Kenneth Roth, 69, led Human Rights Watch (HRW) for over 30 years. The American prosecutor, born in Illinois (to a Jewish father from Frankfurt who fled Nazi Germany), transformed the New York-based human rights organization into an effective pressure group. With its reports and in-depth investigations, HRW has managed to sway governments and, along with other NGOs, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for its contribution to the fight against landmines. Roth's autobiography, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments, was published in February.

This interview has been edited for brevity.

Our focus is to put pressure on the perpetrators and say: How can we make human rights violations more costly so that they will diminish? Almost every despot still pretends to respect human rights, because it's a way of pretending that they care about their people rather than only themself. When HRW can spotlight the discrepancy between the pretense of respect for rights and the ugly reality, it is embarrassing. It de-legitimizes leaders before their public. No leader, however autocratic, can hold on to power without the approval of public opinion.

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