Measuring Violations of Physical Integrity Rights: The Political Terror Scale (PTS)

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Measuring Violations of Physical Integrity
Rights The Political Terror Scale (PTS)

• Mark Gibney (UNC-Asheville)
• Reed Wood (UNC-Chapel Hill)
• Linda Cornett (UNC-Asheville)
• )

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Inspiration and History of the Political
Terror Scale

• Recognition of need for quantitative measures of
  states adherence to human rights commitments
• Michael Stohl and a group of scholars at Purdue
  University responded to this need with the PTS,
  beginning in 1976
• Mark Gibney assumed managerial control in 1984
  and he has directed the coding for this project
  since then

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The PTS measures state-sanctioned killings,
torture, disappearances and political
imprisonment t, using a five point coding scheme
adopted from a political terror scale published
by Freedom House in its 1980 yearbook.

• Level 1 Countries under a secure rule of law,
  people are not imprisoned for their views, and
  torture is rare or exceptional. Political murders
  are extremely rare.
• Level 2 There is a limited amount of
  imprisonment for nonviolent political activity.
  However, few persons are affected, torture and
  beatings are exceptional. Political murder is
  rare.
• Level 3 There is extensive political
  imprisonment, or a recent history of such
  imprisonment. Execution or other political
  murders and brutality may be common. Unlimited
  detention, with or without a trial, for political
  views is accepted.
• Level 4 Civil and political rights violations
  have expanded to large numbers of the population.
  Murders, disappearances, and torture are a common
  part of life. In spite of its generality, on this
  level terror affects those who interest
  themselvesin politics or ideas.
• Level 5 Terror has expanded to the whole
  population. The leaders of these societies place
  no limits on the means or thoroughness with which
  they pursue personal or ideological goals.

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Data for the coding comes from two annual
sources

• the U.S. Department of State Country Reports on
  Human Rights Practices and
• the Amnesty International Annual Report.
• In the construction of this index for each
  year, each report is scaled as if the information
  in the reports is accurate and complete.

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The PTS assesses state violence
along three dimensions

• scope -- refers to the type of violence being
  carried out by the state (imprisonment, torture,
  killing, etc.)
• intensity -- refers to the frequency with which
  the state employs a given type of abuse, more
  basically, the instances of a given type of abuse
  that are observed over a given period of time
• range -- the portion of the population targeted
  for abuse

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Instructions to coders

• Ignore Own Biases
• Give Countries the Benefit of the Doubt
• Read What the Report is Saying
• Ultimately, must rely heavily on
  inter-subjective coding to generate a country's
  score, largely because the contextual factors
  found in the reports effectively prohibit purely
  objective coding criteria

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Some examples

• LEVEL 1

• LEVEL 2

• Jordan (State Department 1997) Since the
  revocation of martial law in 1991, there has been
  noticeable improvement in the human rights
  situation, however, problems remain, including
  abuse and mistreatment of detainees arbitrary
  arrest and detention lack of accountability
  within the security services prolonged detention
  without charge lack of due process
  infringements on citizens' privacy rights
  harassment of opposition political parties and
  restrictions on the freedom of speech, press,
  assembly, and association. Citizens do not have
  the right to change their form of government,
  although they can participate in the political
  system through political parties and municipal
  and parliamentary elections. New restrictions on
  the press decreed by the King in May shutdown
  many smaller publications and led the others to
  practice increased self-censorship. In reaction
  to these limitations and to the "one-man,
  one-vote" change in the election process, the
  Islamist and other parties boycotted the October
  parliamentary elections. Abuse of foreign
  servants is a problem. Restrictions on women's
  rights, violence against women, and abuse of
  children are also problems. The Government
  imposes some limits on freedom of religion, and
  there is official discrimination against
  adherents of the Baha'i faith.

• Bahrain (Amnesty 2001)  Significant steps were
  taken in 2001 to promote and protect human
  rights.  All political prisoners and detainees
  were released and the State Security Court and
  state security legislation were abolished. 
  Bahraini nationals who had been forcibly exiled
  or prevented from entering the country were
  allowed to return without conditions.  An
  Ethiopian woman remained under sentence of
  death.  In December, two people . . . were said
  to have been subjected to beatings by police
  officers. . . .  They were detained for two days
  before they were released on bail.

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• LEVEL 3

• LEVEL 4

Chad (State Department 1999) The Government's
human rights record remained poor, and there
continued to be serious problems in many areas.
The Government limited citizens' right to change
the government. State security forces continue to
commit extrajudicial killings, and they torture,
beat, abuse, and rape persons. Prison conditions
remain harsh and life threatening. Security
forces continued to use arbitrary arrest and
detention. Although the Government detains and
imprisons members of the security forces
implicated or accused of criminal acts, it rarely
prosecutes or sanctions members of the security
forces who committed human rights abuses.

• Cambodia (State Department 2001) The Government
  generally respected the human rights of its
  citizens in a few areas however, its record was
  poor in many other areas, and serious problems
  remained. The military forces and police were
  responsible for both political and nonpolitical
  killings, and the Government rarely prosecuted
  anyone in such cases. There were other apparently
  politically motivated killings by nonsecurity
  force persons as well. The Government arrested
  suspects in some of these cases and convicted
  suspects in two such cases. Police acquiesced in
  or failed to stop lethal violence by citizens
  against criminal suspects the Government rarely
  investigated such killings, and impunity remained
  a problem. There were credible reports that
  members of the security forces tortured, beat,
  and otherwise abused persons in custody, often to
  extract confessions. Prison conditions remained
  harsh, and the Government continued to use
  arbitrary arrest and prolonged pretrial
  detention. Impunity for many who commit human
  rights abuses remained a serious problem.

