University of Georgia researchers in the School of Public and International Affairs have developed a method of measuring how countries address civil and political rights issues.
SPIA researchers have created the Human Rights Measurement Initiative. The collaboration includes academics, human rights practitioners, and nongovernmental organizations. SPIA Professor K. Chad Clay explains how the method works.
“We’re going directly to human rights practitioners that are working in the countries were trying to gather data on and we’re asking them how often the government agents are engaging in torture, how often government agents are engaging in political imprisonment and these types of human rights violations,” according to Clay. “And then we use some complicated statistical techniques to aggregate those opinions, to make sure their assessments are cross-nationally comparable.”
Clay says the starting point for the complicated formula is the definition of the rights under international law to set a baseline.
'Based on that definition, how often do state agents engage in this practice?”
Because the survey respondents were from different cultures and countries around the world, the researchers used hypothetical scenarios to ensure cross-national comparability.
Clay says they then use statistical techniques to make sure the assessments can be compared to other countries.
“That somebody in Angola is viewing the scale in much the same way that somebody from Australia is. And to produce data that allows us to compare countries and actually say something about where human rights are being respected and enjoyed and where they are being violated.”
UGA is specifically working on civil and political rights, another group of researchers is addressing economic and social rights.