New data shows human rights respect improving over time, contrary to indicators of political repression.

This study argues the apparent stagnation in human rights practices masks a crucial change: monitoring standards evolve, making accountability assessments more stringent. As organizations like Amnesty International and U.S. State Department scrutinize more places and classify additional acts as abuses, their benchmarks for state behavior tighten considerably.

New Measurement Approach: The author introduces an unbiased model using existing data sources to gauge repression accurately.

Key Findings:

• Human rights respect has increased over the last three decades despite norm proliferation and enhanced monitoring.
• A positive correlation exists between human rights improvement and ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture, differing from prior research.

This work challenges conventional interpretations of repression data by accounting for how measurement criteria themselves have become more demanding.