- Published: 25 February 2025
- ISBN: 9780241711224
- Imprint: Allen Lane
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 448
- RRP: $69.99
Righting Wrongs
Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments

















- Published: 25 February 2025
- ISBN: 9780241711224
- Imprint: Allen Lane
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 448
- RRP: $69.99
If human rights are considered the most essential quality of human existence, then this book represents a lifetime devoted to the fight for those rights – a testament to the thoughts and experiences of a truly courageous individual. It offers a deeply insightful analysis of the global state of human rights, while also serving as a practical guide for action, aiming to inspire tangible change. This book is vibrant, passionate, and alive with purpose. It combines wisdom with a powerful idealistic spirit, making it highly relevant in today's complex political landscape, where the struggle for dignity and the rights inherent to life continue to have profound significance.
Ai Weiwei
A penetrating, inspiring and challenging account of what it takes to fight to uphold human rights in an increasingly fractured and dangerous world. This is partly a personal memoir and partly a call to arms, and it should inspire anyone who wishes to make a difference in the world. His account does not shy away from detailing the gritty, tough tactics and hard work needed to fight for change, but it also shows how dedication, focus and hard work can deliver remarkable - and unexpected - results, and why it is essential to take a neutral and consistent approach to upholding human rights, not just in the Global South but the West as well.
Gillian Tett
In a world ravaged by polarisation and endangered by numbness, a remarkable book that will restore your faith in human beings. Brimming with wisdom, passion, resilience and courage, Ken Roth not only offers decades of experience as a leading human rights defender, but also gives us a powerful antidote to autocracy, an antidote to apathy. One of the most important books of the year, if not of the next decade
Elif Shafak
Protecting human rights is a noble mission, requiring both courage and vision to make real progress. There is no one in the world who is better equipped than Kenneth Roth to explain the creative forms of political pressure that can be generated to force governments to better respect rights. This inside account will inspire and open up doors for other courageous visionaries to make change
Anthony Romero
Memoir, history and horror, a personal journey captivatingly woven around a world, its challenges and hopes
Philippe Sands
A master class on human rights advocacy from America’s most distinguished human rights leader
Michael Ignatieff
The world needs more watchdogs like Kenneth Roth: principled yet worldly, insanely hard-working and resolutely non-tribal. Having run one of the world’s most effective human-rights groups for three decades, he distils his hard-earned insights in Righting Wrongs ... The book could hardly be more timely.
Economist
As the director of Human Rights Watch for three decades, Roth put public opinion to work in the service of his cause. Given the never-ending assault on human rights, a valuable call to fight back.
Kirkus Reviews
Righting Wrongs is a call to action ... Roth shares lessons learned during his time at Human Rights Watch [and] colors his vignettes on current debates on how to best advance human rights with reflections on [the organization's] approach to this mission. [He] exhorts his readers to further the human rights cause, undaunted.
Harvard Human Rights Journal