WEBVTT 00:00:18.635 --> 00:00:22.829 You understand the importance of light and the truth, right? 00:00:23.755 --> 00:00:26.102 Imagine a world without them. 00:00:26.533 --> 00:00:29.793 I’m here to talk about how we need more, of both. 00:00:31.153 --> 00:00:33.934 I’m going to start with a true story 00:00:34.384 --> 00:00:36.144 about the kinds of things that happen 00:00:36.144 --> 00:00:39.403 when too much of the world is operating in darkness. 00:00:42.394 --> 00:00:45.536 On a warm October day in 2018, 00:00:45.536 --> 00:00:49.186 a Saudi Arabian journalist called Jamal Khashoggi 00:00:49.186 --> 00:00:51.983 walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, 00:00:51.983 --> 00:00:56.142 to get some papers he needed to marry his Turkish fiancée. 00:00:57.329 --> 00:01:00.981 She waited outside for him for hours. 00:01:01.451 --> 00:01:03.749 She never saw him again. 00:01:05.113 --> 00:01:07.065 You may remember hearing about this case, 00:01:07.065 --> 00:01:10.195 because it made headlines around the world. 00:01:10.966 --> 00:01:14.916 We know from a number of different investigations 00:01:14.916 --> 00:01:19.050 that Saudi government agents went into the consulate, 00:01:19.050 --> 00:01:20.570 killed Mr. Khashoggi 00:01:20.570 --> 00:01:23.253 and dismembered his body. 00:01:24.317 --> 00:01:27.357 Let me be clear about what I just said. 00:01:27.677 --> 00:01:33.097 Government agents killed a journalist to silence his truths. 00:01:34.102 --> 00:01:39.112 These kinds of happenings are both shocking and surprisingly common. 00:01:41.696 --> 00:01:44.926 But I’m pretty sure that if the Saudi government had known 00:01:44.926 --> 00:01:49.096 that this case would make headlines worldwide, 00:01:49.096 --> 00:01:51.316 and stay there for weeks, 00:01:51.316 --> 00:01:53.367 they wouldn’t have done it, right? 00:01:53.870 --> 00:01:57.800 They wanted to commit their crimes in the dark, 00:01:57.800 --> 00:02:00.737 not in broad daylight for all to see. 00:02:01.392 --> 00:02:03.572 Which raises some questions. 00:02:05.031 --> 00:02:07.642 What if we could shine a brighter light 00:02:07.642 --> 00:02:10.490 on the world’s injustices and wrong-doings? 00:02:10.490 --> 00:02:14.826 And what if, by doing so, we could incentivise governments everywhere 00:02:14.826 --> 00:02:17.426 to treat people with more respect 00:02:17.426 --> 00:02:22.270 and listen to the voices of their critics rather than silencing them? 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:29.290 This is the world that I’m working to create. 00:02:31.537 --> 00:02:33.605 I’d like you to take a moment - 00:02:34.025 --> 00:02:36.035 you’re welcome to close your eyes - 00:02:36.465 --> 00:02:38.865 and ask yourself this question: 00:02:39.312 --> 00:02:42.399 what is it that you and your family need 00:02:42.399 --> 00:02:47.119 to live in dignity and fulfill your potential as human beings? 00:02:56.603 --> 00:03:00.363 You might be thinking about good food or a roof over your head, 00:03:00.363 --> 00:03:03.495 access to healthcare or education, 00:03:03.495 --> 00:03:06.195 or a good job, or social security, 00:03:06.195 --> 00:03:09.990 or you might be thinking about the freedom to be yourself 00:03:09.990 --> 00:03:16.050 and speak your mind without fear of arrest, torture, imprisonment or worse. 00:03:17.149 --> 00:03:21.389 These things are not luxuries. They are human rights. 00:03:21.413 --> 00:03:25.863 They have been defined and set out in international human rights law. 00:03:26.102 --> 00:03:29.672 Countries have made promises to respect them. 00:03:33.686 --> 00:03:35.496 But until now, 00:03:35.496 --> 00:03:38.756 no one has been tracking how well each country is doing 00:03:38.756 --> 00:03:43.826 on making sure every person is able to enjoy each human right. 