Stanford University

Roth on Obama's human rights record

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On April 13, Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch discussed Obama's human rights record to an audience of over 125 students and faculty, marking Roth's first speaking engagement at Stanford University. This event was hosted by the Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and was the final installment of the Sanela Diana Jenkins International Human Rights Speaker Series.

David Abernethy, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Stanford University, introduced Roth and provided a detailed overview of his professional background and the stunning growth and impact Human Rights Watch has witnessed since Roth took the helm in 1993. Under Roth's leadership and strategic direction, Human Rights Watch tripled in size, expanding its reach to over 90 countries worldwide. 

"Human rights Watch does a remarkable job in combining carefully documented facts with advocacy for a better world, including naming and shaming egregious violators of universally accepted norms," said Abernethy, in emphasizing the courageous work Human Rights Watch pioneers on a global scale.

Abernethy noted that Human Rights Watch is a "is a north, south, east, west NGO, directed towards all points on the compass and operating from all those points, as a truly globalized institution."

At the outset of his comments, Roth framed President Obama's human rights record as a desire to abandon the principles of the George W. Bush administration and embrace an approach that is in stark contrast to the Bush years of unilateral diplomacy.

Obama has evolved -- it has been a journey from being not George Bush to being himself.
- Kenneth Roth

Since assuming office in 2009, Roth noted, "Obama has evolved -- it has been a journey from being not George Bush to being himself."

Roth highlighted the differences between both presidents, emphasizing the fact that, "most significantly in terms of contrast, Obama was going to lead by example," Roth said. "He was going to have a domestic policy that he and we could be proud of and that would persuade others just by virtue of what the US did itself."

In reflecting on the evolution of Obama's approach to human rights since assuming office, Roth saw Obama moving from rhetoric to practice. Roth cited a number of examples where the Obama administration delivered substantially on their commitment to defend these principles and others where they had fallen short.

In terms of multilateral promotion of human rights, Roth discussed how the Obama administration supported the efforts of the United Nation's Human Rights Council by successfully lobbying for the U.S. to become a member and helping to revive the Council into a more effective body in holding governments accountable. 

According to Roth, "the Council has introduced tough resolutions on Libya, the Ivory Coast, Iran, and revived this tool and the ability of a group of a government's peers to condemn it."

Roth also mentioned how the Obama administration has been a key player in supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC) by voting in favor of referring Libya to the ICC, arresting the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in the Congo, and exerting pressure on Sudan to surrender President Bashir.

These actions, Roth maintained, "strengthened a key international institution designed to stop the impunity that lies behind so many of the world's worst atrocities."

While, Roth thought Obama had certainly struck a much more modest tone on the world stage than Bush, he did stress that Obama had retained the option of humanitarian intervention and is not afraid to use military force when necessary, highlighting the recent examples of Libya and Cote d'Ivoire.

Roth believed that Obama's biggest shift was towards China's human rights record. In 2009, Obama was hesitant to exert pressure on the Chinese concerning their human rights practice, which proved to be an ineffective strategy in advancing US interests. Since the January 2011 China summit in Washington, Obama dramatically reasserted himself, calling on China to expand human rights protections and realized "human rights is not a dangerous topic."

In surveying the Obama administration's policy in the Middle East and North Africa, Roth judged it as "inconsistent" toward the recent pro-democracy movements where strategic concerns have sometimes outweighed more ideological ones.

In Egypt, Roth believed the administration took too long to take an active stand against Mubarak in support of the protesters, but eventually came around to prove they were "better late than never."

Similarly in Yemen, Roth described the administration as hesitant to initially oppose President Saleh because it jeopardized their relationship with an important counter-terrorism ally.

In Bahrain, Roth explained that the administration refuses to take an active stance and continues to discuss the possibility of reconciliation in light of the flagrant human rights abuses committed at the hands of the Bahraini regime. Roth claimed that Obama is acting in the best interest of the US's Saudi partners who are "terrified" at the prospect of a Shiite revolution in Bahrain. 

Roth characterized the administration's position towards Israel as a "predictable disappointment," in that the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution classifying the settlements as a violation of international law and rejected the Goldstone report, refusing to recognize the positive aspects of this comprehensive investigation of the war in Gaza.

On domestic policies, Roth commended Obama's immediate effort to end the Bush policy of torture and shutter the CIA secret detention facilities, but was disappointed that Obama refused to prosecute the Bush torturers and investigate where the torture took place. 

Roth described the issue of long-term detention without trial as a work in progress, believing that Obama's hesitation to release a core group of 48 prisoners in Guantanamo stemmed from his concerns about potential future acts of terrorism. 

In closing, Roth was optimistic about Obama's evolution over the past two years, noting the great strides he has taken to actively implement his values in US human rights policy. However, he was cautious in highlighting the tensions that exist between US interests and human rights, claiming that Obama still has a ways to go in striking a better balance between the two.

