INTRODUCTION >> Structure of the Guide operationally feasible human rights indicators, in consultation with a panel of experts. This framework was presented to the inter-committee meeting in June 2006 and revised in June 2008, when the inter-committee meeting called for the development of resource materials and tools to help disseminate and operationalize it and to engage further on this work with national human rights stakeholders.5 Lists of illustrative indicators were developed for a number of human rights—both civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights. These indicators were then subjected to a process of validation that involved, at first, discussions with an international panel of experts, including experts from treaty bodies, special rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council, academics, and experts from civil society and international organizations. Subsequently, discussions were held with national stakeholders, including human rights institutions, policymakers and agencies responsible for reporting on the implementation of the human rights treaties, statistical agencies and representatives from civil society. These discussions, which generated feedback on the work, took the form of regional and national workshops in several countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Consultations also took place in Europe and North America.6 The feedback helped in fine-tuning the approach and making it more practical and relevant to the human rights work at the country level. The consultations also provided a platform for making stakeholders more aware of the potential use of available statistical information in human rights assessments (chap. II, box 8). As a follow-up to these activities, several organizations and countries in different regions and at different levels of social, political and economic attainment initiated work on the development and use of indicators in human rights assessments, drawing on the approach adopted by OHCHR. Some of these initiatives are highlighted in the Guide. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Human Rights Committee, which both revised their guidelines for State party reporting, require State parties to identify disaggregated statistics and indicators for the rights of the two Covenants taking into account the framework and list of illustrative indicators set out in this Guide.7 Structure of the Guide The publication contains five chapters. Chapter I defines the notion of indicators in human rights or “human rights indicators”. It presents the various uses of the term “indicator” and its different categories generally found in the literature on human rights assessments. Chapter II outlines the conceptual approach adopted to identify indicators for different human rights standards and cross-cutting norms. While highlighting the salient features of the approach, the chapter demonstrates its flexibility to identify contextually meaningful indicators for universal human rights standards. The methodological framework for generating the information on identified indicators is presented in chapter III. The chapter describes the merits and drawbacks of various data-generating mechanisms and shows how an eclectic but objective approach could be used to build a system of indicators on the status of 5. At its meeting in June 2006, the inter-committee meeting appreciated the background paper outlining an approach to the use of statistical information in the work of the treaty bodies and requested the Secretariat to undertake a two-year validation, including through piloting by the relevant committees, of the indicators and develop further lists of indicators, where appropriate in collaboration with United Nations entities. HRI/MC/2006/7 and HRI/MC/2008/3 form the backdrop to this Guide. 6. More details on this process are provided in HRI/MC/2008/3. The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights also stressed the relevance of the framework in “Serious implementation of human rights standards requires that benchmarking indicators are defined”, 17 August 2009. Available from www.coe.int/t/commissioner/Viewpoints/090817_en.asp. 7. See E/C.12/2008/2 and CCPR/C/2009/1. 6 Human Rights Indicators