Human Rights Index (beta version) for 2006

The Political Terror Scale 2006 is generated by Mark Gibney Belk Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Asheville.

He takes at all available data from Amnesty International and US State Department country reports on human rights practice, and turns them into a 5-band scale. Low score means high Human Rights standards, so 2 is the best, and 10 is the worst. I am very grateful to him for being able to reproduce part of his work here.

I have added together the figures derived from the two sources, so a score of 2 indicates level 1, score 4 indicates level 2, and so on. Odd numbers mean that the country is on the border between two groups, which arises when there is divergence between the reports from Amnesty and the State Department.

Countries are arranged alphabetically, so position within each block is not significant, but a country's group level is significant.


Level 1 : Countries under a secure rule of law, people are not imprisoned for their view, and torture is rare or exceptional. Political murders are extremely rare.

Score 2:

Australia
Bhutan
Brunei
Canada
Cape Verde
Comoros
Costa Rica
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
Germany
Grenada
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Luxembourg
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Oman
Panama
Sao Tome and Principe
Seychelles
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
Sweden
Taiwan
Uruguay
Vanuatu

Score 3:

Bahamas
Bahrain
Belgium
Chile
Czech Republic
Latvia
Lithuania
Malta
Poland
Qatar
Singapore
South Korea
Switzerland


Level 2 : There is a limited amount of imprisonment for nonviolent political activity. However, few persons are affected, torture and beatings are exceptional. Political murder is rare.

Score 4:

Argentina
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Barbados
Belize
Bosnia
Botswana
Croatia
Cyprus
Fiji
France
Hungary
Kuwait
Lesotho
Macedonia
Madagascar
Mali
Namibia
Nicaragua
Niger
Portugal
Slovakia
Spain
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Suriname
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom

Score 5:

Albania
Bolivia
Bulgaria
Congo
Ghana
Greece
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Kazakhstan
Malaysia
Maldives
Moldova
Mongolia
Romania
Rwanda
Sierra Leone
Tanzania
Trinidad and Tobago
Vietnam
Yugoslavia


Level 3 : There is extensive political imprisonment, or a recent history of such imprisonment. Execution or other political murders and brutality may be common. Unlimited detention, with or without a trial, for political views is accepted.

Score 6:

Angola
Belarus
Benin
Burkina Faso
Cambodia
Cuba
Djibouti
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Gabon
Gambia
Georgia
Guinea
Honduras
Indonesia
Jamaica
Jordan
Kyrgyz Republic
Laos
Lebanon
Liberia
Libya
Malawi
Mauritania
Morocco
Mozambique
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
South Africa
Swaziland
Syria
Tajikistan
Togo
Tunisia
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
United States
Yemen
Zambia
Uzbekistan

Score 7

Cameroon
East Timor
Ethiopia
Haiti
India
Kenya
Mexico
Turkey
Venezuela

Level 4 : Civil and political rights violations have expanded to large numbers of the population. Murders, disappearances, and torture are a common part of life. In spite of its generality, on this level terror affects those who interest themselves in politics or ideas.

Score 8:

Algeria
Bangladesh
Brazil
Burundi
Chad
China
Egypt
Eritrea
Guatemala
Iran
Israel
Ivory Coast
Nigeria
North Korea
Pakistan
Philipines
Russia
Somalia
Thailand
Uganda
West Bank and Gaza
Zimbabwe

Score 9:

Central African Republic
Colombia
Dem. Republic of the Congo
Myanmar
Nepal

Level 5 : Terror has expanded to the whole population. The leaders of these societies place no limits on the means or thoroughness with which they pursue personal or ideological goals.

Score 10:

Afghanistan
Iraq
Sri Lanka
Sudan

Countries for which there is no data:
"Germany, East" **
"Germany, West" **
Samoa **
USSR **
"Yemen, North" **
"Yemen, South" **

The USA was not rated by the State Department, so I doubled the Amnesty score of 3, which is a median rating.

This is a prototype of the real Index of Human Rights which we would like to see established by the United Nations. The group system is clunky, and it would be better to give each country an individual score, so that the scale could be viewed as a spectrum. There is no reason that I can see that the reports should not be quantified in this way.

Of interest is the UK's poor showing with a score of 4, (Level 2), and that of the USA with a score of 6, Level 3. Israel is at Level 4, while there is no data for the Palestinian Authority.

It is enlightening to view an objective rating of all the countries of the world. To read the newspapers, one might be led to think that the UK and USA were paragons of democratic virtue.

Some of the results are startling. For instance, we share Level 2 with Azerbaijan, and the USA shares Level 3 with Saudi Arabia and - wait for it - Cuba. This is a result of the group system, since there will be wide variations within a group. If you have doubt about the accuracy of the scores, simply go back to the State Department website and read the country reports. I could not find the country reports on the AI website: I think you have to buy a copy written on pulped trees.

The Green Party is to launch a Report on the Index of Human Rights on December 8th.