Methods of Human Rights Research: A Primer

This article suggests that research in the field of human rights, especially when it is legal in nature, tends to devote surprisingly little attention to questions of methodology. This may be a result of the fact that human rights scholars often are (former) human rights activists. Dispensing with methodological constraints enables researchers to engage in wishful thinking and to reach the conclusions they were hoping to find in the first place. The article makes some suggestions for those who wish to avoid this pitfall, including carefully spelling out a research method, discussing which alternative methods have been rejected, and avoiding the label "emerging" human right.