Because the Iraqi people did not face ongoing or imminent mass slaughter in 2003, the United States’ invasion of that country could not be justified on humanitarian grounds, according to Kenneth Roth.

Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, was guest speaker for the Tenth Annual Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., Lectures in Ethics and Public Policy on April 20-21. In the first of two talks, he said the threat of genocide is the dominant factor when considering whether war is necessary for humanitarian reasons.

“This is a high bar, but I believe it is justified to set a bar of that height because we can’t forget that war is about killing people even if you dress up war with the nice terminology of humanitarian intervention,” he told an overflow audience in Hesburgh Center Auditorium. “At best, it means killing people in the other’s military, but more than likely a good number of civilians will be killed as well.”

Saddam Hussein was ruthless, Roth said, acknowledging that the U.S. administration was correct in thinking the Iraqis would be better off without the dictator in power. But humanitarian concerns were not the primary motivation behind the war, he said, and the invading forces did not strictly abide by humanitarian interventions law. For example, he said, the U.S. Army often used cluster munitions, which caused many civilian casualties, instead of using more easily targeted weapons.

“I am very fearful that the governments of the world are going to be much more reluctant to intervene militarily tomorrow because of this inappropriate justification of the Iraq war yesterday,” Roth said. “In the future we are going to need humanitarian intervention as an option.”

Roth’s second lecture was titled “Counterterrorism: Are Human Rights an Obstacle or Part of the Solution?” In it, he criticized the U.S. government’s unwillingness to hold itself to international standards. “When there has been a conflict between security and human rights, human rights loses time and again.”

Human Rights Watch investigates, reports on, and seeks to curb abuses in some 70 countries. Roth has been executive director since 1993. In his opening remarks, he acknowledged the presence of the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., founder of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. “Father Ted really has been one of my heroes,” Roth said. “Much of Human Rights Watch is modeled after his work here at Notre Dame.”

Roth’s first lecture is available as an occasional paper on the web at http://kroc.nd.edu.

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