00:03:44.342 --> 00:03:47.092 I know, I was surprised to learn this too. 00:03:47.908 --> 00:03:50.658 For 20 years, I was an economist. 00:03:50.688 --> 00:03:54.194 In the mid-2000s, I was working at the OECD in Paris, 00:03:54.194 --> 00:03:57.364 giving economic policy advice to governments. 00:03:57.364 --> 00:03:58.496 I really loved my job. 00:03:58.496 --> 00:04:02.886 I found it super interesting to look at each country through the economist lens 00:04:02.886 --> 00:04:05.266 and figure out what advice to offer. 00:04:05.777 --> 00:04:07.614 But there was one problem. 00:04:08.014 --> 00:04:11.694 In every country, there were human rights violations. 00:04:11.694 --> 00:04:15.432 I was reading about mistreatment of Kurds in Turkey 00:04:15.432 --> 00:04:17.762 and Roma in Slovakia, 00:04:17.762 --> 00:04:19.718 and I was always kind of looking for ways 00:04:19.718 --> 00:04:23.554 that I could try and bring these human rights issues into my reports. 00:04:23.554 --> 00:04:26.366 But there was only so far I could go, 00:04:26.366 --> 00:04:28.396 because when economists give advice, 00:04:28.396 --> 00:04:31.704 it always has to be based on empirical evidence, 00:04:31.704 --> 00:04:36.204 and what I learned is that there was no comprehensive database 00:04:36.204 --> 00:04:39.354 tracking the human rights performance of countries. 00:04:40.547 --> 00:04:42.047 This is a problem. 00:04:42.462 --> 00:04:44.062 This was a problem. 00:04:45.048 --> 00:04:47.302 When you’re assessing the state of the world, 00:04:47.302 --> 00:04:52.605 chances are you’re going to be looking first at the things you’ve got data for: 00:04:52.605 --> 00:04:55.805 income per person, trade and investment flows, 00:04:55.805 --> 00:04:57.385 carbon emissions ... 00:04:57.787 --> 00:05:00.022 It’s very difficult for any government 00:05:00.022 --> 00:05:02.922 to put human rights at the heart of its agenda, 00:05:02.922 --> 00:05:05.752 if they don’t have the data they need. 00:05:07.047 --> 00:05:11.307 After that, I just couldn’t let go of the fact that there was this data gap. 00:05:11.729 --> 00:05:14.703 A few years later, after moving back to New Zealand, 00:05:14.703 --> 00:05:18.197 I can remember being at home with my son when he was little, 00:05:18.197 --> 00:05:21.542 and after putting him to bed for his afternoon nap, 00:05:21.542 --> 00:05:24.937 I felt this magnetic pull back to the computer 00:05:24.937 --> 00:05:28.286 where I was researching who was measuring human rights. 00:05:28.286 --> 00:05:32.686 I was contacting the world’s experts and asking them questions. 00:05:33.461 --> 00:05:36.941 Why were human rights not being systematically measured? 00:05:37.516 --> 00:05:38.816 Could it be done? 00:05:39.985 --> 00:05:43.225 Lots of the emails I sent got no reply. 00:05:44.592 --> 00:05:46.172 But many of them did. 00:05:46.822 --> 00:05:48.512 There were a few people who told me 00:05:48.512 --> 00:05:51.522 that this idea of systematically tracking human rights NOTE Paragraph 00:05:51.522 --> 00:05:54.594 was a good idea, but too ambitious 00:05:56.379 --> 00:06:00.759 Only one or two people told me it was impossible, ridiculous even. 00:06:01.307 --> 00:06:03.077 I wasn’t too bothered. 00:06:03.409 --> 00:06:06.469 My philosophy was to go where the energy was. 00:06:06.798 --> 00:06:08.310 And by following the energy, 00:06:08.310 --> 00:06:11.920 I linked up with two super clever human rights academics 00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:13.518 who shared my vision, 00:06:13.518 --> 00:06:15.418 Susan Randolph and Chad Clay, 00:06:15.418 --> 00:06:19.195 and together we founded the Human Rights Measurement Initiative, 00:06:19.195 --> 00:06:21.145 or HRMI (pronounced 'hermi') for short. 