259 - Kenneth Roth: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and How to Shame a Dictator

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Kenneth Roth is the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor at the Princeton School for Public and International Affairs. Until August 2022, he served for nearly three decades as the executive director of Human Rights Watch. In this episode, Robinson and Ken discuss his work with HRW and what he has been doing since. More particularly, they get into the details of how HRW operated, how shaming tactics can be deployed against figures like Putin, Trump, and Orban, Israel and Palestine, the relationship between genocide and ethnic cleansing, and more. For more, read Ken’s recent book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments (Knopf, 2025).

Righting Wrongs: https://a.co/d/gHkbmmw

OUTLINE

00:00 Introduction

00:00:53 Why Human Rights?

00:08:23 How Does Human Rights Watch Work?

00:14:04 Can Putin or Orban Be Shamed?

00:21:14 Can Trump Be Shamed into Standing Up to Putin?

00:26:53 Libya, Gaddafi, and Forcing the Release of Political Prisoners

00:29:14 Fighting the Dreaded M23 Rebel Group in Congo

00:31:56 Why Governments Always Violate Human Rights

00:33:57 Is Torture Ever Justified?

00:38:21 Facts and Investigations

00:46:27 Verifying Starvation and Famine in Gaza

00:51:29 Can Netanyahu Be Shamed?

00:58:24 Genocide vs. Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine

01:04:16 The United States’ Biggest Human Rights Violations

01:09:24 Sudan: The World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis