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Human rights in nations

VariableMeasurementEraCodeNSource
Humana indexHuman rights rating (%) based on a 40 indicators questionnaire.
The evaluation of each indicator of the questionnaire, which eventually establishes a country’s rating, is in two stages.
The first is to gather information on human rights in different countries. Sources are, amongst others, human right watchers as Amnesty International and the United Nations, international (US, UK) newspapers and World Bank publications. The information is supplemented by a network of international correspondents which reguraly informs the compiler of developments in their areas.
The assembled material for each indicator is then graded into four categories. ‘YES’ (3 points) indicating unqualified respect for the freedoms, rights, or guarantees of the indicator of the questionnaire, ‘yes’ (2 points) qualifies otherwise satisfactory answers on the grounds of occasional breaches, ‘no’ (1 point) indicates frequent violations of the freedoms, rights or guarantees of the indicator and ‘NO’ (0 points) indicates a constant pattern of violations.
The maximum total for the 40 questions is therefore 120 points. A system of weighting has been adopted to correct the differences between the gravity of the various human rights (for exact indicators and system of weighting see Humana 1992).
1990HumanRights_199073Humana 1992

Related topics: Democracy, Free press, Equality under the law
Related themes: Freedom, Law, Politics, Values

The dataset States of Nations is about characteristics of countries in periods (macro variables). It is part of the World Database of Happiness. Though developed for the identification of societal conditions for happiness, the source can also be used for other purposes.