00:06:22.515 --> 00:06:25.851 Even before HRMI had $1 of funding, 00:06:25.851 --> 00:06:30.752 we’ve been working with human rights practitioners from around the world 00:06:30.752 --> 00:06:32.802 to make sure that we produce data 00:06:32.802 --> 00:06:37.962 that accurately reflects the situation on the ground in different countries. 00:06:38.433 --> 00:06:41.062 Our goal is to make sure that you can see more 00:06:41.062 --> 00:06:44.632 than just those few headline cases, like Mr. Khashoggi's, 00:06:44.632 --> 00:06:46.352 that make it into the news. 00:06:46.352 --> 00:06:49.967 We are turning on more lights around the world. 00:06:50.656 --> 00:06:55.956 I feel both privileged and humbled to be able to do the work that I do 00:06:55.956 --> 00:07:01.695 because I know that in many other countries around the world 00:07:01.695 --> 00:07:07.122 human rights defenders are putting their lives at risk every single day, 00:07:07.122 --> 00:07:11.312 just for documenting the injustices that they see. 00:07:11.748 --> 00:07:17.091 So I’m really pleased that HRMI is helping to amplify the voices 00:07:17.091 --> 00:07:19.111 of these amazing people 00:07:19.111 --> 00:07:22.361 so that their work can have more impact. 00:07:22.361 --> 00:07:26.201 And I’m really pleased that the collective vision that HRMI has 00:07:26.201 --> 00:07:30.031 is no longer just a vision; it’s now a collective endeavour. 00:07:30.339 --> 00:07:35.557 We already have hundreds of human rights practitioners around the world 00:07:35.557 --> 00:07:40.547 contributing, on a volunteer basis, their time and knowledge 00:07:40.547 --> 00:07:44.627 to help turn on more lights, fill these data gaps, 00:07:45.537 --> 00:07:48.287 bring more attention to what really matters. 00:07:50.706 --> 00:07:54.706 So how do we measure the human rights performance of countries? 00:07:55.412 --> 00:07:58.662 So far, we’ve got two main methodologies. 00:07:59.415 --> 00:08:04.065 First, whenever possible, we use publicly available statistics. 00:08:04.602 --> 00:08:06.236 For Quality of Life rights, 00:08:06.236 --> 00:08:11.046 things like the rights to food, education, health, housing and work, 00:08:11.496 --> 00:08:15.156 this gives us really great country coverage. 00:08:15.791 --> 00:08:19.865 This map shows, in blue, all 169 countries 00:08:19.865 --> 00:08:23.345 where we are tracking country performance on the right to health. 00:08:23.915 --> 00:08:27.634 A lot of the statistical indicators that we look at are the same ones 00:08:27.634 --> 00:08:32.084 used to monitor the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. 00:08:32.434 --> 00:08:36.727 But here’s the difference: we don’t just look at the raw statistics. 00:08:36.727 --> 00:08:39.037 We do something much more vital. 00:08:39.037 --> 00:08:43.888 We convert them into numbers that make sense from a human rights perspective. 00:08:44.750 --> 00:08:47.560 To do this, we have adopted an award-winning approach 00:08:47.560 --> 00:08:51.898 that was developed by my HRMI co-founder, Susan, and her colleagues. 00:08:51.913 --> 00:08:56.433 And what it does is it judges each country by a different benchmark 00:08:56.433 --> 00:08:59.640 depending on that country’s level of income. 00:08:59.640 --> 00:09:03.515 So both richer countries and poorer countries will get low scores 00:09:03.515 --> 00:09:06.385 if they’re not using their available resources 00:09:06.399 --> 00:09:09.948 as effectively as other countries at those income levels have done; 00:09:09.948 --> 00:09:12.738 for example, to bring about good health outcomes. 