Indicators for Human Rights Compliance Assessment

1. Indicators for Human Rights Compliance Assessment HRIA Conference, NL, 23-24 November 2006 Nicolas Fasel, UN-OHCHR

2. Outline: work on compliance indicators at OHCHR • Context and background • Rationale for indicators • Main elements of approach: what is to be assessed and how? • Brief illustration of approach • Ongoing and future work

3. Context & background • OHCHR requested by treaty bodies to provide assistance on statistical information for monitoring compliance with international human rights instruments • Work guided by experts from treaty bodies, special rapporteurs of Human Rights Council, UN agencies as well as academics and NGOs • Fair consensus among experts on the main conceptual and methodological elements of the approach • Report (HRI/MC/2006/7) outlining the approach welcomed by the Inter-Committee Meeting of the treaty bodies in June 2006. Request for further work

4. Rationale for indicators in compliance assessments • Support qualitative and judicial or quasi-judicial human rights assessment • Facilitate implementation of human rights normative framework • Measure progress / help setting priorities • Strengthen transparency and accountability • Help rationalising treaty body reporting procedures

5. Main elements of the approach In defining the framework, need: • To reflect the normative framework and content of HR in indicators • A common approach to indicators for ESCR and CPR • To balance universal and contextual relevance of indicators • Focus on 2 data generating mechanisms

6. What is to be assessed with compliance indicators? • Linkage between States’ intent/ acceptance of HR standards with efforts undertaken to meet obligations, as well as consolidated outcome of efforts • Focus on indicators reflecting HR concern of non-discrimination; emphasis on disaggregation of data by prohibited grounds of discrimination

7. What is to be assessed with compliance indicators? Structural indicators (“Intent/acceptance”) Reflect the adoption/ratification of legal instruments and existence of basic institutional mechanisms deemed necessary for facilitating realisation of the concerned human rights ratification of international human rights instruments; type of accreditation of national human rights institution

8. What is to be assessed with compliance indicators? Process indicators (“efforts”) Relate the State policy instruments (e.g. public programmes) with milestones (which cumulate into outcomes that can be more directly related to the realisation of HR), hence capture accountability prop. of one-year-old immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases / proportion of perpetrators of alleged violations brought to justice

9. What is to be assessed with compliance indicators? Outcome indicators Capture attainments, individual and collective, that reflect the status of realisation of human rights in a given context infant/under-five mortality rate; reported cases of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution

10. How indicators are generated? Data generating mechanisms: • Events-based data on human rights violations • Socio-economic statistics • Households perception/opinion surveys • Data based on expert judgments (see “Quantitative HR indicators: a survey paper of Major initiatives”, Turku, Åbo, Finland, March 2005: http://www.abo.fi/instut/imr/research/seminars/indicators/)

11. Illustration: right to life

12. Illustration: right to adequate food

13. Ongoing and future work • Participative validation process, involving national and regional workshops, on identified indicators • Identification of indicators for additional human rights • Development of a database of indicators for human rights assessment • Indicators metasheets and manual for users