Dr. Ken Roth

Biography

Kenneth Roth is the Charles Marie Robertson Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. He served for decades as the executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s leading international human rights organizations, which operates in 100 countries. Roth was previously a federal prosecutor in New York, participating in the Iran-Contra investigation. A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, he has conducted numerous human rights investigative advocacy missions across the globe, meeting with dozens of heads of state and countless ministers. Roth's work has been widely quoted in the media, and he has written hundreds of articles on a wide range of human rights issues, devoting particular attention to the world's most dire situations, the conduct of war, and the foreign policies of major powers, as well as the work of the United Nations and the global contest between autocracy and democracy. His book, “Righting Wrongs,” published by Knopf on February 25, offers an insider’s view of the strategies used by Human Rights Watch to pressure governments to respect human rights, drawing on his years of experience in the field and providing numerous examples of effective pressure against powerful recalcitrant governments.

Research Interests