00:09:13.465 --> 00:09:15.628 This approach is genius, 00:09:16.198 --> 00:09:19.268 not only because it measures how countries are doing 00:09:19.268 --> 00:09:23.460 on the basis of how these rights are defined in international law, 00:09:23.460 --> 00:09:26.325 but also because it’s just logical. 00:09:26.325 --> 00:09:31.413 It makes sense to hold high income countries to a higher standard of account 00:09:31.413 --> 00:09:32.962 for their health outcomes 00:09:32.962 --> 00:09:35.144 than poorer countries, right? 00:09:36.032 --> 00:09:40.642 Second, for civil and political rights, we collect the data ourselves. 00:09:41.201 --> 00:09:43.223 These rights include all sorts of things 00:09:43.223 --> 00:09:47.773 from killings and torture to voting rights and free speech. 00:09:48.540 --> 00:09:51.773 You might be surprised to learn that these are all things 00:09:51.773 --> 00:09:55.293 that official statistics just don’t keep track of. 00:09:56.153 --> 00:09:59.449 So we brought in experts from Amnesty International, 00:09:59.449 --> 00:10:01.854 organisations like Human Rights Watch, 00:10:01.854 --> 00:10:06.877 and together we developed an expert survey so that we could collect this information 00:10:06.877 --> 00:10:10.847 from people who are monitoring events on the ground in each country. 00:10:12.332 --> 00:10:16.882 We’re really happy with how well our expert survey is working out. 00:10:16.882 --> 00:10:20.172 So far, we have data for these 19 countries, 00:10:20.172 --> 00:10:22.772 and that number is growing every year. 00:10:23.316 --> 00:10:26.046 Most importantly, people tell us 00:10:26.046 --> 00:10:31.236 that our scores accurately reflect the situation on the ground 00:10:31.236 --> 00:10:34.555 in the countries that they are knowledgeable about. 00:10:37.061 --> 00:10:41.286 Let me introduce you to some of our data insights 00:10:41.286 --> 00:10:44.556 by sharing with you one quiz question. 00:10:45.918 --> 00:10:49.152 'Which of these countries performs best 00:10:50.172 --> 00:10:55.482 on respecting the right to freedom from extrajudicial execution? 00:10:56.982 --> 00:11:02.332 Jordan, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, the United States or Mexico?' 00:11:02.834 --> 00:11:04.473 Now, while you think about it, 00:11:04.473 --> 00:11:06.973 just let me give you a little more information. 00:11:07.583 --> 00:11:09.005 First, a definition: 00:11:09.005 --> 00:11:12.545 extrajudicial killings are killings by government agents, 00:11:12.545 --> 00:11:14.884 like what happened to Mr. Khashoggi, 00:11:14.884 --> 00:11:17.904 but more commonly things like police shootings. 00:11:18.791 --> 00:11:22.591 And let me also tell you a little more about where the scores come from. 00:11:23.010 --> 00:11:25.655 In February and March this year, 00:11:25.655 --> 00:11:30.405 we sent our expert survey to people monitoring human rights 00:11:30.405 --> 00:11:33.627 in all five of these countries, and others, 00:11:33.627 --> 00:11:37.857 and each person told us how well they think their country is doing 00:11:37.857 --> 00:11:40.555 on respecting this right, and others. 00:11:40.555 --> 00:11:44.425 And we use some really sophisticated statistical techniques 00:11:44.425 --> 00:11:47.059 for ensuring that different people’s responses 00:11:47.059 --> 00:11:50.016 can be made comparable with one another. 00:11:52.344 --> 00:11:54.292 Okay, so do you have in mind 00:11:54.292 --> 00:11:57.075 what you think the answer to this question is? 00:11:58.521 --> 00:12:00.429 The answer is Jordan. 00:12:00.761 --> 00:12:05.957 And here you can see the scores for all five of these countries. 00:12:07.211 --> 00:12:11.149 The little vertical solid lines that you see are our best estimate 00:12:11.149 --> 00:12:13.759 of what the score is for each country. 