Tools for Action

CIRIGHTS or CIRI Human Rights Data Project is the world’s largest and most comprehensive human rights dataset. It provides numerical, standards-based scores and indices measuring worldwide governments’ respect of 72 internationally recognized human rights across 195 countries, with records spanning annually since 1981. This dataset provides academic researchers, nongovernmental organizations, policymakers, and others with an objective tool to better track human rights worldwide.

The Freedom in the World report rates the level of freedom in 208 countries. The rating is based on civil liberties and political rights and the methodology is largely derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Countries are given a ranking from 1-100, a combination of their political rights (measured 1-40) and civil liberties (measured 1-60). Based on this rating, they are either labeled “free,” “partly free,” or “not free.”

Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that applies rigorous science to the analysis of human rights violations around the world so that the human rights advocacy community can take full advantage of the power of machine learning and quantitative evidence. Their goals  include sharing the insights needed to make and critique data-driven arguments; use data and models to hold violators accountable; and build the field of responsible human rights data scientists and advocates.

Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) is a global non-profit project that tracks the human rights performance of countries, using quantitative scores based on 2 categories: civil/political rights, and economic/social rights. For the former category, the dataset uses expert surveys to capture information that official state data often overlooks. For the latter category, HRMI uses secondary socio-economic data from international databases. This dataset is used by policymakers, advocates, and journalists to compare country performance, revealing where states are failing to use available resources to support their populations. 

Minorities at Risk Project (MAR) is a University of Maryland-based research project that monitors and analyses the status and conflicts of politically-active communal groups in all countries worldwide, with a current population of at least 500,000. It tracks specific minority populations that are subject to systematic discrimination, mobilize for collective action, or engage in active conflict with state authorities. The project is meant to aid comparative research and contribute to the understanding of conflicts involving relevant groups.  

OHCHR Databases are a collection of United Nations databases from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), tracking global compliance with international legal frameworks. This includes documentation from UN Treaty Bodies, Special Procedures mandate holders, and various human rights committees monitoring state obligations. These databases allow legal scholars, diplomats, and policymakers to retrieve state reports, verify country recommendations, and track the domestic implementation of international human rights treaties.

The Universal Human Rights Index is a large database that allows people to monitor the efforts every country is taking towards promoting human rights. The index displays how each country has fulfilled their obligations to the United Nations human rights machinery including Universal Periodic Review, Treaty Bodies, and Charter-based mechanisms including Special Procedures. The index also contains an interactive map where you can click on a country and learn more about their actions to promote human rights. 

Political Terror Scale (PTS) provides annual scores measuring levels of state-sponsored physical integrity violations and political terror across countries since 1976. Drawing data from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the U.S. State Department annual reports, PTS categorizes state violence into 5-level scales. This scale is primarily used by political scientists and risk assessors to quantitatively analyze how foreign aid, conflict, and governance structures correlate with state-led violence.

PRIO Conflict Recurrence Database extends on already existing data on organized violence by Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) to deepen understanding on when, where and under what conditions armed conflicts persist and recur. It tracks the lifespans of armed conflicts, focusing specifically on why and when peace agreements fail. It maps historical data on recurring civil wars and flare-ups of hostilities after periods of formal peace. This data is used to model structural risk factors and design more resilient peace treaties that prevent post-conflict societies from sliding back into violence.

Uppsala Conflict Data Program is the world’s leading source of data on organized violence and the longest ongoing project of its kind, dating back to 1979. Based at Uppsala University in Sweden,  it records state-based conflicts, non-state clashes, and one-sided violence against civilians, including temporal and spatial data of incidents. This database allows researchers, international organizations and analysts to map conflict dynamics and evaluate the success of ceasefires.

War Watch - World Assessment and Tracking of Civilian Harm is a tracking  portal from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights dedicated to measuring compliance with international humanitarian law and monitoring immediate civilian harm. It includes local monitoring, spatial data, and legal analysis to classify armed conflicts and evaluate structural patterns of civilian infrastructure damage and casualties. This is helpful for allocating emergency aid and investigating potential violations of international law during warfare. 

Transitional Justice Evaluation Tools (TJET) offers dataset and tools of over 400 measures designed to evaluate how societies address legacies of massive human rights abuses. It tracks indicators related to institutional reforms, state apologies, reparations, and truth-telling initiatives following civil conflict or dictatorial rule. This tool helps practitioners and domestic advocates measure the structural impact of justice mechanisms on sustainable peace and democratic consolidation.

Uyghur Transitional Justice Database is an independent, non-profit project based in Norway dedicated to documenting, recording, and preserving evidence of human rights violations against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan. It compiles victim testimonies, spatial data on detention facilities, and records of institutional tracking to counter state erasure and build a foundation for future accountability mechanisms. 

Varieties of Truth Commissions Data Set is a collection of global datasets documenting the design, powers, and outcomes of truth commissions. It was  developed by Kelebogile Zvobgo and was featured in her book Governing Truth: NGOs and the Politics of Transitional Justice, which argues that civil society organizations are the primary drivers of truth commission adoption and design.  

Crowd Counting Consortium is a joint project of Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut that collects publicly available data on political protest events reported in the United States, including rallies, marches, demonstrations, and acts of civil disobedience. It is managed through the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, this dataset is used by sociologists, journalists, and policymakers to monitor the health of civic spaces and analyze shifting trends in public mobilization and political expression.  

The Human Rights Defenders Targeted Killings (HRD-TK) is an event database tracking the targeted murders and lethal attacks against activists, journalists and human rights defenders globally. It combines annual data on individual human rights defenders killings, specifying temporal and spatial data, the profile of the victim, the perpetrator’s information and analysis of macro-level trends. This dataset is designed to help non-governmental organizations and academic researchers identify high-risk regions, patterns of political repression and evaluate protective policies.