“The Role of Statistical Information in Realizing Human Rights”: Launch of the OHCHR publication “Human Rights Indicators - A Guide to Measurement and Implementation” , statement by Ms. Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

15 March 2013

Excellencies,

Distinguished panelists,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am happy to welcome you all to this side event to launch a new publication by my Office. Human Rights Indicators: A Guide to Measurement and Implementation responds to a longstanding demand that we develop and deploy appropriate statistical indicators in furthering the cause of human rights.

Twenty years ago, one of the recommendations of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action was that we employ and analyze indicators to help measure our progress in human rights. Only robust and accurate statistics can establish the vital benchmarks and baselines that translate our human rights commitments into targeted policies, and only they can measure how effective those policies truly are.

Information on the number of persons with disabilities, the number of homeless people, the proportion of high-level positions held by women, the extent of killings, domestic violence or abuses by the police – these are just a few examples of the indicators that can bring clarity and focus to the goal of human rights implementation.

Indeed, the availability of accurate statistical information is a strong signal of our openness to stronger accountability in the public sphere, and this includes accountability for implementation and follow-up to public commitments to realize human rights for all.

Several years of research and consultations went into the development of this Guide. It was guided by the principles adopted for the work of the Human Rights Council: universality, impartiality, objectivity and cooperation to strengthen the capacity of Member States in meeting their human rights obligations.

Thus we called on international and national human rights stakeholders, including experts from treaty bodies, special procedures, UN agencies, statistical offices and civil society, to provide guidance. At regional and national workshops, governments, national human rights institutions, courts and NGOs helped develop and validate the methodology outlined in the Guide.

Moreover, as part of this process, I am very happy to report that follow-up initiatives to develop human rights indicators were launched in several countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.

The primary objective of the Guide is to spell out the essential attributes of the rights enshrined in international instruments, in order to help stakeholders construct participatory processes that will be able to translate this into contextually relevant quantitative and qualitative indicators. A concomitant goal is to further access to information, which as we all know is an important human right in itself.

I would like to emphasize that the Guide is neither designed, nor is it suitable for ranking States based on an overall human rights performance. Neither is it a substitute for more comprehensive and judicial human rights assessments.

It is an attempt to further the construction of frameworks of measurement that are more responsive to human rights. At a time of social and political crisis in many regions of the world, I believe this will be a useful contribution. Meanwhile, my Office will continue to do its best in responding to requests for technical capacity building and more systematic compilation of statistical information that is relevant to human rights. We will also continue to be actively engaged in discussions on the Post-2015 development agenda by drawing on our human rights indicators work.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I trust that continued engagement, dialogue and cooperation among the human rights, statistical and policy-making communities will help us in improving the measurement and implementation of human rights, as one of the three pillars of the United Nations.

Once again, allow me to thank the panelists for joining me in launching this publication, and for sharing their insights as experts on the role of statistical information in realizing human rights for all.

Thank you.