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10 DePaul J. Soc. Just. 1 (2017)
Measuring "Progress" and "Regress" in Human Rights: Why We Need a Set of Social Contract Measures to Replace Indices of Violations and Slogans

handle is hein.journals/depjsj10 and id is 162 raw text is: DEPA UL JOURNAL FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE Measuring Progress and Regress in Human Rights: Why We Need a Set of Social Contract Measures to Replace Indices of Violations and Slogans © David Lempert Abstract: This article presents a set of structural social contract measures that can be used as a basis for overall measurement of both the progress (or regress) of specific countries or cultures towards achieving the international standards of human rights as well as for promoting the success of specific human rights organizations in their interventions in the areas of human rights as a whole. The current approaches to measures of human rights focus on a spotty set of outcomes: either numbers of human rights violations (symptoms of inequalities), subjective perceptions of rights and freedoms, conformity with or copying of particular institutions or laws in reference countries, and on particular socio-economic results to the detriment of others. Since none of the existing indicators today focus on the underlying structural processes of rights balancing and protections that come out of law and social contract theory in the form of positive rights (freedom to): oversight of powerful institutions, or equal opportunity for individual and community access to institutions and to resources, this article points the way to reorienting the measures. A. Introduction Several weeks ago, the upper management of one of the oldest and most prominent global human rights organizations, Amnesty International (AI), invited me for a meeting to discuss their strategy, monitoring and evaluation measures. Al originally began as a watchdog to note violations of individual political rights by countries and to promote campaigns to advocate for protection of individuals and groups. More recently, Al has more recently recognized the importance of working on issues of human rights as a whole and on concentrating not only on awareness but also on human rights education and social change. Indeed, Al recognizes that in many countries, including major industrialized countries that once claimed to be the leaders in promoting human rights, there has been a significant rollback or regress on civil liberties and social equality as well as in many other forms. Much of the organization's work had shifted away from promoting progress on rights to simply stopping the flood of attacks on human rights and dismantling of rights protections that are now occurring on a global scale. What shocked me in that discussion and that has given rise to this article, is that despite several measures of quality of some of its technical inputs like awareness raising (social marketing) campaigns, Al, in fact, had no measures of overall progress or regress of countries or communities in human rights. Without such measures, it was and is unable to point to the speed and severity of ' David Lempert, Ph.D., J.D., M.B.A., E.D. (Hon.). Dr. Lempert is a political anthropologist, California lawyer, and educator who has worked in more than 30 countries for the UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCHR, UNHCR, Amnesty International, the Soros Foundation, and several other organizations in the areas of human rights protections and international development. He is founder and C.E.O. of Unseen America Projects, Inc., leading the design of democratic-experiential/clinical curricula, and of other rights initiatives including: a monitor of donors and an initiative to create a Red Book for Endangered Human Cultures. Among his innovations are 15 proposed amendments to the U.S. constitution (a work in three volumes) and model constitutions to establish closer citizen oversight and enforcement over public and private bureaucracies and to reaffirm political rights of ethnic groups.

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