Good afternoon. My name is Kenneth Roth. I am the executive director of Human Rights Watch, a position I have held for the past 26 years. I thank the members of the commission for inviting me to testify today.

Human Rights Watch was founded in 1978 as “Helsinki Watch” to investigate human rights violations in countries that signed the Helsinki Accords. Since then, our work has expanded to more than 100 countries on five continents. We investigate and document human rights abuses across the spectrum of rights, including extrajudicial killings and deprivation of liberty, government takeovers of media, arbitrary arrest of peaceful activists and political opposition figures, and such economic and social rights as discrimination in access to education, barriers to adequate health care, and restrictions on the rights to food and water. We are sensitive to the rights of people who are most likely to face discrimination, including women, children, LGBT people, and people with disabilities. When families victimized by war crimes find no justice at home, we champion international justice. When communities experience devastation at the hands of seemingly unaccountable companies, we ensure that governments, development banks, and businesses live up to their rights-related obligations. Human Rights Watch promotes and defends all human rights and is consistent with the international human rights framework, making no distinction among civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights.

When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the formation of this commission in July, I was—and remain—concerned. Its announcement and subsequent open hearings have been fraught with threats to the very human rights that the commission purports to strengthen. This is because, as Secretary Pompeo suggested, the purpose of this commission is not to uphold all rights but to pick and choose among them. In his remarks he said, “What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right? How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be honored?” The secretary justified this exercise by citing an alleged conflict among rights. He said, “as human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into tension with one another, provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect.”