Measuring human rights Purpose of measurement Levels of measurement Categories and dimensions Objects of measurement Problems of measurement

Purposes of measurement Contextual description Monitoring Documentation Classification Types of regime Types of governance Types of rights violations Mapping (time and space) Global trends Regional Local Secondary analysis Academic research Policy research Political dialogue

Levels of social scientific measurement Adapted from: Zeller and Carmines 1980; Munck and Verkuilen 2000; Adcock and Collier 2001; Ball and Spirer 2000

Measuring Example

Categories and dimensions of human rights Categories Civil rights Political rights Economic rights Social rights Cultural rights Solidarity rights Dimensions Protect Respect Fulfil

Objects of measurement Principle (de jure) International legal National legal Practice (de facto) Events-based Standards-based  Dichotomous categories  Polychotomous scales Survey-based Hybrid measures Policy Input Process Output Outcome

Principle (de jure) measurement Code treaty participation (scale) No signature (0) Signature (1) Ratification (2) Ratification with reservations (weighting) Code national constitutions (n or scale) Articles on civil rights Articles on political rights Articles on economic rights Articles on social rights Articles on cultural rights

International de jure human rights Landman (2005) Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press

International de jure rights: coding reservations Rewarding the absence of reservations Countries with no reservations with regard to said treaty that do not modify obligations, or non-substantial declarations (score = 4) Countries whose reservations could have some but not major impact on their obligations (score = 3) Countries whose reservations have noticeable effect on the obligations (score = 2) Countries whose reservations can have significant and severe effects on treaty obligations (score = 1) The ratification score No signature (0) Signature (1) Ratification (2) Weighting the ratification score Weighted Ratification = [Ratification score (0,1,2) * Reservations score (1,2,3,4)] High score = ratification with fewer substantial reservations Low score = ratification with more substantial reservations

International de jure rights: ICCPR with and without reservations Landman (2005) Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press

International de jure rights: ICCPR with reservations Landman (2005) Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press

Domestic de jure civil and political rights Source: van Maarseveen and Tang (1978)

Domestic de jure economic and social rights Source: van Maarseveen and Tang (1978)

Practice (de facto) measurement Events-based Standards-based Survey-based Hybrid

De facto measurement: events-based methodology for human rights Disaggregated events (‘who did what to whom’) Act Violation(s) Perpetrator Victim Context  When  Where Controlled vocabularies Aggregated event counts Multiple sources of information

De facto measurement: events-based data model Source:

Measuring de facto rights: events-based example in Kosovo Source: Patrick Ball and Jana Asher Estimated total refugee migration and killings over time, in Kosovo

Source: Measuring de facto rights: events-based example in Peru,

Measuring de facto rights: events-based example for abuse against Human Rights Defenders, Source: Landman (2006)’Holding the Line: Human Rights Defenders in the Age of Terror’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 8..

De facto measurement: standards-based methodology Ideal standards Legal instruments Conceptual definition  Democracy  Good governance  Human rights Empirical information Monitoring bodies  Human rights treaty bodies  NGOs (e.g. Amnesty International/Human Rights Watch)  Governments (e.g. US State Department) Newspapers Historical accounts/narratives Coding Dichotomous categories  ACLP  Doorenspleet Polychotomous scales  Freedom House  Political Terror Scale  Torture Scale

De facto measurement: standards-based scales of rights Landman (2005) Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press

De facto rights: Standards-based measures across space Landman (2005) Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press

De facto measurement: standards-based scales of political and civil rights Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) data set

De facto measurement: standards-based scales of women’s and workers’ rights Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) data set

De facto measurement: survey-based methodology Sample of the population ‘VIPs’ Quota sample Random Standardised questions Reponses Open Closed

De facto measurement: survey-based measure of human rights World Values Survey (1994) question on support for the idea of human rights in 1990 across eight countries ( 1002  N  2095).

De facto measurement: survey-based measure of human rights Physicians for Human Rights (2002); N = 991 IDPs in Sierra Leone

Policy indicators Input Process Performance Output Outcome Perception

Policy indicators: input Provision of resources Spending in education Spending on health service Spending on housing

Policy indicators: process Health Number of patients seen per day Waiting lists Average journey time to hospital Water Time it takes to access clean water Number of trips to water source needed per day

Policy indicators: performance Health Time it takes to build new hospitals Time it takes to deliver new beds Time it takes to train and recruit new doctors Water Time it takes to provide a water connection Time it takes to build a sewerage system

Policy indicators: output Health Number of doctors per 100,000 Number of hospital beds per 100,000 Number of hospitals per geographical area Water Households with access to water within 200m of dwelling Increase in quality of water

Policy indicators: outcome Health Infant mortality rates Longevity rates New HIV/AIDs cases Water Level of water born diseases Infant mortality rate

Policy indicators: perception Attitudinal data Surveys Feedback questionnaires Can evaluate inputs, process, and outputs

Problems of measurement Validity Reliability Measurement bias Lack of transparency Variance truncation Information bias Aggregation problems