URI research team drew on a vast quantitative dataset to grade human rights practices in every country around the world.
Produced
by the Global RIghts Project (GRIP), a research team based in the University of
Rhode Island’s Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies, the report draws on a
vast
quantitative human rights dataset to grade each country’s human rights
practices on a 100-point scale.
The report found that 60% of the world’s countries get an ‘F’
(a score of 0-59) for their human rights practices, while only about 20% of
countries receive a grade of ‘A’ or ‘B’ (a score of 80-100). The global median
score was 50.
“We show that most countries of the world are failing to protect their citizens’ most basic rights,” said Skip Mark, an assistant professor of political science at URI and director of the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies.
“We think
these findings make it clear that there’s a lot of work to do in terms of
ensuring that all people have a chance to live a life of dignity and respect.
We hope objective measures of human rights practices in this report will be a
resource for policymakers, nongovernmental organizations, researchers, and
anyone else interested in improving human rights around the world.”
GRIP
grades are based on the extent to which countries respect a suite of 25
individual human rights. Those rights include physical integrity rights such as
freedom from torture or political imprisonment, empowerment rights such as
freedom of speech and assembly, worker rights such as the right to unionize and
freedom from child labor, and justice rights such as the right to a fair trial.
Measures of the rights that comprise the GRIP grades are derived from the CIRIGHTS Data Project, the largest quantitative human rights dataset in the world.
Drawing on human rights reports from the U.S. Department of State, Amnesty International, the United Nations’ State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples Report, and other sources, CIRIGHTS aims to collect objective measures for every recognized human right in every country.
By creating a composite score using the 25
representative rights, the GRIP report seeks to provide an overall picture of
each country’s human rights practices.
“It’s
been at least 40 years since there has been an annual human rights report card
for all nations of the world,” said David Cingranelli, a professor at
Binghamton University and a co-leader of the CIRGHTS Data Project. “This report
gives us an objective measure of human rights using a methodology that’s
transparent and replicable.”
Human rights around the
world
According to the report, the five top countries for human rights were Finland (with a grade of 98 or ‘A’), Australia (92, ‘A-’), Estonia (92, ‘A-’), Sweden (92, ‘A-’), and Austria (90, ‘A-’).
The bottom five were Iran (0, ‘F’), Syria (6, ‘F’), Yemen (8, ‘F’), Venezuela (12, ‘F’), and Egypt (14, ‘F’). Canada had the highest grade in the Americas with an 88 (B). Taiwan led Asian nations with a score of 78 (C+), while Cabo Verde had the highest score in Africa with an 84 (B).
The United States had
a score of 64 (D), ranking 59th worldwide.
The
researchers also looked at the characteristics of countries that were
correlated with better or worse human rights. They found that:
- Democracies tend to have
significantly better human rights, with GRIP scores 24 to 27 points higher
than autocracies.
- Small-population countries tend
to have better human rights. The smallest countries score 30 to 35 points
higher than the largest countries.
- Wealthy countries have better
human rights. The poorest countries have a human rights score that is 34
to 40 points lower than the richest countries.
Given these characteristics, the score for the U.S. (64) is unsurprising, the researchers say. The U.S. is a wealthy country, which correlates with better human rights. But it also has a large population, which correlates to worse rights.
Democracy monitoring organizations such as the Center for Systematic
Peace have downgraded the
U.S. from a full democracy to an anocracy (a middle ground between full
democracy and autocracy) in recent years.
“Given
what we know about the way a country’s characteristics correlate with human
rights, the U.S. falls about where we’d expect it to be,” Mark said. “However,
if the U.S. is no longer a democracy and democratic backsliding continues then
human rights are likely to significantly decline in the near
future.”
While
the U.S. had strong scores for several civil and political rights, it continues
to violate many labor rights, women’s rights, and civil and political rights
such as freedom from torture and extrajudicial killings, the researchers found.
The
report also shed light on which rights tend to be the most and least protected.
That analysis found the civil and political rights (freedom of movement,
freedom from political imprisonment, freedom from extrajudicial killing) are
the most protected rights worldwide, while economic rights (freedom from child
labor, the right to unionize, the right to reasonable work hours and safe
working conditions, freedom from human trafficking) are the least protected
worldwide.
“This
suggests that a focus on improving economic rights may have the biggest
immediate impact in terms of improving people’s lives worldwide,” Mark said.
Because
the CIRIGHTS dataset includes more than 40 years of human rights data, the
researchers were able to look at changes in rights over time. They found that
respect for human rights globally has declined in the 21st century, with average GRIP grades falling
between one and three points in the last 20 years.
Rights declined significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic as well. For example, GRIP scores related to human trafficking declined 62% in the two years after the onset of the pandemic compared with the two years before.
That’s likely because
those who suffered the economic consequences of the pandemic became more
susceptible to trafficking, the researchers say. Other rights including the
right to unionize, electoral self-determination, and freedom of movement also
declined significantly.
The GRIP
researchers plan to work with the CIRIGHTS team to issue a similar report each
year. The goal, the researchers say, is to provide a measuring tool that can be
used to help improve human rights worldwide.
“This report makes uniquely clear the human rights footprints left by governments in every part of the world,” said David Richards, a professor at the University of Connecticut and co-leader of CIRIGHTS. “Since there’s no helping human dignity without fully understanding the nature and extent of threats to its respect, the information these data bring to light couldn’t be more important.”
The GRIP
research team, led by Mark, includes Ekaterina (Kate) Sylvester, a research
associate in the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies; Margaret Frost, an
assistant professor of political science at URI; as well as URI graduate and
undergraduate students. The CIRIGHTS Data Project is led by Mark, Cingranelli,
Richards and Mikhail Filippov of Binghamton University.
The
report is available at the project’s website, and additional information about
methodology is available at CIRIGHTS.com.