Collaborative Research: The CIRI Human Rights Data Project

Cingranelli和Richards(CIRI)人权数据项目(www.Human rightsdata.org)为学者、政策制定者、教师和学生提供了关于世界各国(1981年至今)政府对广泛人权的尊重的高质量年度信息。国家科学基金会的资助使数据集能够每年更新，并使其能够免费和及时地向公众提供。资金还支持增加新的经济、社会和文化权利措施；改进现有的宗教和行动自由措施以及免于政治监禁、酷刑、法外处决和失踪的措施。衡量人权做法对于制定和执行以证据为基础的政策是必要的，因为政策结果预计将影响政府的人权做法。包括美国在内的许多国家都在使用CIRI数据进行循证决策。千年挑战公司(MCC)、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MCC发展政策官员给CIRI写道：“我们真诚地希望你们都能够继续扩大和更新CIRI人权数据集。对于美国政府来说，这是一个极其有用的工具，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，人权衡量允许建立理论和实证检验重要问题，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？“贸易/金融自由化、双边对外援助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CIRI数据自2004年8月1日才向公众开放，但已被用于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.