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Articles by Nitza Berkovitch
Yes, human rights scholars conceal social wrongs-when they miss the point
To suggest that relying on cross-national analyses perpetuates human rights abuses is simply fallacious. Neve Gordon and Nitza Berkovitch recently argued that cross-national quantitative analysis of human rights is based on biased data.
How human rights scholars conceal social wrongs
Using cross-national data in human rights research helps perpetuate social wrongs. Elections in the US are just around the corner, and it looks as if, once again, the results will ultimately hinge on outcomes in a few swing states. Perhaps foremost among these is Florida, where almost 25% of its African American citizens are disenfranchised because they are either felons or ex-felons. Florida, however, is not an outlier.
Cohesion in the chaos: uniting human rights methodologies
With the range of options available to document and analyze human rights, it’s important to help researchers and advocates use data responsibly and appropriately. Part of openGlobalRights’ data and rights series. In the field of human rights, we now have a burgeoning array of methodologies for documentation and an even wider collection of experts who use them. This enormous range of options, methods and actors has conflicting effects, creating both challenges and opportunities.
Missing torture amongst the poor
Documenting torture has always been problematic, but the experiences of the poor are continually left out of the picture. Torture has been one of the dominant international human rights issues of the last fifteen years. Yet, the vast majority of incidents of torture have remained undocumented. This is perhaps inevitable, as torture is very hard to document. States invest considerable resources into hiding torture from view and denying that it takes place at all.
No single dataset is sufficient for understanding human rights, nor should it be
Do cross-national measures of human rights provide meaningful information that could be used to promote better enjoyment of human rights globally and without discrimination? In their recent post, Neve Gordon and Nitza Berkovitch argue that they do not, using as an example the CIRI Human Rights Data Project’s Electoral Self-Determination measure and its failure to account for the United States’ criminal disenfranchisement policies. I am sympathetic to many of Gordon and Berkovitch’s concerns.
Yes, human rights scholars conceal social wrongs—when they miss the point
Neve Gordon and Nitza Berkovitch recently argued that cross-national quantitative analysis of human rights is based on biased data. They claim that this data ignores significant sub-national variation, hides significant human rights problems in otherwise “highly scored” countries such as the United States, and suffers from methodological nationalism, or the fallacy of treating entire nation states as comparable “units of analysis”.
How human rights scholars conceal social wrongs
Elections in the US are just around the corner, and it looks as if, once again, the results will ultimately hinge on outcomes in a few swing states. Perhaps foremost among these is Florida, where almost 25% of its African American citizens are disenfranchised because they are either felons or ex-felons. Florida, however, is not an outlier.
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