Thursday, December 20, 2012

CIRI Offline January 7, 2013

CIRI will be offline on Monday, January 7, 2013 in order to facilitate the moving of our server to Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut.

The CIRI Project itself will continue to be administered by David Cingranelli at Binghamton University and David Richards at The University of Connecticut, as well as by our new co-directorial addition, K. Chad Clay at The University of Georgia.

Our server's new home at Dodd will facilitate a lot of great new and powerful website features this coming year, as well as professional archiving of the data, so we are very excited about this.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Annual Data Release

Dear CIRI Users,

Just a reminder that, in order to maintain project stability and data quality in the absence of external funding, CIRI has moved its annual data-production process from spring to autumn.

We sincerely realize the inconvenience this might cause some of our users but, without external funding, we are forced to take this step to ensure the reliability and validity CIRI users expect and deserve.

Given the finding of some funding, data for the calendar year 2011 should be available in the late spring / early summer of 2013. Data for the calendar year 2012 will be available in early winter, 2014. Thereafter, the plan is that early winter will be the annual data-release time frame.

Sincerely,
The CIRI Project

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Do You Use CIRI In the Classroom?

Do you use CIRI in your classroom? If so, we'd love for you to drop us an email HERE and let us know the creative ways in which you incorporate data into your lectures / lesson plans. Improving human rights, methods, human security, and comparative & international politics education is central to our mission here at CIRI and we are about to put together assistance for teachers from middle school through graduate school. That project starts with us asking you for your expertise and experience so that we can help others. Thank you so much!

- The CIRI Team

Saturday, October 20, 2012

New Article: Defending The Right to Leisure

CIRI Co-Director David L. Richards and CIRI Research Assistant Ben Carbonetti have published “Worth What We Decide: A Defense of the Right to Leisure” in the International Journal of Human Rights. The "OnlineFirst" e-version is out now and the print version comes out in January.
Abstract:
One of the most routinely philosophically and politically attacked sections of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is article 24: ‘Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.’ Defending against these attacks is important. For example, only the USA and Somalia, among UN member states, are not parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). One reason for the USA’s status is political opposition to CRC article 31, which maintains ‘States parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure. . ..’ Our article defends article 24 from well-known criticisms. We maintain rights are social constructs and, as evidence of social construction, we provide a genealogy of article 24. We also address the social psychology of rest/leisure and trends in actual state practice.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

CIRI Welcomes New Co-Director K. Chad Clay

CIRI is very pleased to welcome new Co-Director, K. Chad Clay, who has worked on CIRI in varying roles since 2006.

Chad is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, and his areas of specialization include international relations, comparative politics, and methodology. His research focuses on the impact of international factors on human rights practices, political violence, and economic development. In particular, Chad has a strong research interest in the spatial diffusion of these political outcomes, as well as the institutions, organizations, and processes that facilitate such diffusion. This research has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Politics and International Studies Quarterly, and he has received several grants and awards, most recently receiving Binghamton University’s Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Research.

Click Here to Visit Chad Clay’s Webpage.

Friday, August 3, 2012

New CIRI Production Schedule

Dear CIRI Users,

In order to maintain project stability and data quality in the absence of external funding, CIRI will be moving its annual data-production process from spring to autumn, effective immediately.

We realize the inconvenience this might cause some of our users but, without external funding, we are forced to take this step to ensure the reliability and validity CIRI users expect and deserve.

Data for the calendar year 2011 should be available in the late spring / early summer of 2013. Data for the calendar year 2012 will be available in early winter, 2014. Thereafter, early winter will be the annual data-release time frame.

Sincerely,
The CIRI Project

Friday, June 22, 2012

New Report on Torture

CIRI Co-Director David L. Richards, Mandy M. Morrill (Valparaiso University) and Mary R. Anderson (University of Tampa) have published a new report in the Nordic Journal of Human Rights on the origins of US attitudes towards torture. Among the findings are that while US citizens are largely opposed to "torture", generally, they at the same time are acceptant of a wide range of torture techniques when asked about them, individually. Also found are that previous exposure to violence is related to one's attitudes towards torture and those most acceptant of spanking as an appropriate punishment for a misbehaved child are most acceptant of torture. The report can be read here:

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Cyber-Attacks On CIRI

Today, the CIRI server has been hit by "countless brute force attempts" to remotely take control of the server.  These attempts are believed to have originated in China.

We are glad to say that service to our users was not interrupted at any time, thanks to the IT team at Binghamton University.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

New Human Rights Major @ UConn

The University of Connecticut and its Human Rights Institute & College of Liberal Arts & Sciences have announced that a new undergraduate major in human rights will begin in May 2012. CIRI is very proud to be affiliated with these institutions and with this new interdisciplinary major, and encourages anyone thinking about an education in human rights to check it out.

Read the full story in CLAS Today HERE.

For those interested in graduate studies in human rights, the Human Rights Institute at UConn already offers a graduate certificate in human rights, and  many PhD-granting departments such as political science, history, English, anthropology, and economics have many top scholars in the field of human rights who participate in this program (as well as will be participating in the new undergraduate major).

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

SOPA Statement

CIRI will not be joining Wikipedia in blacking out its web presence in protest of SOPA. While opposing censorship in any form as a clear human rights violation, we feel it in the best interest of our core mission to stay online and continue to make available our ratings of government respect for human rights across the world.

That said, we provide  -- in solidarity--  the following link to an Electronic Frontier Foundation analysis of how SOPA would likely constitute a violation of fundamental principles of freedom of speech: http://goo.gl/zsmOh

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Follow CIRI on Twitter

You can now also follow CIRI on Twitter at @humanrightsdata 

Follow along as CIRI begins a new year and begins to produce its data about human rights respect in 2011.  This year, also look for more CIRI-produced reports using these data.

Also on Twitter are:

CIRI Co-Director: David L. Richards  @D_L_Richards


CIRI Senior Associate: K. Chad Clay @kchadclay