Newswise — As one of the largest human rights datasets in the world, the Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Project shines a global spotlight on government respect for a wide range of human rights.
Headed up by David Cingranelli, professor of political science at Binghamton University, and David Richards, assistant professor of political science at the University of Memphis, CIRI tracks data from 195 countries over a 26-year period. Describing a wide variety of government human rights practices, the dataset provides measures of violations related to torture, workers' rights, women's rights, and freedom of religion.
"Measuring and understanding government respect for human rights is vital for attaining dignity for all persons worldwide," said Cingranelli. "This projects allows us to test theories about the causes and consequences of human rights violations, and offers policy makers and analysts the tools to estimate how those violations can and should impact institutional changes and public policies."
Available on the web, the CIRI dataset can easily be downloaded in a variety of formats. Of particular interest is a mapping feature that allows users to select a human rights practice, region, and year, and then create a color or black and white map.
CIRI draws information from the United States Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices as primary source. For a group of four rights known as "Physical Integrity Rights" (the rights to freedom from extrajudicial killing, disappearance, torture, and political imprisonment) CIRI researchers also use a second source, the Amnesty International's Annual Report. In the upcoming months, Cingranelli and Richards expect to add additional elements to the dataset including economic and social rights.
Cingranelli's areas of research are focused on the comparative human rights practices of governments, including economic globalization and respect for worker rights, the relationships among different types of human rights; and the relationship between human rights and foreign aid.
Cingranelli has authored three books: "Human Rights and Developing Countries," edited for J.A.I. Press; "Ethics, American Foreign Policy, and the Third World," 1993, St. Martin's Press; and "Human Rights: Theory and Measurement," 1988, edited, Macmillan Press. He recently joined Rod Abouharb in co-authoring "Human Rights and Structural Adjustment," Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Richards' research utilizes a variety of lenses through which to examine human rights, including democratic institutions such as national elections and political parties, the banking crises, and information globalization. His work has been funded multiple times by The National Science Foundation and The World Bank. Recently, Richards was added to the advisory board for UNIFEM's Progress of the World's Women: 2008 report.
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