Human Rights Declining in the 21st Century (!)

EurkeAlert! news drew my attention to this interesting report on human rights in the world.  Some items of notice from the report:

» Global human rights, on average, have declined in the 21st century.

» Less than 20% of countries score in the A or B range (80–100).

» The global median human rights score is an F (50).

» Democracy is one of the strongest predictors of governments’ respect for human rights.

» The COVID-19 pandemic caused a decline in human rights globally. Several governments used the pandemic to justify imposing harsher public security practices, leading to human rights violations. Recent academic research has found that repressive governments during the COVID-19 pandemic put curfews and lockdowns in place earlier and kept them longer than non-repressive countries.12 In addition, surveys of human rights experts around the world find evidence that government respect for economic and social rights, as well as civil and political rights, declined as a result of COVID.13

Cheers,

Colin