Measuring Human rights (2008)

Undergraduate: Chelsea Sessoms

Faculty Advisor: Judith Blau
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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Today, the United Nations has taken a profound interest in promoting the protection of human rights, and has issued several international laws for countries to sign and ratify. Human rights is an all encompassing term that includes all rights that every human being, even the most vulnerable. For example, every person has the right to food, housing, and protection against discrimination. Every country has an obligation to protect their citizens’ human rights. In order to see which countries are actively protecting the rights of their citizens, it is important to measure their progress. Measurement would allow activists, citizens, and nongovernmental organizations to know where the problems lie and action is needed. In this study, a ranking scale is developed to measure the countries active pursuit of human rights. By determining the number of international laws the countries have ratified without reservations, an interesting scale is uncovered. The results show that many of the leading world powers, such as the United States, lie very low on the scale while other countries that are plagued with poverty, such as Burundi have perfect scores. Hopefully, this study will shed light on where the United States stands in the world of Human rights.