Collaborative Research: The CIRI Human Rights Data Project

Cingranelli和理查兹（CIRI）人权数据项目（www.humanrightsdata.org）为学者、决策者、教师和学生提供了关于世界各国政府尊重广泛人权的年度信息（1981年至今）。NSF的资助使数据集能够每年更新，并使其能够及时免费公开。资金还支持增加经济、社会和文化权利的新措施;以及改善宗教和迁徙自由以及免受政治监禁、酷刑、法外处决和失踪的现有措施。衡量人权实践对于制定和实施基于证据的政策是必要的，其中政策结果预计会影响政府的人权实践。CIRI的数据被许多国家用于循证决策，包括美国。千年挑战公司（MCC）、世界银行、联合国开发计划署、欧洲委员会和美国国际开发署。世纪挑战中心的一位发展政策官员写信给CIRI，“我们真诚地希望你们能够继续扩大和更新CIRI的人权数据集。这对美国政府来说是一个非常有用的工具，因为我们正在使用这些信息来做出数十亿美元的援助分配决策。“此外，人权衡量还有助于建立理论，并对一些重要问题进行实证研究，如“全世界人权做法的改善是否会导致国际恐怖主义的减少？“贸易/金融自由化、双边外国援助和结构调整条件等具体政策如何影响目标国的人权做法？人权危机和成功对邻国政府的人权实践是否有可衡量的影响？“虽然自2004年8月1日起才向公众开放，但CIRI的数据已经被用于20多篇期刊文章和书籍、数十篇工作/会议论文和许多论文。

The Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Data Project (www.humanrightsdata.org)provides scholars, policy-makers, teachers, and students with easily accessible, high quality annual information about government respect for a broad array of human rights in every country in the world (1981-present). NSF funding enables annual updates of the data set and allows it to be made publicly available for free and in a timely manner. Funding also supports the addition of new measures of economic, social, and cultural rights; and the improvement of existing measures for freedoms of religion and movement and freedoms from political imprisonment, torture, extra-judicial killing and disappearance.Measuring human rights practices is necessary for the development and implementation of evidence-based policies where policy outcomes are expected to affect the human rights practices of governments. CIRI data is used for evidence-based policy making by many, including the U.S.' Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the European Commission, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. One MCC Development Policy Officer wrote to CIRI, "We sincerely hope that you all will be able to continue expanding and updating the CIRI Human Rights Data Set. It is an extremely useful tool for the U.S. Government, as we are using this information to make multi-billion dollar aid allocation decisions."In addition, human rights measurement allows the building of theories and empirical examination of important questions such as "Do improvements in human rights practices around the world lead to reductions in international terrorism? "How have specific policies such as trade/financial liberalization, bilateral foreign aid and structural adjustment conditions affected the human rights practices of target states?" and "Do human rights crises and successes have measurable effects on the human rights practices neighboring governments?" While only available to the general public since August 1, 2004, CIRI data have already been used in more than 20 journal articles and books, scores of working/conference papers and many dissertations.