The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) is a non-profit organisation primarily housed in
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
.
It was established in 2016 by Anne-Marie Brook, K. Chad Clay, and Susan Randolph: experts in human rights and economics. These founders noticed a gap in easily accessible and understandable human rights data, and HRMI is working to fill that gap. They produce a free, easy-to-access database of metrics, summarizing human rights performance in countries around the world. They believe that with a good set of measures, it will be easier to improve human rights around the world.
HRMI currently measures a total of 13 human rights, includin
Quality of Life RightsSafety from the State Rights
an
Empowerment Rights
They aim to continuously expand their measurement by producing metrics that cover the full range of rights embodied in international law, particularly the collection of international treaties known as the International Bill of Human Rights.civil and political rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...
is unique to the human rights field. They rely on a peer-reviewed methodology drawing on a multilingual survey of human rights experts from around the world. This approach works to solve the difficulty of measuring civil and political rights by getting information directly from the human rights researchers and practitioners who are monitoring events in each country. Their economic and social rights data comes from th
Social and Economic Rights Fulfillment (SERF) Index
developed by Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr (サキコ・フクダ・パー、福田 咲子) (born 1950) is a development economist who has gained recognition for her work with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and for her writing in publications including ...
, Terra Lawson-Remer, and Susan Randolph. In 2019, their methodology was awarded the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. This data is constructed from internationally comparable, publicly available, objective data, such as statistics on infant mortality and school enrollment.
HRMI's database of metrics can be found and explored using th
Rights Tracker
This tool acts as an easily navigable and understandable way to observe their data. Using the Rights Tracker, one can explore performance for individual countries, rights, or specific people groups at risk for having their rights violated.
HRMI data has been cited in the media by publications including The Guardian and Al Jazeera. Additionally, HRMI's data has been used by various academic publications, advocacy and government reports, human rights institutes, and more.[{{Cite web , title=Data in Action , url=https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/data-in-action/ , website=Human Rights Measurement Initiative]
References
Organisations based in Wellington
2016 establishments in New Zealand
Human rights organizations