Measuring National Human Rights: A Reflection on Korean Experiences

This article proposes a research strategy to construct national human rights indicators and indices and uses this strategy for the assessment of human rights observance in the Republic of Korea during the period 1990 to 2007. To ensure reliability, the proposed indicators are derived from the Concluding Observations issued by the committees of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The analysis of the constructed composite indices reveals a dramatic trend of a country's human rights improvements and setbacks over time. The article maintains that the proposed strategy is easily replicable by countries seeking to systematically assess and subsequently improve their human rights.