Coomans, Fons; Gr?nfeld, Fred; Kamminga, Menno: Methods of Human Rights Research: A Primer
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Methods of Human Rights Research A Primer
Fons Coomans
Fred Grünfeld
Menno T. Kamminga
Human Rights Quarterly, Volume 32, Number 1, February 2010,
pp. 179-186 (Article)
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: 10.1353/hrq.0.0127
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HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY
* Fons Coomans studied international relations and international law at the University of
Amsterdam. He currently holds the UNESCO Chair on Human Rights and Peace at the
Department of International and European Law at Maastricht University. He is the coordina-
tor of the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights, and Senior Researcher at the Netherlands
School of Human Rights Research. His publications include volumes on the Extraterritorial
Application of Human Rights Treaties (Fons Coomans & Menno T. Kamminga eds., 2004)
and Justiciability of Economic and Social Rights: Experiences from Domestic Systems (Fons
Coomans ed., 2006).
** Fred Grünfeld is Associate Professor of International Relations and International Organizations
at the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He researches and teaches at
the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights and the University College Maastricht. He is also
professor in the Causes of Gross Human Rights Violations at the Centre for Conflict Studies,
Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. His research is on comparative genocide stud-
ies (Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Darfur), in particular the failures of Third Parties to prevent
genocide.
***Menno T. Kamminga is Professor of International Law at Maastricht University and Director
of the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights. He chairs the Netherlands Government Advisory
Committee on International Law and is a member of the Netherlands Government Advisory
Committee on Human Rights. His latest book is the volume, The Impact of Human Rights
Law on General International Law (Menno T. Kamminga & Martin Scheinin eds., 2009).
Human Rights Quarterly 32 (2010) 179–186 © 2010 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
Methods of Human Rights Research:
A Primer
Fons Coomans*
Fred Grünfeld**
Menno T. Kamminga***
AbSTRAcT
This article suggests that research in the field of human rights, especially
when it is legal in nature, tends to devote surprisingly little attention to
questions of methodology. This may be a result of the fact that human
rights scholars often are (former) human rights activists. Dispensing with
methodological constraints enables researchers to engage in wishful thinking
and to reach the conclusions they were hoping to find in the first place.
The article makes some suggestions for those who wish to avoid this pit-
fall, including carefully spelling out a research method, discussing which
alternative methods have been rejected, and avoiding the label “emerging”
human right.
Vol. 32180 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY
1. John R. Crook, The International Court of Justice and Human Rights, 1 Nw. J. IN t ’l Hu m .
Rt s . 2, 8 (2003).
2. Exceptions include to d d la N d m a N , st u d y I N g Hu m a N RI g H t s (2006); to d d la N d m a N & Ed z I a
Ca R v a l H o , mE a s u R I N g Hu m a N RI g H t s (2009).
I. INTRodUcTIoN
Human rights scholarship is regularly criticized for its lack of attention to
methodology. According to one commentator, for example, “wishful thinking
and sloppy legal analysis tend to be too common in international human
rights law.”
1
Rather than simply dismissing such observations as biased
and ill-informed, we feel that they deserve to be taken seriously and to be
examined more closely.
There appear to be very few books that specifically focus on the meth-
odology of human rights research that could be recommended, for example,
to a Ph.D. candidate embarking on a dissertation.
2
We decided to try and
fill this gap, and convened an international conference to examine meth-
odological questions in the field of human rights research. Because we felt
that different disciplines could learn methodological lessons from each other,
we published a call for papers inviting scholars from different disciplines
to identify criteria for sound human rights research. We sought input from
scholars in the fields of law, health science, philosophy, political science,
international relations, and sociology. We asked them: what distinguishes
a sound piece of human rights research from a poor one? We also invited
the participants to identify the methodological standards that are typical
for human rights research. Are these standards different from standards in
other fields?
The call for papers produced an overwhelming response. This strength-
ened our conviction that there is a need for more scholarly reflection regard-
ing research methodology in the field of human rights. We made a selection
from the submissions that best encapsulated our purpose, and these papers
were presented at a conference that was held at Maastricht University under
the auspices of the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights in November 2007.
The best papers from the conference were published in 2009 in a single
volume by Intersentia Publishing under the title Methods of Human Rights
Research. This brief article is adapted from the introductory chapter of the
book. It summarizes the key findings from the papers and from the discus-
sions held at the conference.