00:12:15.038 --> 00:12:18.728 Countries with wider uncertainty bands, like Saudi Arabia’s, 00:12:18.728 --> 00:12:23.478 tell us that we are less certain exactly where the true score lies, 00:12:23.478 --> 00:12:28.240 perhaps because there may have been less agreement 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:32.370 among the respondents who filled in our survey for Saudi Arabia. 00:12:33.114 --> 00:12:35.341 Narrower uncertainty bands, like Mexico’s, 00:12:35.341 --> 00:12:39.221 tell us that we are more certain about what the score is for that country. 00:12:40.012 --> 00:12:42.292 The overlap of the bands is important. 00:12:42.292 --> 00:12:45.872 We can be confident that Jordan is performing better than Venezuela 00:12:45.872 --> 00:12:48.706 because their bands don’t overlap. 00:12:48.706 --> 00:12:52.446 We're less confident exactly what the relative ranking would be 00:12:52.446 --> 00:12:54.504 of the countries that come next. 00:12:55.572 --> 00:12:59.817 Of course this is just a subset of all the countries we have data for. 00:12:59.817 --> 00:13:02.037 Let me add in some more. 00:13:02.827 --> 00:13:07.657 Here you can see New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and the United Kingdom. 00:13:08.148 --> 00:13:10.645 No country gets a perfect score 00:13:10.645 --> 00:13:13.195 because in every country, even New Zealand, 00:13:13.195 --> 00:13:15.215 there is room for improvement. 00:13:16.422 --> 00:13:18.452 How is this information useful? 00:13:19.376 --> 00:13:22.056 HRMI is not an advocacy organisation, 00:13:22.056 --> 00:13:26.926 so we don’t tell governments what they could be doing differently. 00:13:26.926 --> 00:13:29.694 But you can use our data for that purpose. 00:13:30.442 --> 00:13:32.906 So let’s say your country had a lowish score, 00:13:32.906 --> 00:13:35.665 so it’s down this end of the scale, 00:13:35.666 --> 00:13:37.657 and you want to move it that way. 00:13:37.657 --> 00:13:39.417 What can you do? 00:13:39.417 --> 00:13:43.367 I’m sure the possibilities are endless, but let’s just discuss a few. 00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:49.889 You could encourage your country to embark on the challenging but vital task 00:13:49.889 --> 00:13:52.119 of retraining your police force. 00:13:52.493 --> 00:13:56.230 You could meet with vulnerable and minority groups 00:13:56.230 --> 00:14:00.900 and take their advice on how to reform your institutions. 00:14:01.573 --> 00:14:06.608 You could look at the laws and policies of your better-performing neighbours 00:14:06.608 --> 00:14:09.548 and you could also choose to do better. 00:14:10.774 --> 00:14:16.034 We have a scoreboard like this for eight different civil and political rights, 00:14:16.034 --> 00:14:19.628 and for each one of them, for each country and for each right, 00:14:19.628 --> 00:14:24.618 we also collect information on what is driving their scores. 00:14:24.855 --> 00:14:26.373 So let’s say you wanted to know 00:14:26.373 --> 00:14:31.153 why the United States is performing so poorly on this right. 00:14:32.123 --> 00:14:34.125 You could learn that part of the reason 00:14:34.125 --> 00:14:38.505 is because there are too many police shootings of people of colour. 00:14:38.946 --> 00:14:41.836 Our US experts told us 00:14:41.836 --> 00:14:47.546 that the people who are most at risk of extrajudicial killing in the United States 00:14:47.546 --> 00:14:49.708 are African Americans, 00:14:50.206 --> 00:14:52.182 Latinx people, 00:14:53.216 --> 00:14:55.231 Native Americans, 00:14:56.068 --> 00:14:58.891 and children detained at the border. 00:15:01.450 --> 00:15:03.801 These insights I've shared from our database 00:15:03.801 --> 00:15:07.181 are just some of the thousands that you can find there, 00:15:07.181 --> 00:15:12.601 and that’s before we have even expanded our survey to all countries in the world. 