Violations of Human Rights—How Many?

A bstract . Statisticians can help to improve human rights reporting. The statisticians’ approach to measurement, summary and interpretation is needed to understand and help reduce human rights violations. Statistical problems in the measurement and analysis of human rights violations include: lack of agreement on the definition, great difficulties in collecting basic data, lack of knowledge of the subject among statisticians, lack of knowledge of statistics among other human rights practitioners, and the need for appropriate methodology. The statistical problems are analogous to other measurement problems , and can be similarly resolved, but a continuing need for interdisciplinary teams is seen.