II. PRobLEMS wITH METHodS of HUMAN RIGHTS RESEARcH
Human rights research encompasses a very broad range of topics and ap-
proaches. For example, it may relate to the content of human rights standards,
2010 Methods of Human Rights Research 181
3. Jan M. Smits, Redefining Normative Legal Science: Towards an Argumentative Disci-
pline, in mE t H o d s o f Hu m a N RI g H t s RE s E a R C H 45 (Fons Coomans, Fred Grünfeld & Menno
T. Kamminga eds., 2009).
4. Eva Brems, Methods in Legal Human Rights Research, in mE t H o d s o f Hu m a N RI g H t s
RE s E a R C H , supra note 3, at 77.
5. Id. A recent study of methodological choices made in legal Ph.D. dissertations in the
Netherlands found a similar trend. HE R v é Ed o u a R d tI J s s E N , dE J u R I d I s C H E d I s s E R t a t I E o N d E R d E
l o E p : dE v E R a N t w o o R d I N g v a N m E t H o d o l o g I s C H E k E u z E s I N J u R I d I s C H E d I s s E R t a t I E s (2009).
the effectiveness of international and domestic enforcement mechanisms,
the degree of compliance with human rights standards by states and non-
state actors, the role of human rights in foreign policy, the history of human
rights, or philosophical questions. Although human rights scholarship is
often regarded as the exclusive province of lawyers, it covers a much wider
range of disciplines.
If there is, in fact, a methodological deficit in human rights scholarship,
it appears to affect legal research more than research performed by social
scientists. This distinction may be caused by the different approaches of these
disciplines. Lawyers are system builders; they rely on logic to determine
whether arguments are compatible with an existing normative framework.
Human rights may be, but are not necessarily, part of this normative set-
ting.
3
Legal scholarship, therefore, has little to say regarding the impact of
legal systems on the ground. It makes implicit assumptions in this regard
and runs the risk of remaining disconnected from reality. Social scientists,
on the other hand, attempt to understand and explain social phenomena.
Their findings can be empirically challenged and verified. However, they
risk ignoring or misinterpreting applicable legal standards.
A survey carried out among twenty-eight legally trained human rights
scholars found that only half of them had received any formal training in
methodology.
4
The others had simply learned along the way. Even more alarm-
ingly, only thirteen of the respondents said they always reflected on the most
appropriate research method when starting work on a new research topic.
And only three responded that, as a rule, they included in their published
work information on the research method used. A 2006 survey of scholarly
articles contained in seven leading human rights law journals found that
twenty-two out of ninety articles contained no explicit information on the
method used.
5
We are not aware of a similar survey of human rights scholarship by
social scientists. Our impression, however, is that while social scientists
conducting research in the field of human rights tend to do better than their
legal colleagues, their work also frequently leaves something to be desired
from a methodological point of view. Social scientists also demonstrate a
tendency, for example, to omit an explanation of their research methods
in their publications. A survey of articles published in the interdisciplinary
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6. Hans-Otto Sano & Hatla Thelle, The Need of Evidence Based Human Rights Research,
in mE t H o d s o f Hu m a N RI g H t s RE s E a R C H , supra note 3, at 91.
7. See David P. Forsythe, Human Rights Studies: On the Dangers of Legalistic Assumptions,
in mE t H o d s o f Hu m a N RI g H t s RE s E a R C H , supra note 3, at 59.
8. School of Human Rights Research: About the School, available at http://www.schoolof-
humanrights.org/index.php?/d=8.
human rights journals Human Rights Quarterly and Netherlands Quarterly
of Human Rights revealed an additional source of concern: a tendency
by authors from all disciplines to rely on secondary rather than primary
sources.
6
Why might we find such poor methodological standards in human rights
scholarship? Our hypothesis is that human rights scholars tend to passionately
believe that human rights are positive. Many of the scholars are activists or
former activists in the field of human rights. Although seldom stated, the
explicit aim of their research is to contribute to improved respect for hu-
man rights standards. They therefore risk ignoring the fact that the pursuit of
human rights is not a goal in itself, but is merely one instrument designed
to help improve respect for human dignity.
7
They may forget that human
rights standards are the result of compromises reached by states and may
therefore be less than perfect. They may also overlook the fact that the mere
adoption of resolutions by international bodies and the establishment of a
new international institution will not necessarily result in the improvement
of human rights on the ground.
