INTRODUCTION >> Background to the work Fig. I Practical tools for measuring and implementing human rights Country-level assessment and monitoring system Conceptual approach Methodological approach Clusters of indicators on different facets of human rights Background to the work The work on indicators at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) was initiated in response to a request from the inter-committee meeting of the treaty bodies. It sought assistance in analysing and making use of the statistical information in the State parties’ reports so as to assess their compliance with the human rights treaties they had ratified. In pursuing this request, OHCHR undertook an extensive survey of the literature and the prevalent practice among civil society and international organizations regarding the use of quantitative information to monitor human rights.4 This was followed by the development of a conceptual and methodological framework for identifying 4. R. Malhotra and N. Fasel, “Quantitative human rights indicators: A survey of major initiatives”, paper presented at the Nordic Network Seminar in Human Rights Research, Åbo, Finland, 10–13 March 2005. Available from www.abo.fi/instut/imr/research/ seminars/indicators/index.htm (accessed 30 March 2012). Although qualitative and quantitative indicators are both relevant to the work of the treaty bodies, the focus has been on quantitative indicators and statistics in view of the specific request of the intercommittee meeting of human rights treaty bodies. Human Rights Indicators 5