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• LEVEL 5

• Colombia (Amnesty International 2001)
  Colombia's internal conflict continued to
  escalate. Systematic and gross abuses of human
  rights and international humanitarian law
  persisted. Paramilitary groups acting with the
  active or tacit support of the security forces
  were responsible for the vast majority of
  extrajudicial executions and ''disappearances''
  many of their victims were tortured before being
  killed. Armed opposition groups were responsible
  for violations of international humanitarian law,
  including arbitrary or deliberate killings. More
  than 300 people ''disappeared'' and more than
  4,000 civilians were killed outside of combat for
  political motives by the armed groups. Over 1,700
  people were kidnapped by armed opposition groups
  and paramilitary forces. All parties to the
  conflict were responsible for the forced
  displacement of large numbers of civilians. The
  security situation of those living in conflict
  zones, particularly human rights defenders, trade
  unionists, judicial officials, journalists,
  members of Afro-Colombian and indigenous
  communities and peasant farmers, continued to
  worsen. Evidence emerged of the strong links
  between the security forces and the
  paramilitaries. Judicial and disciplinary
  investigations advanced in several high-profile
  cases, implicating high-ranking officials in
  human rights violations, but impunity remained
  widespread.

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Advantages of the PTS

• Responds to need for quantitative measures of
  states adherence to human rights commitments.
• Consistent measure over time and cross-nationally
• Based on stable sources (Amnesty International
  and US State Dept)
• Holistic approach

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PTS and CIRI compare and contrast

• COMMONALITIES

• DIFFERENCES

• Both measure state-sponsored violations of the
  subset of human rights known as physical
  integrity rights
• Both focus on the same types of violence
• Both code from the same descriptive data
• correlate reasonably highly, suggesting a high
  degree of similarities between the datasets

• CIRI explicitly disaggregates physical integrity
  violations
• CIRI attempts to establish more precise threshold
  values for each category of intensity
• the datasets differ in their underlying logic
• PTS relies on the three conceptual components
  discussed above and presents a standards-based
  ranking of government abuses
• the CIRI explicitly assesses the frequency and
  types of government abuse practices.

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Imagine that in country A, security officials
storm a labor rally and kill 100 labor union
members. In the country B, however, 100 labor
union members are arrested, then tortured, and
then killed.

• According to the approach of the PTS, the level
  of political violence in these two countries
  would essentially be the same because the level
  of abuse adopted by the regime is similar. 
• The same number of persons was targeted for
  violence and the maximum level of violence
  inflicted on that population was equivalent.

• According to our understanding of the CIRI index,
  the human rights situation in the second state
  would be considerably worse than the first state
  (or, more accurately, its score would make it
  appear to be much worse). The reason is that each
  violation would be coded separately.25
• Thus, while the first state would have 100
  incidents of extrajudicial killings, the second
  country would be experiencing 300 human rights
  violations 100 cases of imprisonment 100 cases
  of torture 100 cases of extrajudicial killing.
  What should also be pointed out is that this same
  number would result if it involved 300 people,
  where 100 people were imprisoned, another 100
  people were tortured and yet another group of 100
  were simply killed.

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Limitations of PTS

• Only addresses overt threats to physical
  integrity (excluding other methods of oppression
  and other dimensions of human rights)
• Only addresses state-sponsored threats (excluding
  other serious threats to physical security like
  domestic violence mob or clan violence violence
  ascribed to the actions of insurgent groups,
  criminal syndicates, gangs, etc)
• Issues of reliability
• Sources themselves may be biased or incomplete
• Inter-subjective nature of coding
• No mechanism to assure that the criteria are
  consistent across years and over the decades
  danger of creeping expectation
• Danger of better reporting leading to worsening
  picture

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Future developments

• PTS has been used in studies of foreign aid,
  refugee protection, democracy, and so on.
• Reeds work combining PTS/CIRI approach for civil
  conflict
• Measuring Human Rights Extraterritorial
  Obligations

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Worst Offenders (median scores of 4-5 over last
5 years)

• Amnesty International

• US STATE DEPT.

• Afghanistan 5
• Colombia 5
• Dem. Republic of the Congo 5 Iraq 5
• Myanmar 5
• Sri Lanka 5
• Sudan 5
• Algeria 4
• Bangladesh 4
• Brazil 4
• Burundi 4
• Central African Republic 4
• Chad 4
• China 4
• Egypt 4
• Eritrea 4
• Ethiopia 4
• Haiti 4
• ran 4
• Israel and Occupied Territories 4

• Afghanistan 5
• Democratic Republic of the Congo 5
• Iraq 5
• Nepal 5
• Sri Lanka 5
• Sudan 5
• Algeria 4
• Angola 4
• Bangladesh 4
• Brazil 4
• Burundi 4
• Cameroon 4
• Central African Republic 4
• Chad 4
• China 4
• Colombia 4
• Eritrea 4
• Ethiopia 4
• India 4

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