Collaborative Research: The CIRI Human Rights Data Project

Cingranelli and Richards （CIRI）人权数据项目（www.humanrightsdata.org）为学者、政策制定者、教师和学生提供易于获取、高质量的年度信息，内容涉及1981年至今世界各国政府对广泛人权的尊重情况。国家科学基金会的资金支持每年更新数据集，并使其能够及时免费向公众提供。资金还支持增加新的经济、社会和文化权利措施；改进现有的宗教自由和行动自由以及免于政治监禁、酷刑、法外杀戮和失踪的措施。衡量人权做法对于制定和实施以证据为基础的政策是必要的，因为政策成果预计会影响到政府的人权做法。包括美国在内的许多国家都将CIRI的数据用于基于证据的政策制定。千年挑战公司（Millennium Challenge Corporation）、世界银行、联合国开发计划署、欧盟委员会和美国国际开发署。一位世纪挑战集团发展政策官员写信给中国国际研究院，“我们真诚地希望你们能够继续扩展和更新中国国际研究院的人权数据集。这对美国政府来说是一个非常有用的工具，因为我们正在利用这些信息来做出数十亿美元的援助分配决定。此外，人权衡量允许对诸如“世界各地人权实践的改善是否导致国际恐怖主义的减少？”等重要问题进行理论和实证检验。“诸如贸易/金融自由化、双边外援和结构调整条件等具体政策如何影响目标国家的人权实践？”以及“人权危机和成功对邻国政府的人权实践有可衡量的影响吗？”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/会议论文和许多学位论文。

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.