Human rights activist Kenneth Roth remains optimistic about the international rule of law: ‘There is always something that despots care about. That’s where you catch them’

The international legal order is in trouble: autocrats are in power, the ICC is being undermined and the rules of war are being massively violated. “But it is too simplistic to say that democracy is in decline worldwide,” says former director Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch.

The American Kenneth Roth has led the Human Rights Watch for three decades. He explains his strategy, deciphers how it could work on Donald Trump and why China is in his eyes the greatest threatSon of a Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany, Kenneth Roth grew up in the United States at a time when images of the Vietnam War, the Biafra conflict and violent demonstrations of the 1968 Democratic Convention were on the small family screen. In 1987, h…