Measuring Complexity and Change in Human Rights

Empirical research in human rights has made enormous strides over the last three decades not only in the breadth and depth of human rights that are examined but also in the sophistication and array of the methods used in these studies. A review of these methods reveals the perennial struggle of researchers in the social sciences to develop and use valid and reliable measures. Moreover, human rights are specially bounded by a constellation of concepts that further complicate measurement – distinctions between process and outcome, principles and standards, rights and obligations, violation and protection, etc. In their previous work, the authors have proposed human rights measurement frameworks based on accepted international principles and standards. The authors will use these frameworks as guides to map the issues of measurement that human rights research has addressed since the last 1980s and to highlight the avenues for further enquiries in the field.