Are human rights at a modern low point? One can certainly make the case that they are. Authoritarian leaders are in vogue. Inequality is rampant. There’s a global backlash against gender equality. The number of forcibly displaced people is at an all-time high. There are ongoing conflicts on multiple continents. Global freedom, according to a new index from Freedom House, declined for the 19th consecutive year.

Are human rights at a modern low point? One can certainly make the case that they are. Authoritarian leaders are in vogue. Inequality is rampant. There’s a global backlash against gender equality. The number of forcibly displaced people is at an all-time high. There are ongoing conflicts on multiple continents. Global freedom, according to a new index from Freedom House, declined for the 19th consecutive year.

But why are societies allowing basic rights to regress? How can civil liberties still be reinforced?

In the latest episode of FP Live, I spoke with Kenneth Roth, the author of the new book Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments. Roth ran Human Rights Watch from 1993 until he stepped down in 2022, dramatically growing that organization during his tenure. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page, or follow the FP Live podcast. What follows below is a condensed and edited transcript of our conversation.

Ravi Agrawal: Let’s begin with the broader trend lines on human rights, Ken. I was looking at a report from Amnesty International last year which says we’re hurtling backward past the 1948 promise of universal human rights. Is that right?

Kenneth Roth: I would not be that apocalyptic. I open my book with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” And I point out, as he does later in the speech, that, in fact, the defense of rights is a relentless struggle. Governments are always tempted to violate human rights. The task of the human rights movement is to change the cost-benefit analysis of repression.

I started my time running Human Rights Watch during the Cold War. We were dealing with a fixed situation: Repressive governments in Eastern Europe and proxy wars around the world. For a moment, it seemed that freedom was going to prevail. But then, there were ethnic conflicts in places like Bosnia and Rwanda. Then we had Bush’s war on terrorism, with all the disaster that foretold.

These days, the big issue is the global contest between autocracy and democracy, which accounts for the backsliding. There are highly abusive wars: Syria (until recently), Ukraine, Myanmar, and Gaza. And maybe it’s inherent in who I am, given what I do, but I tend to see the glass as half full.