Human Rights Indicators Research Papers

La presente Guía tiene como propósito apoyar a los Estados parte del Protocolo adicional a la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Económicos, Sociales, Culturales y Ambientales, “Protocolo de San Salvador”, a desarrollar los indicadores... more

The Access Guide to Human Rights Information is based substantially on the information gathered through interviews with EU officials from the Commission, the Parliament and the Fundamental Rights Agency, reflected in the Baseline Study on... more

The Access Guide to Human Rights Information is based substantially on the information gathered through interviews with EU officials from the Commission, the Parliament and the Fundamental Rights Agency, reflected in the Baseline Study on Human Rights Indicators in the Context of the European Union, and on the other hand on the workshop results with international experts, held in Graz in April 2015.
The common findings were that firstly, EU officials require genuine human rights information for their manifold tasks. Secondly, it was found that the methodology by the OHCHR of indicating the human rights commitments, implementation and situation on the ground is appropriate to satisfy the information needs. Thirdly, it was shown that there is a broad spectrum of existing data and information relevant to human rights. However, the information is not easily accessible for two reasons. One the one hand it requires expertise on human rights and skills for assessment. On the other hand, information resources are scattered and often, while relevant to human rights, not genuinely collected and offered as human rights information.
The Access Guide to Human Rights Information therefore aims to provide EU officials with easy-to-access information on existing human rights indicators, human rights related data, as well as human rights compliance information provided by international and regional human rights bodies. For this purpose, the guide briefly discusses the pros and cons of these sources, shows exemplarily how to understand existing information and how to relate it to the normative content of the respective human rights provisions.
The Access Guide to Human Rights Information provides the available human rights specific information based on the example of the prohibition of torture, the freedom of expression, the rights of the child, as well as on social indicators. Information sources are structured along a typology derived from the purpose they were processed for. Accordingly, a differentiation is made between the application of the OHCHR-model, compliance information provided by human rights bodies, as well as indicator-based human rights-related information.
The Access Guide provides step-by-step guidance on the most effective retrieval and utilisation of existing human rights information based on exemplary research requests.

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- by Maddalena Vivona
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- 7
  Mental Health, Housing, Torture, Freedom Of Expression

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- by GÜLAY GÜNLÜK ŞENESEN and +1
  Yelda Yucel
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- 5
  Gender, Urban Studies, Turkey, Municipalities

The Access Guide to Human Rights Information is based substantially on the information gathered through interviews with EU officials from the Commission, the Parliament and the Fundamental Rights Agency, reflected in the Baseline Study on... more

The Access Guide to Human Rights Information is based substantially on the information gathered through interviews with EU officials from the Commission, the Parliament and the Fundamental Rights Agency, reflected in the Baseline Study on Human Rights Indicators in the context of the European Union, and on the other hand on the workshop results with international experts, held in Graz in April 2015.
The common findings were that firstly, EU officials require genuine human rights information for their manifold tasks. Secondly, it was found that the methodology by the OHCHR of indicating the human rights commitments, implementation and situation on the ground is appropriate to satisfy the information needs. Thirdly, it was shown that there is a broad spectrum of existing data and information relevant to
human rights. However, the information is not easily accessible for two reasons. One the one hand it requires expertise on human rights and skills for assessment. On the other hand, information resources are scattered and often, while relevant to human rights, not genuinely
collected and offered as human rights information.
The Access Guide to Human Rights Information therefore aims to provide EU officials with easy-to-access information on existing human rights indicators, human rights related data, as well as human rights compliance information provided by international and regional human rights bodies. For this purpose, the guide briefly discusses the pros and cons of these sources, shows exemplarily how to understand existing
information and how to relate it to the normative content of the
respective human rights provisions.
The Access Guide to Human Rights Information provides the available human rights specific information based on the example of the prohibition of torture, the freedom of expression, the rights of the child, as well as on social indicators. Information sources are structured along a typology derived from the purpose they were processed for. Accordingly, a differentiation is made between the application of the OHCHRmodel, compliance information provided by human rights bodies, as well as indicator-based human rightsrelated information.
The Access Guide provides step-by-step guidance on the most effective retrieval and utilisation of existing human rights information based on exemplary research requests.

