Exploring the HRMI Rights Tracker

The publicly accessible Rights Tracker is an incredible resource of in-depth quantitative and (for HRMI survey countries) qualitative information about human rights around the world. This article explains how you – a private sector user – can make the most of it.

First, a quick word on copyright. Although it is free to view, all Rights Tracker content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License. This means that non-commercial users and journalists are free to use the data (with attribution to HRMI). For commercial uses, you will need to pay a license fee to Rights Intelligence. Book a call or contact us for more detail.

Q1. How does the Rights Tracker add value over and above the Rights Intelligence dataset?

It adds value in two ways. First, it gives you access to a huge amount of additional detail and nuance about what is going on in each country, complementary to what you get from the Rights Intelligence dataset, including many data visualisations. For example, the chart shown in the image above is a comparison of countries on the Rights to Freedom of Religion and Belief (see it on the Rights Tracker here).

Second, the Rights Tracker can help you understand any data points in the Rights Intelligence dataset which surprise you.

For example, one user of the Rights Intelligence dataset was surprised by how well Palestine and Iran scored on the economic and social rights dataset. To understand why, we encouraged them to visit the Rights Tracker Quality of Life pages for Palestine and Iran, scroll down to the Full Details section, toggle between the ‘scores’ and ‘indicators’ and explore the time series charts. Neither of these countries are (yet) part of HRMI’s expert survey, so people at risk data, qualitative data, and HRMI civil and political rights scores are not yet available on the Rights Tracker for Palestine and Iran. But you can still learn a lot.

For users new to the Rights Tracker, we recommend this short video tour introduction, to make sure you get the most from the Rights Tracker.

Q2. What are the main things I should look for on the Rights Tracker?

For economic and social rights:

• You can see the 5 component scores (i.e. for education, food, health, housing, and work).

• On the Quality of Life tab for each country you can scroll down to the ‘Full details’ section to see the indicators and data sources that feed into each component score.

• You can see some sex-disaggregated data.

• You can see time series charts from 2000 – 2020.

• For countries that are included in HRMI’s annual expert survey, qualitative data on each economic and social right is also available, as well as information on the people groups most at risk of violations of each right. This provides significant richness and nuance for understanding the country context that produced the available scores.

For civil and political rights – for survey countries:

• You can see the five component scores for Safety from the State (Rights to Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest, Disappearance, the Death Penalty, Extrajudicial Execution, and Torture).

• And the three component scores for Empowerment rights (Rights to Assembly and Association; Opinion and Expression; and the right to Participate in Government). These scores are only available for the survey countries (this list is growing each year). In 2023 we have also published data on the Right to Freedom of Religion and Belief for a pilot group of nine countries.

• You can see time series charts from 2017 – 2022 (with a later start date for countries added more recently to the survey). Note: the Rights Investor dataset provides a longer time-series by drawing on other data sources.

• Qualitative data on civil and political rights are also available, as well as information on the people groups most at risk of violations of each right.

On the HRMI website you can also find detailed information on how the Rights Tracker data – which feed into the Rights Intelligence dataset – are produced. For example, these short, animated videos explain the economic and social rights methodology and the civil and political rights methodology that underpins the Rights Tracker.

Q3. Is the main difference between the Rights Intelligence dataset and the publicly available Rights Tracker that the former is more complete?

Yes, that is the main difference. For Safety from the State and Empowerment, HRMI currently only has data for about 40 countries on the Rights Tracker (these are the countries where HRMI conducts its annual human rights practitioner expert survey; this coverage is constrained by resourcing, but is growing each year). The Rights Intelligence dataset is more comprehensive, providing Safety from the State Performance and Empowerment Performance scores for 195 countries.

This greater coverage is achieved by drawing data from the Rights Tracker, plus other publicly available civil and political rights data. For example, the Philippines is one of the approximately 160 countries for which we don’t yet have Safety from the State and Empowerment data on the Rights Tracker. This gap is filled in the Rights Intelligence dataset.

Another difference is that the Rights Tracker data are more detailed and nuanced, whereas the Rights Intelligence dataset is simpler so as to be more useful for investment decision-making.

Q4. Is there a reason for the different scales used for the Rights Intelligence dataset scores (which are on a 0–5 scale) and the publicly available Rights Tracker scores (which, for civil and political rights, are on a 0–10 scale)?

Yes. Different scales were chosen to avoid any confusion that the scores are the same. The methodologies are different, and the scores are not directly comparable.