00:15:15.275 --> 00:15:18.948 I know that all of this can feel quite heavy. 00:15:19.424 --> 00:15:21.185 That’s because it is. 00:15:22.853 --> 00:15:24.306 So I’m happy to share with you 00:15:24.306 --> 00:15:28.576 that we also have some really positive, good news stories 00:15:28.576 --> 00:15:30.896 in HRMI’s database as well. 00:15:31.686 --> 00:15:34.826 Here’s a good news chart from the Africa region. 00:15:35.760 --> 00:15:40.038 Each of the coloured sections shows you one Quality of Life right, 00:15:40.038 --> 00:15:45.128 and what you can see is there has been slow but gradual improvement 00:15:45.128 --> 00:15:49.628 in the performance, on average, across the African continent. 00:15:50.026 --> 00:15:51.937 And the good news story gets even better 00:15:51.947 --> 00:15:56.537 because HRMI data also show a gradual trend improvement 00:15:56.537 --> 00:16:01.647 in the fulfillment of these rights in all regions of the world. 00:16:02.325 --> 00:16:06.418 This is a really positive human rights story. 00:16:06.418 --> 00:16:09.930 I love it and it fills me with a lot of hope. 00:16:12.141 --> 00:16:13.714 One thing that I’ve noticed 00:16:13.714 --> 00:16:19.714 since making my career transition from economist to co-founder of HRMI, 00:16:20.244 --> 00:16:24.082 is that when I catch up with old friends and I tell them 00:16:24.082 --> 00:16:28.352 that what I’m now doing is measuring the human rights performance of countries, 00:16:28.352 --> 00:16:32.542 I sometimes get these kind of somewhat blank looks. 00:16:32.826 --> 00:16:36.501 When I used to tell people that I was helping to improve economic performance, 00:16:36.501 --> 00:16:39.848 I would get more nods of understanding. 00:16:39.848 --> 00:16:41.318 And I get it. 00:16:41.318 --> 00:16:46.858 The economy is really well measured. People are used to hearing about it. 00:16:47.993 --> 00:16:53.147 By contrast, human rights have been under-reported, under-measured 00:16:53.147 --> 00:16:55.790 and overlooked for too long. 00:16:56.547 --> 00:16:58.167 Let’s change that. 00:17:00.328 --> 00:17:02.723 Shedding a light on human rights 00:17:02.723 --> 00:17:07.243 and bringing about a massive change in the way our world works 00:17:07.243 --> 00:17:09.995 is a huge global collaborative challenge, 00:17:09.995 --> 00:17:11.775 and you can help. 00:17:11.775 --> 00:17:15.395 We have started by shedding a light on your country. 00:17:15.420 --> 00:17:18.260 What does it reveal that you can act on? 00:17:19.542 --> 00:17:22.192 What will you demand of your leaders? 00:17:22.490 --> 00:17:24.948 What other countries can inspire yours 00:17:24.948 --> 00:17:28.328 to better and bolder respect for human rights? 00:17:28.873 --> 00:17:34.995 What if world’s leaders summoned their advisors and demanded answers? 00:17:34.995 --> 00:17:39.306 What if they said not just, ‘Tell me how to improve our economic performance!’, 00:17:39.306 --> 00:17:43.536 but, ‘Tell me how to improve our human rights performance'? 00:17:47.162 --> 00:17:49.951 Numbers are not as sexy as stories. 00:17:49.951 --> 00:17:52.058 They don’t pull on the heartstrings 00:17:52.058 --> 00:17:53.716 in the same way. 00:17:54.218 --> 00:17:59.888 But each one helps to light up our world, showing us the way ahead. 00:18:00.882 --> 00:18:05.292 Numbers help us figure out what needs to change, and how. 00:18:05.768 --> 00:18:09.638 Let’s build a world where countries are competing, 00:18:10.428 --> 00:18:14.198 not just in sport and to see who can be the richest, 00:18:14.198 --> 00:18:17.405 but to see who can treat their people the best. 00:18:19.041 --> 00:18:21.301 Let’s measure what we treasure. 00:18:22.054 --> 00:18:23.360 Thank you. 00:18:23.360 --> 00:18:25.770 (Applause)