kenneth roth in cambridge, massachusetts. welcome to hardtalk. great to be back, stephen. it's good to be with you. it's good to have you on the show. it is indeed quite something, leading one of the world's highest profile human rights advocacy groups for some three decades. did you leave thatjob with a sense of defeat? no, not at all. infact, i mean, maybe i should start with your introduction, because, you know, your introduction was the common wisdom. you know, that democracy is in decline, that autocracy is ascendant. in fact, i think it's a bit more complicated than that. i mean, we are seeing the rise of autocratic voices, you know, the trumps of the world, in western democracies. but if you look at the leading autocratic countries and you put yourself in the shoes of one of their dictators, it's a pretty hostile environment out there. and just in the last year, you know, we've seen the dangers of autocratic rules, because autocrats, you know, they surround themselves with sycophants, they suppress debate, they make all the decisions by themselves. and that's how yo

harvard kennedy school rescinded a fellowship offered to the former head of human rights watch kenneth roth over criticism of israel's oppression of palestinians. the decision drew widespread condemnation and a storm of protests which force the dean to reverse the decision. civil rights attorney robert patillo believes it's hard to voice, even mild criticism of israel in the us. we've created this place where the israeli government is sacrosanct and cannot be criticized. so it came out we talked about even we've had congresspeople simply say we need to respect the human rights of palestinians and them be called anti semitic. i think that what we're saying is that the u. s. violating their own principles, violating international law, in order to prop up these really regime, we all know that that yahoo has been a voter out of office by his people on multiple occasions will yet still still will returns to power. he has one of the most right when governments in israeli history currently at the united states is complicit by not allowing even the most mild criticism of the current actions of thes

kennedy school of government vetoed a fellowship for former human rights watch executive director kenneth rothr his criticism of israel's human rights record. under public pressure, harvard recently reversed its decision. ken roth is at harvard now. we are joined now by james cavallaro who is joining from los angeles where he is visiting professor at the ucla school of law. can you explain what happened? first, they are praising you and then they are withdrawing your nomination from the inter-american commission on human rights that you had previously served as president of. >> it really was quite a turn of events. many thanks for having me on your program, amy. on friday, state department publicly announced they had chosen me to be the u.s. national candidate to serve as an independent expert -- let me underscore that -- independent expert on the position of human rights. i had the privilege of serving on the inter-american in the past as a result of the nomination of the obama-biden administration. on friday, they talked about my background, my knowledge of latin america, my fluency in other