(CN) — Two-thirds of all countries in the world would get a D or worse on report cards evaluating protection of human rights, and the subject they perform the worst in overall is worker rights according to a study of global human rights data.
The report card format offered researchers a way to present clear comparisons between the human rights protections provided by different countries around the world. They detailed their results in a study published Friday in Human Rights Quarterly.
The researchers rated 186 out of 195 countries in the world on a scale of 0 to 100 based on the level protections documented in human rights reports from governmental and nongovernmental organizations.
Two-thirds of the countries rated received a score of 65 or less — a D or worse on a student report card — while only 14% of countries received scores at or above 83, the traditional cutoff point for a B.
The study authors also examined which rights are the most or least protected based on the scores of all governments in the study combined. They found workers’ rights — collective bargaining, working hours, safe conditions and child labor rights — were some of the least protected human rights globally.
“Previous research shows that it is unlikely that governments protect the rights to an adequate minimum wage, occupational health and safety, or reasonable limitations on work hours (including voluntary overtime work) unless they allow workers to form independent trade unions and to bargain collectively,” said study co-leader David Cingranelli, a political science professor at Binghamton University.
“In other words, the right to unionize, bargain and strike are the gateway rights. If they are protected, all other labor rights are likely to be protected as well. But globally, the gateway rights are in decline,” Cingranelli said.
The study found that wealthier democratic countries such as Canada, Sweden, Portugal and Norway scored the highest in overall protection of human rights while the lower scoring countries tended to be less democratic and less economically developed.
China, North Korea, Syria and Iran ranked the lowest for overall protection. The study authors note that existing research indicates that higher populations and conflict are linked to significant declines in human rights protection.
Timing may also play a crucial role. The ratings come from data which was collected in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic. During that year Iran, which scored the lowest with a zero, had increased government repression in response to national protests sparked by high fuel prices.
The study authors drew on data from the CIRIGHTS Data Project, a publicly available collection of human rights scores of countries around the world which spans the last 40 years.
CIRIGHTS researchers score reports from organizations and agencies such as Amnesty International and the U.S. Department of State. The scoring system is based on widely accepted criteria and the project uses a standard scale allowing accurate comparison between individual countries on specific rights or across a category or selection of human rights.
Lead study author Skip Mark, assistant professor of political science at University of Rhode Island, said the connections between the protections of different rights align with research showing that governments may strategize in their protections of various rights to create a more favorable perception of their human rights record.
A more positive global perception of a country can offer a variety of benefits in the form of trade deals, treaties and improved relations with international actors. In this calculus to improve perception, "it is much cheaper to give people civil and political rights than to give them economic rights," Mark said.
The study also indicates women’s political rights, including voting rights and the right to hold political office, are more protected than women’s economic rights like the right to work and the right to equal pay and treatment in the workplace.
“Particularly in non-democratic states, you can have a lot of women in the legislature, but if they don't have the ability to affect policy, you're not going to have outcomes that improve women's economic rights,” Mark said. “Leaders have looked at what the international community is paying attention to and found ways to do well on those numbers without actually implementing costly changes.”
As for the state of human and worker rights in the United States, the study authors did not include the U.S. in its overall rating of countries because a significant portion of the data used in the study is derived from U.S. Department of State reports, many of which do not examine the U.S. itself.
However, Mark said the researchers did combine other sources of human rights reporting to derive a rating for the United States — 64, a solid D.
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