Video: Kenneth Roth urges countries to respect human rights

This year Davos is meeting at a particularly tumultuous moment in the world. We are facing security threats in places like Syria, Nigeria, even Paris. There’s a real temptation in moments like this to dispense with human rights. That’s a huge mistake, not only in moral terms but also in practical terms, because the kinds of human rights abuses that are being contemplated are often the driving force behind the creation of groups like ISIS or Boko Haram. They thrive on abuse and we need to counter them with strict respect for human rights.

Watch a clip of Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2015 in Davos above, and catch up with his full session on how to secure open societies, here.

Image: Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch, USA, is captured during the session Securing Open Societies at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 23, 2015. WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM/Benedikt von Loebell