The mission statement of the Netherlands School of Human Rights Re-
search (the collaborative framework of human rights scholars in the Nether-
lands) is a good example. The statement provides that the School’s purpose
is “to contribute to the further implementation and the strengthening of
international, regional and national systems of protection of human rights.”
8
In accordance with these terms, there is little room for research challenging
the conventional wisdom that such systems are to be applauded.
Unfortunately, some human rights lawyers display an excessive defer-
ence towards the case law from international human rights bodies. This
deference may result from the lawyers’ reluctance to weaken these bodies
with unnecessary criticism, especially when the human rights bodies are
newly established or dependent on the annual renewal of their mandates.
Such a sympathetic attitude may also be based on the implicit assump-
tion that international supervision mechanisms in the field of human rights
should be supported irrespective of their content, especially if they adopt a
“progressive” position. In our view, this approach confuses scholarship with
activism. If the output from international bodies is not up to standard, then
human rights scholars have a duty to say so.
2010 Methods of Human Rights Research 183
9. Andreas Føllesdal, Methods of Philosophical Research on Human Rights, in mE t H o d s o f
Hu m a N RI g H t s RE s E a R C H , supra note 3, at 233.
10. Oona A. Hathaway, The Promise and Limits of the International Law of Torture, in to R t u R E :
a Co l l E C t I o N 199 (Sanford Levinson ed., 2004).
11. Id.
Because human rights scholars often know which conclusions they want
to arrive at before they begin their research, the temptation to engage in
wishful thinking may be great. This wishful thinking may involve limiting
sources to those that support the desired conclusion and ignoring literature
or findings that point in the opposite direction. In most disciplines it is en-
couraged to be contrarian and to demonstrate that conventional wisdom is
wrong. In human rights scholarship, on the other the hand, it often appears
to be regarded as an achievement to document findings that support con-
ventional wisdom. In other words, there appears to be a marked absence
of internal critical reflection among human rights scholars.
9
There are, of course, positive exceptions to this tendency. One example is
a study by Oona Hathaway—a legal scholar by the way—demonstrating that
non-democratic states that practice torture are more likely to become parties
to the UN Convention Against Torture than states that do not systematically
engage in torture.
10
Even after ratification of the Convention, torture in those
states does not decrease. These findings challenge the conventional wisdom
that states parties to the Convention will be less inclined to tolerate torture
because they are subjected to the Convention’s supervisory mechanisms. This
assumption is the underlying reason for campaigns that encourage states to
become parties to human rights treaties. In fact, as the author points out,
states may become parties to the Convention against Torture not with the
intention to combat torture, but to improve their international reputation and
thereby increase their chances of obtaining development assistance.
11
The lack of methodological rigor in human rights scholarship has some
undesirable consequences. Most importantly, it undermines the credibility
and the validity of the findings described in human rights scholarship. The
lack of methodological rigor also negatively impacts the chances of human
rights research proposals to have success in funding competitions. Because
it is difficult to compare the quality of research proposals from different dis-
ciplines, proposals in such competitions are often compared to one another
on the basis of their methodologies. Proposals with a weak methodology
are unlikely to receive grants.
III. SoME SUGGESTIoNS
A work’s methodology is essentially its “approach.” It addresses the ques-
tion of how to find relevant information, how to organize it, and how to
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12. Todd Landman, Social Science Methods and Human Rights, in mE t H o d s o f Hu m a N RI g H t s
RE s E a R C H , supra note 3, at 19.
interpret the results. Methodology is crucial for any branch of scholarship
because an unreliable method produces unreliable results. Reflection on
methodology is not a luxury and does not detract from one’s substantive
research efforts. There is no contradiction between method and substance.
Method is the substance.
12
Arguably, the description of a work’s methodol-
ogy is the most interesting and revealing part of any academic paper (or
research proposal).
A description of the research project’s method should not be confused
with a description of the sources of information. Such a list of sources is
useful in itself, especially if it is accompanied by an explanation about the
selection and use of the sources. The description of the project’s methodol-
ogy complements a list of sources in that it sets forth the organization and
interpretation of information emanating from those sources.
Another frequent mistake that human rights scholars make is to confuse
what has been investigated with how it has been done. In the introductions
of their books or papers, authors may provide an elaborate summary of
the chapters that follow. Although such a “road map” is useful, researchers
must distinguish it from the paper’s methodology. The methodology cannot
be derived from the table of contents. Rather, the methodology requires a
detailed description of the steps taken by the researcher to travel from the
problem statement to the conclusion.
