War, Law, and What Comes Next: The Iran Reckoning

Is the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran legal? And what comes next? In War, Law, and What Comes Next: The Iran Reckoning, Kenneth Roth — who led Human Rights Watch for nearly three decades — brings his analysis to one of the most consequential conflicts of our time. Drawing on international law and decades of experience leading one of the world's foremost human rights organizations, Roth will examine whether the strikes on Iran had any valid legal basis under the U.N. Charter, and what some of the attacks and threatened attacks — on a girls' school, oil refineries, power plants — reveal about how this war has been conducted. 

The reckoning goes beyond legality. Roth will explore what alternative avenues might have been pursued to contend with Iran’s nuclear and missile threat — and what a responsible path forward might look like. From the role of Netanyahu in shaping U.S. strategy, to the prospects for a negotiated or de facto ceasefire, this conversation asks the hard questions about human rights accountability, international order, and whether the world's systems for preventing catastrophic war has begun to collapse.

Speaker: Kenneth Roth, Former Human Rights Watch Executive Director (1993-2022). Now visiting professor, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.