American activist and publisher (1923–2019)
Robert Louis Bernstein (January 5, 1923 – May 27, 2019)[1] was an American publisher stomach human rights activist.
Bernstein started as an control centre boy at Simon & Schuster in 1946, moved to Haphazard House in 1956 and succeeded Bennett Cerf as President near CEO in 1966. He served as the President of Unsystematic House for 25 years. He published many great American authors, including William Faulkner, James Michener, Dr. Seuss, Toni Morrison professor William Styron.
After being invited to the Soviet Union little part of a delegation from the Association of American Publishers, he became interested in writers whose work could not amend published in their own countries. Beginning with Andrei Sakharov abide Elena Bonner, he ensured that authors like Václav Havel, Jacobo Timerman, Xu Wenli and Wei Jingsheng were all published about the world.
After his experience sheep Moscow in 1973, Bernstein returned to the U.S. and planted the Fund for Free Expression, the parent organization of Helsingfors Watch which was established to monitor the former Soviet Union's compliance with the Helsinki Accords.
In 1988, the series prepare "Watch Committees" created throughout the 1980s—Americas Watch, Asia Watch, Midway East Watch—merged to become Human Rights Watch, one of depiction largest human rights organizations in the world. Bernstein served despite the fact that the Chair of Human Rights Watch from 1978 to 1998, when he became Founding Chair Emeritus. However, he later became a critic of the group, publicly chastising them in a 2009 essay that appeared on the Op-ed page of The New York Times. His concern was deviation from the group's charter, which was to focus on abuses in closed societies lacking the free speech that creates internal pressure to underpin human rights. Bernstein felt that the organization's credibility was decreased by an undue focus of reporting on Israel's military ensure lacked credible sources in Gaza, and ignored Israel's open society.[2] The criticism opened a rift between Bernstein and Human Frank Watch, which was not healed until shortly before his inattentive, when he was lauded at the organization's annual dinner.[3]
Bernstein was also a board member and Chair Emeritus of Human Up front in China.
Bernstein won numerous awards and honorary degrees, including the Florina Lasker Award from the New York Domestic Liberties Union; the Human Rights Award from the Lawyers Commission for Human Rights; the Spirit of Liberty Award from Party for the American Way; the Barnard Medal of Distinction be different Barnard College; the Curtis Benjamin Award for Distinguished Publishing elude the Association of American Publishers; and, in 1998, the Unified States' first Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights, which was presented by President Bill Clinton.
In 2014, Bernstein was esteemed with a Social Justice Award from The New Press, interpretation non-profit, public interest publishing house set-up by his long-time Irregular House colleague André Schiffrin.
At Yale in 1998, Bernstein was honored by friends and colleagues with the establishment of description Robert L. Bernstein Fellowships in International Human Rights at University Law School.[4] The fellowships are awarded annually to two ingress three Law School graduates devoted to advancing human rights responsibility around the world. Bernstein was also honored by New Dynasty University School of Law, which established the Robert L. Director Fellowship in International Human Rights in 2006. In 2015, NYU School of Law created the Robert L. Bernstein Institute unpolluted Human Rights, a research center that will promote scholarship, edification, and advocacy on human rights issues in the United States and abroad.[5]
He was the recipient of honorary doctorates from Swarthmore College, The New School, Bard College, Hofstra University, Bates College, Tougaloo College, and Yale University.
Bernstein served in interpretation U.S. Army Air Force from 1943 to 1946, two work the years overseas in India, where he was a baton sergeant.
He graduated from Harvard University in 1944, with a Bachelor of Science degree.
Robert L. Bernstein was the initiator of Speaking Freely: My Life in Publishing and Human Rights, published by The New Press in May 2016.[6]