There is no single, preferred research method, nor is there a typical,
preferred method for carrying out research in the field of human rights. The
method chosen to answer a given research question may, for example, be
quantitative or qualitative, be inductive or deductive, be a case study or an
attempt to draw general conclusions, cover just one country or compare
several countries, be based merely on written sources, or may be based on
field study and interviews. A combination of methods, if expertly employed,
may produce more reliable results.
The method chosen for a research project should flow logically from the
project’s research question. Practical considerations such as the information,
the financial resources, the time that is available, and the qualifications of
the researcher (training, language abilities) can also influence the project’s
method. Again, the researcher should explain all of these factors.
A researcher should not hide the method of a research project, but
should explicitly describe the method. The researcher should identify and
justify each step in the research process. If a researcher does not carefully
explain the method, the validity of the outcome of a research project cannot
be assessed by others. It is not good enough, for example, to mention in
2010 Methods of Human Rights Research 185
13. See Philip Alston, Appraising the United Nations Human Rights Regime, in tH E uN I t E d
Na t I o N s a N d Hu m a N RI g H t s : a CR I t I C a l ap p R a I s a l 1, 19 (Philip Alston ed., 1992).
14. Marco Formisano, Methodological Challenges in Country of Origin Research, in mE t H o d s
o f Hu m a N RI g H t s RE s E a R C H , supra note 3, at 187.
passing that the researcher relied on “the usual methods of legal research.”
In a description of the methodology, a researcher should also discuss which
alternative methods she considered and why those methods were rejected.
The purpose of that explanation is to demonstrate that the researcher has
reflected on the proper method of research for the project and made a
justifiable choice.
Normative research projects in the field of human rights must clearly
distinguish the law as it is (lex lata) from the law as it should be in the
opinion of the author (lex ferenda). The label of “emerging” human rights
or “emerging” interpretations of such rights is a device that is too often used
to blur the lines between lex lata and lex ferenda. The term emerging in this
context may provide a smokescreen for wishful thinking and researchers
should use the term sparingly.
When evaluating the impact of policies, researchers should draw conclu-
sions very cautiously. This practice applies generally, but is particularly tricky
to apply in the field of human rights because it is difficult to demonstrate
causality.
13
Even if suitable indicators can be found to measure change, it
is hard to determine the effect of, for example, NGO campaigns or UN
sanctions because numerous other factors besides these policies may also
have impacted the change.
Quantitative methods should also be employed with great care. They
appear attractive because they seem to provide certainty when qualitative
methods are unable to do so. This point is especially relevant in the field of
social, economic, and cultural rights. States are required to take measures
to respect, protect, and fulfill these rights. To determine whether a state has
complied with its duty to respect a right is comparatively straightforward.
There must have been an absence of state interference with the enjoyment
of the right. But determining whether a state has taken sufficient positive
measures to protect and to fulfill a right is more difficult. A researcher may
then turn to statistical indicators without keeping in mind that those indica-
tors may produce misleading results. For example, an increase in the number
of children attending primary schools does not necessarily indicate whether
students of poor parents experience discrimination.
Applied research poses its own methodological risks because research-
ers may be under considerable pressure to support a desired outcome. One
example is the collection and assessment of country of origin information to
determine the status of asylum-seekers and refugees.
14
Although this process
often functions in a politicized context, the process should nevertheless be
Vol. 32186 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY
15. Paul Gready, Telling Truth? The Methodological Challenges of Truth Commissions, in
mE t H o d s o f Hu m a N RI g H t s RE s E a R C H , supra note 3, at 159.
guided by principles of impartiality, objectivity, and reliability of information.
Another example of the risks of applied research is research undertaken in
support of truth and reconciliation commissions.
15
Such commissions are
essentially hybrid institutions with one foot in academia and another in
practice. Research of this type similarly runs the risk of attempting to justify
politically informed mandates or goals.
The participation of researchers from multiple scholastic disciplines is
an indispensable element of human rights research if only because lawyers
are needed to clarify the legal framework and social scientists are needed
to assess the situation in the field. Unfortunately genuine, high quality in-
terdisciplinary research is rare because few researchers are fully qualified in
more than one discipline. In our view, it is generally best for researchers to
work within their own disciplines and not to moonlight in other domains.
Researchers should, however, avoid unnecessary jargon and make the results
of their research accessible to readers outside their field of specialization.
Researchers also must make an effort to understand the research methods in
disciplines other than their own in order to fully appreciate the conclusions
of researchers in a wide variety of fields.