Inputs from Oslo Governance Centre

Dear colleagues,

One important aspect in this rich e-discussion which has not been covered is the role of statistics and indicators with regards to treaty compliance and the human rights machinery in general.

The OHCHR has taken steps forward in this respect through developing a conceptual and methodological framework for identifying quantitative indicators for monitoring compliance by state parties with international human rights treaties. See HRI/MC/2006/7.

So too, the UNDP 2006 “Indicators for Human Rights Based Approached to Development:
A Users Guide”, highlights 4 critical areas for using indicators to evaluate development programmes from a human rights perspective: http://www.undp.org/oslocentre/docs06/HRBA%20indicators%20guide.pdf .

(i) Understanding the human rights situation at the country level through the identification and use of indicators that can be used to provide an assessment of the baseline human rights situation.

(ii) Understanding the capacities of individuals and groups as ‘rights holders’ to claim their rights as well as the capacities of state institutions as ‘duty bearers’ to promote and protect human rights on the ground .

(iii) Identifying and using indicators for ensuring the incorporation of human rights principles in the design, implementation and monitoring of UN[DP] programmes

(iv) Identifying and using indicators to determine the likely impact of programmes on furthering human rights in the country

The Guide goes on to provide methodological and practical advice in the individual areas, thus making a serious attempt to operationalize human rights standards with regards to data evidence. It seems to me that that the first area is particularly germane when it comes to treaty body compliance. Several colleagues have mentioned how the recommendations made by treaty bodies provide concrete entry points (and in some cases talking points…!) when addressing the human rights situation in a country. If these recommendations are to improve anything, however, it is essential that countries (with support from the UN, civil society and other stakeholders) collect, analyze and monitor human rights data. If the CRC Committee describes country X as having improved the situation of juvenile offenders by reducing the rate of time spent in detention centres but has not been able to reduce the level of violence against street children it is essential that these observations are translated into quantitative terms and baselines for which the country can be compared to over time (e.g. counting progress/regress through administrative records, interviewing offenders, proxy indicators etc.). Most of the international sources on the human rights situation in a country are either analytical (e.g. Human Rights Watch/Amnesty) but not really quantifiable (although there are data sources that code the latter such as Cingranelli et al, political terror scale etc.) and they are all too aggregate (e.g Freedom House which also has severe political and methodological challenges as a human rights index) to discern or capture intra-country trends in a meaningful way.

Hence, the key here both from a methodological and political point of view is for countries to improve their capacity and in many cases willingness to systematically collect disaggregated (e.g. institutionally/ministries, demographically, thematically etc.) data on human rights compliance. In countries where there are human rights institutions such outfits should play a key role in this context. Statistical offices (as purveyors of official data in a country) should also be given a mandate to collect and disseminate governance data including that on human rights which could be compared to civil society/academic data collected (similar to the shadow report mechanism used for treaties).

The second important part of using indicators in the human rights context is with regards to policy-reform. Policy-decisions to improve the human rights situation in country should derive from empirical and robust evidence obtained by data, statistics and indicators. This is admittedly not straightforward, for example, the chosen policy solution to human rights violations with regards to incarceration (overcrowded jails, poor sanitation etc) may be to build more prisons rather than increasing efficiency and fairness of trial adjudication (i.e. addressing human rights violations as a chain of institutional processes rather than just fixing the one at the end). In general though there needs to be more systematized knowledge on human rights in a country in order to make well-informed decisions (may sound evident but the dearth of human rights data in most countries imply that this is not taking place).

There is obviously much more to be said about the above but I thought I would just share these initial thoughts for how we rise to the challenge of operationalizing human rights principles. There are many other actors and sources active in this field including OHCHR Research and Development Branch (as mentioned above) and the OECD/Paris 21 initiative of Metagora (www.metagora.org)
Regards,

Joachim
Joachim Nahem
Governance Specialist
Oslo Governance Centre
Democratic Governance Group
Bureau for Development Policy
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)