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How Do You Perform Human Rights? Measurement, Audit and Power Through Global Indicators

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Mentoring Comparative Lawyers: Methods, Times, and Places

Part of the book series: Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice ((IUSGENT,volume 77))

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Abstract

Over the last few decades, several international actors have actively engaged in developing indicators for measuring states’ and other actors’ commitment to international human rights (HRs) norms. Indicators constitute the evidence of the state of events, activities or outcomes relating to HRs standards. According to mainstream views, HRs indicators strengthen monitoreds’ accountability by translating complex phenomena into easily intelligible data. Common classifications understand such technologies of gauging through standard taxonomies, such as ‘structural’, ‘process’, ‘outcome’, ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’ indicators. Against this framework, this chapter suggests an alternative, tripartite account of the assumptions and consequences underlying the use of HRs metrics. Mauro Bussani’s teachings and perspectives on the interactions between national and supranational legal orders guide the investigation through a comparative and cross-cutting analysis of the intricacies of HRs measurement. First, as instruments of (1) knowledge, the reliability of indicators depends on their responsiveness to the scrutinised context. Secondly, as tools of (2) control, there is little doubt that indicators can be an effective system of auditing. Yet the overemphasis on the supposedly ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ language of quantification entails many risks, including the empowerment of the epistemic communities designing them. But indicators may also be tools of (3) power: many indicators become influential in the public debate, affect how people think and behave, as well as shape the agendas of domestic and global institutions. The conclusion enshrines a forward-looking approach as to how to overcome existing obstacles by improving stake-holders’ participation within and transparency of the preparation of indicators.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On the limits of comparisons between countries, see below, Sect. 2.1.

  2. 2.

    Usually, external indicators are made publicly available, thus raising very little concern about their transparency; being in-house conceived tools, self-generated indicators are more likely not to be published and to be challengeable for their limited transparency.

  3. 3.

    From this perspective, the indicators phenomenon might constitute an example of the so-called Verdoppelung (‘doubling’), i.e. the mechanism whereby a tool of knowledge becomes itself an object of knowledge: cf. Koskenniemi (2001: 242).

  4. 4.

    Information relevant to a HR analysis could come from one (or more) of the following sources: (a) events-based data on HR violations; (b) socio-economic and other administrative statistics; (c) household perception and opinion surveys; (d) data based on expert judgments.

  5. 5.

    On the purported neutrality of indicators, see below, Sect. 3.2.

  6. 6.

    On the absence of (comparative) lawyers within the expert communities working on the endeavors of indicators, see below, Sect. 3.3.

  7. 7.

    See below, Sects. 3.2 and 3.3.

  8. 8.

    See supra, Sect. 1.

  9. 9.

    Suffice it to think about e.g. LGBTI people living in an unfriendly environment or state, or who have not come out with their families and/or community yet; or those who are not willing to be named under ‘L’, ‘G’, ‘B’, ‘T’, ‘I’, or any other label describing sexuality, gender identity, sex characteristics and further layers.

  10. 10.

    Conversation with Martti Koskenniemi, ‘The Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights’, University of Helsinki (September 2014).

  11. 11.

    Conversation with Martti Koskenniemi.

  12. 12.

    Conversation with Martti Koskenniemi.

  13. 13.

    See above, Sect. 2.2.

  14. 14.

     There is no model of legal development that could exist without nurturing sound links of compatibility to any preexisting socio-economic and cultural reality, and without involving local law-users and law-makers (Author’s translation).

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  1. European University Institute, Florence, Italy

    Giovanna Gilleri

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  1. Giovanna Gilleri
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  1. Department of Legal, Language, Interpreting and Translation Studies (IUSLIT), University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

    Francesca Fiorentini

  2. Department of Legal, Language, Interpreting and Translation Studies (IUSLIT), University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

    Marta Infantino

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Gilleri, G. (2020). How Do You Perform Human Rights? Measurement, Audit and Power Through Global Indicators. In: Fiorentini, F., Infantino, M. (eds) Mentoring Comparative Lawyers: Methods, Times, and Places . Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 77. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34754-3_10

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