This event was a rare opportunity for the CDDRL community to hear from a leading investigator and critic of human rights abuses, committed to reducing human suffering on a global scale.

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Science Diplomacy and Nuclear Threats (Video)

From Conversations with History- Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Siegfried S. Hecker, former Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, for a discussion of scientists, the national laboratories, and the threat posed by nuclear weapons. Hecker traces his career in material sciences, describes the evolution of his intellectual focus, and recalls his leadership of Los Alamos. He then traces the changes in the international security environment in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union discussing the response of the U.S. and the weapons laboratories to the momentous events that created a qualitatively different set of security challenges. Hecker then analyzes the threats posed by terrorist organizations, the dangers of nuclear proliferation, and the challenges for U.S. policy in assessing the motivation and capabilities of Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the political and technical dimensions of the international security landscape.

 

Siegfried S. Hecker

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C220
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-6468 (650) 723-0089
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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Research Professor, Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus
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Siegfried S. Hecker is a professor emeritus (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He was co-director of CISAC from 2007-2012. From 1986 to 1997, Dr. Hecker served as the fifth Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Hecker is an internationally recognized expert in plutonium science, global threat reduction, and nuclear security.

Dr. Hecker’s current research interests include nuclear nonproliferation and arms control, nuclear weapons policy, nuclear security, the safe and secure expansion of nuclear energy, and plutonium science. At the end of the Cold War, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials. In June 2016, the Los Alamos Historical Society published two volumes edited by Dr. Hecker. The works, titled Doomed to Cooperate, document the history of Russian-U.S. laboratory-to-laboratory cooperation since 1992.

Dr. Hecker’s research projects at CISAC focus on cooperation with young and senior nuclear professionals in Russia and China to reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism worldwide, to avoid a return to a nuclear arms race, and to promote the safe and secure global expansion of nuclear power. He also continues to assess the technical and political challenges of nuclear North Korea and the nuclear aspirations of Iran.

Dr. Hecker joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as graduate research assistant and postdoctoral fellow before returning as technical staff member following a tenure at General Motors Research. He led the laboratory's Materials Science and Technology Division and Center for Materials Science before serving as laboratory director from 1986 through 1997, and senior fellow until July 2005.

Among his professional distinctions, Dr. Hecker is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; fellow of the TMS, or Minerals, Metallurgy and Materials Society; fellow of the American Society for Metals; fellow of the American Physical Society, honorary member of the American Ceramics Society; and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His achievements have been recognized with the Presidential Enrico Fermi Award, the 2020 Building Bridges Award from the Pacific Century Institute, the 2018 National Engineering Award from the American Association of Engineering Societies, the 2017 American Nuclear Society Eisenhower Medal, the American Physical Society’s Leo Szilard Prize, the American Nuclear Society's Seaborg Medal, the Department of Energy's E.O. Lawrence Award, the Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal, among other awards including the Alumni Association Gold Medal and the Undergraduate Distinguished Alumni Award from Case Western Reserve University, where he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in metallurgy.

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Siegfried S. Hecker Co-Director of CISAC and Professor (Research), Department of Management Science and Engineering; FSI Senior Fellow Speaker
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Preventing Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

Daniel Schatz

The Europe Center
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
The Europe Center
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

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Anna Lindh Fellow (Spring 2011)
Doctoral Candidate, Political Science, Humboldt University of Berlin
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Daniel Schatz is a Visiting Anna Lindh Researcher at the Europe Center and a Doctoral Candidate in Political Science at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Schatz’s doctoral dissertation, “The Politics of Foreign Policy Change: An Analysis of Sweden’s Middle East Policy 1996-2006” examines the dynamics of foreign policy change by analyzing changes in Sweden’s foreign policy towards Israel and the Palestinians. His main research interests are international relations, foreign policy analysis, foreign policy change, European and Scandinavian politics, the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

Prior to joining Stanford University, Schatz’s professional appointments include positions at the European Parliament, the UN Headquarters, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, the World Jewish Congress Headquarters and the Canadian Embassy in Stockholm. He was nominated as a Candidate for Sweden's Parliament in 2006 and 2010.

Schatz is an editorial page contributor in Svenska Dagbladet, one of Sweden’s largest dailies. His articles and opinion pieces on contemporary international affairs appear regularly in European and international newspapers. He graduated with a Masters Degree in Political Science and European Studies from the University of Lund and has completed studies in International Relations the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and New York University. He speaks Swedish, English, Polish, German, Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish.

