Feature

Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch Addresses Annual Mentor Dinner

At this year's Mentor Dinner, the keynote speaker was Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth, who discussed the United States' diminishing integrity in human rights and how to reverse the trend.

"We've lost a very significant part of U.S. government credibility," he said, referring to the Bush Administration's endorsement of aggressive interrogation of terror suspects. These tactics include redefining torture, the use of secret detention centers, and defining a war as global without a sovereign nation as an enemy-all of which Roth called "blatantly illegal."

"When a superpower violates human rights, it tends to degrade the standard," he said. As a result, nations start to see torture as an acceptable tool and protests by the United States look hypocritical.

Human Rights Watch, the largest U.S.-based human rights organization, has more than 150 people working around the world. The organization investigates and exposes conditions of abuse and uses its international advocates to meet with government officials in an effort to change their practices.

Drawing from this global perspective, Roth said the European Union should become a leader in human rights issues, but that this is prevented by its current governing structure and other factors, including the frequent rotation of the presidency and the difficulty of all twenty-seven coalition governments reaching consensus on an issue.

Roth closed by saying, "We're not going to find an alternative voice to the United States." Instead, he said the U.S. government must acknowledge where it has erred and put an end to the practices that have diminished its international reputation, calling this need to reclaim U.S. authority on human rights the "greatest challenge" facing Americans.