Suchergebnisse

After the nonbinding Universal Declaration of Human Rights, many global and regional human rights treaties have been concluded. Critics argue that these are unlikely to have made any actual difference in reality. Others contend that international regimes can improve respect for human rights in state parties, particularly in more democratic countries or countries with a strong civil society devoted to human rights and with transnational links. The findings suggest that rarely does treaty ratification have unconditional effects on human rights. Instead, improvement in human rights is typically more likely the more democratic the country or the more international nongovernmental organizations its citizens participate in. Conversely, in very autocratic regimes with weak civil society, ratification can be expected to have no effect and is sometimes even associated with more rights violation.

AbstractThis article discusses human rights indicators for assessing state compliance with international human rights. It analyses the use of human rights indicators before treaty bodies, how human rights aspects are to be integrated into these indicators and what conceptual framework must be developed for their establishment. The article also examines the different kinds of data required for human rights indicators, the way in which indicators relating to both civil and political and economic, social and cultural rights could be developed as well as the types of human rights indicators that could be used. The article concludes with how to make human rights indicators a useful instrument for monitoring state compliance with international human rights.