The Arab Awakening: Governance Lessons for Asia and Beyond

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The recent uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East represent one of the most dramatic global political developments since the fall of the Berlin Wall.  What factors and forces led to the sudden collapse of well-entrenched regimes and the emergence of democratic reform movements across a region long accustomed to hereditary succession and autocratic rule?  Does the current upheaval reflect unique circumstances in the Arab World?  Or should it be viewed in the wider context of governance issues and challenges that have arisen in Asian and other settings beyond North Africa and the Middle East?  As a governance specialist whose international career has spanned Arab and Asian societies, David Arnold will share his insights regarding these questions.  

David D. Arnold became the president of The Asia Foundation on January 1, 2011, after serving as the president of the American University in Cairo (AUC) for seven years. At AUC he superintended the construction of a new, state-of-the-art $400 million campus, including the region's largest English-language library; spearheaded a $125 million fundraising campaign, the largest in the University's history; and oversaw academic innovations including AUC’s first-ever PhD program and master’s programs in education, biotechnology, gender studies, digital journalism, and refugee studies.  Under his leadership, AUC also expanded its continuing education and community outreach activities and created new scholarship opportunities for its students.  Mr. Arnold’s earlier career included six years as executive vice president of the Institute of International Education and more than ten years of service in the Ford Foundation including stints in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.  He earned his Master’s in Public Administration at Michigan State University following a BA from the University of Michigan.

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David D. Arnold President Speaker The Asia Foundation
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Conference in Jerusalem engages European, US, and Middle East scholars on democracy

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The Europe Center at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies is proud to announce its major international conference on “Democracy in Adversity and Diversity” (May 18-19, 2011, Jerusalem).  This conference – co-sponsored and hosted by the Center’s project partner, the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute – is designed to engage global, profound, and heretofore considered intractible problems of divided societies, as well as today’s crises events of the Arab world in the greater Middle East and North Africa.  With US, European, and NATO command forces engaged in the region, The Europe Center recognizes shared concern across the transatlantic community, and brings its Stanford senior research affiliates as well as international partner scholars to illuminate the immediate as well as long-term points of contention, and prospects for meaningful peace and reconciliation.

The Europe Center’s conference on “Democracy in Adversity and Diversity” includes
sessions on the following critical subjects:

  • In Search of What Democracy Is and Should Be: Contemporary Challenges to democratic ideas/formations
  • Institutional Forms of Contemporary Democracies: Translating Democratic Theory into Practice
  • The Challenge of Managing Diversity in Contemporary Democracies
  • Civil Societies and Democratic Quality and Efficacy
  • Democracy and Development
  • Democratic Transitions and Recessions: The International Dimension 

The participants include leading scholars and policy analysts:

  • Dan Banik, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo
  • Bashir Bashir, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
  • Nancy Bermeo, Nuffield College, Oxford University
  • Naomi Chazan, Hebrew University, Academic College of Tel Aviv Yafo
  • Amir Eshel, Stanford University, The Europe Center, FSI
  • Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University FSI
  • Ruth Gavison, Hebrew University Jerusalem, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
  • Amal Jamal, Tel Aviv University
  • Michael Karayanni, The Sacher Institute, Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University
  • Jeffrey Kopstein, University of Toronto
  • Stephen Krasner, Stanford University FSI
  • Leonardo Morlino, University of Florence
  • Gabriel Motzkin, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, University of Jerusalem
  • Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Stanford University FSI
  • Ramzi Suleiman, University of Haifa
  • Laurence Whitehead, Nuffield College, Oxford University

The Europe Center’s conference on “Democracy in Adversity and Diversity” is co-developed by Michael Karayanni and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, and co-sponsored by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.  The conference is one of The Europe Center’s international partner projects run within the Center’s larger and multi-year program on “Reconciliation".

This project is conceived to address subjects of contention, and potentially reconciliation, in divided societies.  The multi-year collaborative project is designed to develop, in successive stages, a full range of programming including international workshops, publications, and scholar exchange.  Sponsored work will benefit scholarly, policy-oriented, and cultural relations.  We especially seek to support the work of colleagues from a wide range of fields including the humanities, social sciences, law, business, and education.  

Further information on The Europe Center’s multi-year program on “Reconciliation” may be found here.

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The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution

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Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their citizens. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today's developing countries-with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.

In The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama, author of the bestselling The End of History and the Last Man, provides a sweeping account of how today's basic political institutions developed. The first of a major two-volume work begins with politics among our primate ancestors and follows the story through the emergence of tribal societies, the growth of the first modern state in China, the beginning of a rule of law in India and the Middle East, and the development of political accountability in Europe up until the eve of the French Revolution.

Drawing on a vast body of knowledge-history, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and economics-Fukuyama has produced a brilliant, provocative work that offers fresh insights on the origins of democratic societies and raises essential questions about the nature of politics.

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Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux
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Francis Fukuyama
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978-0-374-22734-0
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