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- by Maddalena Vivona
- •
- 2
  Human Rights, Human Rights Indicators

The language of human rights is increasingly being advocated as a framework for policy dialogue. To make this feasible, indicators must be developed that help to hold the state accountable for its policies, that help to guide and improve... more

In September 2015 UN General Assembly approved the SDGs and all over the world the expectations focused on the new UN Development Agenda. Apparently, issues concerning Human Rights and Human security, including absence of violence,... more

Executive Summry: At the request of the then Haitian Minister of Women’s Affairs and Women’s Rights, H.E. Adeline Magloire Chancy, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute (RWI), commissioned by the International Legal Assistance Consortium... more

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- by Hélène Ragheboom
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- 4
  Gender Studies, Women's Studies, Haiti, Human Rights Indicators

Various causal mechanisms exist that make it possible to assert that more corruption equals more violations of human rights. This article explores those mechanisms and offers empirical evidence of this relation by applying statistics to... more

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- by Horacio Ortiz Ríos
- •
- 9
  Human Rights, Mexico, Corruption, Measuring Corruption

The language of human rights is increasingly being advocated as a framework for policy dialogue. To make this feasible, indicators must be developed that help to hold the state accountable for its policies, that help to guide and improve... more

The aim of this study is to critically assess and analyse existing human rights indicators systems, and identify their objectives, target audience and methodology. Human rights indicators are an essential instrument for planning,... more

The aim of this study is to critically assess and analyse existing human rights indicators systems, and identify their objectives, target audience and methodology.

Human rights indicators are an essential instrument for planning, monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of human rights protection and promotion. On the international, regional, national and local levels, numerous mechanisms for measuring human rights have been developed; some of them were already applied in practice with varying degrees of success, while others remained theoretical attempts. Such mechanisms usually resort to qualitative and/or quantitative indicators to measure the current state and/or progress of particular human rights or assess the impacts of policies/measures in a defined geographical area within a given time-frame.

The aim of this study is to critically assess and analyse existing human rights indicators systems, and identify their objectives, target audience and methodology. This is done in order to formulate objectives for human rights indicators to be used in the European Union’s human rights (internal and external) policies. Up until now, several EU institutions have taken initiatives to measure human rights or have at least underlined the necessity to do so. Human rights measurements may indeed be utilised by the EU to ground its policies on a solid base of evidence and further help backing EU actions with increased legitimacy. When identifying meaningful and applicable mechanisms to measure human rights, the EU may well build on the existing work on human rights indicators. However, a comparison of the EU’s attempts to develop human rights indicators reveals considerable discrepancies in the approaches taken. These differences are often closely linked with the specific purposes and objectives of the producers and users of human rights indicators.

This study starts with an analysis of the current application of human rights indicators in the European Union’s internal and external action, their legal and political framework, as well as their rationale. It further assesses, through qualitative fieldwork research, the needs of key European stakeholders towards a human rights indicator system.

An extensive mapping of various mechanisms for measuring human rights was done. The mapping results encompass instruments produced by a variety of actors, based on different rationales, data sources and with different areas of application. The focus has been put on those mechanisms which are developed and applied by the organisations mentioned in respective EU documents, i.e. the UN institutions and the Council of Europe.

In order to find out if those mechanisms are suitable for further adaption and use by the EU, their intrinsic quality has been evaluated first. This was then finally matched with the requirements of EU bodies. The selection criteria do primarily reflect relevance, appropriateness and reliability. Therefore, established quality criteria for the identification of human rights indicators are key for the selection. Additionally, pragmatic criteria such as being already used in practice, taking into account data availability and user-friendliness are considered. Due to the variety of purposes of human rights measurement, the range of requirements that should be measured demand a comparative, but also differentiated analysis. The methodology needs to be consistent and broadly accepted. Flexible frequency of application must be ensured. The instruments need to enable the proof of causality between measure and impact.

The report concludes with the selection of the structure-process-outcome model by the OHCHR. This model is designed to measure the extent to which human rights dimensions respect, protect, fulfil and promote human rights standards in any given environment. As a human rights indicator model it does fulfil all of the mentioned criteria. In order to give EU stakeholders a pragmatic tool at hand for their daily work, it is proposed that an easy to access ‘instant information tool’, i.e. an information database on compliance including a compilation of existing indicators and related data sets, should be developed.

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- by Maddalena Vivona and +1
  Markus Moestl
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- 2
  European Union, Human Rights Indicators

The proliferation of big data, typically delivered by positivist and reductionist indicators, as well as similar audit and monitoring technologies, have long since advanced into the field of human rights. International working groups... more

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- by Johannes Waldmüller
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- 3
  Human Rights, Ecuador, Human Rights Indicators

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- by Todd Landman
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- 6
  Human Rights, Human right, Measurement, Human Rights Measures

The main purpose of this paper is to provide methodological guidance to students and researchers conducting quantitative studies on the realisation (outcome) of human rights law. The paper focuses on the grey area between law and... more

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- by Hadi S . Lile
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- 4
  Sociology of Law, Human Rights Law, Validity, Human Rights Indicators

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Human rights groups are understandably reluctant to use “results-based management”, but embracing this approach can boost their impact.

Human Rights Indicators

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