Justice Matters

On this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Kenneth Roth, who led Human Rights Watch as its Executive Director for almost 30 years. Together they discuss the history of Human Rights Watch and Roth's reflections on his tenure, whether human rights still hold power in the world, how to bring about change in countries with abusive governments, difficult case countries, the future of human rights and democracy, and a preview of Ken's new book, Righting Wrongs. Roth is a Visiting Professor at Princeton and a Senior Fellow at the Carr Center.

Justice Matters will return this October. In the meantime, we'd like to share with you a podcast we think you will enjoy by our friends over at Strength & Solidarity. Strength & Solidarity is a podcast about the tools, tactics, and ideas driving and disrupting the human rights movement around the world. Host Akwe Amosu has over 30 episodes of interviews with human rights defenders form around the globe discussing ideas about how we use the language of human rights, how we build sustainable and healthy organizations, what it means to center respect and care in our movements, and asking questions about what solidarity is and how it can it be a tool to build stronger movements. We encourage you to subscribe to Strength & Solidarity as their new season starts this Fall. Today we’re going to play for you an episode that features a round table discussion recorded for International Women’s day in March of 2023 that features three feminist leaders assessing this moment in their respective fields. Akila Radhakrishnan, President of the Global Justice Center in New York, Hala Al Karib, Director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, and Mary Jane Real, until recently co-director of the Urgent Action Fund for Women – Asia Pacific speak with Akwe Amosu about the state of women's rights globally. More about this episode from Strength & Solidarity: How should we describe the state of the global struggle for women’s rights? It is surely impossible to make a single overarching assessment– even as battles are won on one front, major challenges remain – or emerge - on another. Yet if it is hard to generalize about progress, we can at least note that conditions are scarcely favourable. To pick only three global trends - authoritarian rule, identity-based exclusion and economic instability - none of these help advance women’s freedoms. As International Women’s Day 2023 approaches, we invite three feminist leaders to assess this moment in their respective fields. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at [email protected]

The human rights podcast Justice Matters returns this October with host Maggie Gates, Executive Director of the Carr Center, and a team of Harvard faculty members acting as rotating co-hosts, including Mathias Risse, Aminta Ossom, Rob Wilkinson, and Yanilda Gonzalez.