Human Rights Watch CEO, Robert Bernstein, died in the United States aged 96, The New York Times reported referring to the son of a human rights activist. 

In 1978, Bernstein founded three human rights groups, which 10 years later were merged into a single organization, Human Rights Watch.

From 1966 to 1990 the human rights activist also headed the Random House which included books by Soviet human rights activists and public figures, such as Academician Andrei Sakharov and his wife Elena Bonner. Bernstein also personally met with Sakharov and Bonner in Moscow.

In 2011, Bernstein founded another human rights organization - Advancing Human Rights.

In recent years, he has been actively engaged in teaching. At Yale University and the University of New York he established scholarships named after Bernstein for students of jurisprudence.