest.
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In a new poll, 65% of Americans say the US should take action in Gaza to help people facing starvation. The most effective way would be to press the Israeli government to stop blocking food and other necessities from reaching Palestinian civilians there.
reuters.com
A 58% majority of Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognize Palestine as a nation, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, as Israel and Hamas considered a possible...
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Sri Lankan security forces still harass families of victims of forced disappearances and misuse the country’s draconian counterterrorism law a year since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake took office with promises of reform.
hrw.org
Sri Lankan security forces still harass families of victims of forced disappearances and misuse the country’s draconian counterterrorism law a year since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake took...
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Dozens of Microsoft employees occupied the company’s east campus in Redmond, Washington to protest against what they say is the use of its software by the Israeli military to carry out operations in Gaza and enable the surveillance of Palestinians.
theguardian.com
Employees outraged by report Azure platform used by Israel to store surveillance data collected on Palestinians
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More war crimes: Israel gave final approval for a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank that would effectively cut the territory in two, and that Palestinians and rights groups say could destroy plans for a future Palestinian state.
apnews.com
Israel has given final approval for a controversial settlement project that could cut the occupied West Bank effectively in two.
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Fleeing Gaza City ahead of Israel's impending ground invasion "is a luxury many cannot afford, and some are injured or too weak from hunger to walk to 'safe zones'" that Israel has repeatedly bombed.
haaretz.com
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Trump says he won't put U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine but may be willing to provide air support to backstop a possible peace deal, supplementing European troops on the ground providing a security guarantee.
theguardian.com
US president suggests he may be willing to provide air power to help enforce potential peace deal with Putin
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It is deeply disturbing that matters of war and peace, democracy and autocracy, depend on stroking and flattering the fragile ego of the mercurial, self-absorbed Trump.
nytimes.com
The leaders of Germany, France, Britain and other supporters of Ukraine have come together in exceptional ways to help sway the U.S. president.
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The fear is that the limelight-loving Trump is so eager to announce a "deal" in Ukraine that he'll jeopardize Ukraine's democracy by embracing Putin's plan for the country.
nytimes.com
Diplomats scrambled to come up with detailed proposals for security guarantees and other sticking points following two high-level summits in Alaska and Washington.
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A reminder that Israel's genocidal strategy in Gaza involves blocking not only food from starving people but also medical equipment from people who urgently need it -- this time, ICU beds coming from the @WHO.
"This truck has been rejected four times. It's carrying ICU beds coming from the W.H.O." . Amal Emam, Executive Director of the Egyptian Red Crescent, shows @BeckyCNN a warehouse full of medical supplies at the Rafah border crossing that Israel has turned back.
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The Rwandan-controlled M23 armed group summarily executed over 140 civilians in July, largely ethnic Hutu, in at least 14 villages and small farming communities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
hrw.org
The Rwandan-controlled M23 armed group summarily executed over 140 civilians, in at least 14 villages and farming areas in July 2025 near Virunga National Park, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
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Putin’s “land swap” is really a grab for Ukraine’s “fortress belt”, a 30-mile line that comprises four cities and several towns, which stands in the way not only of Russia’s gaining the whole of Donbas, but also of its ability to threaten other regions.
economist.com
He wants Trump to secure for him what Russia’s army cannot
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