Why haven human rights organizations been able to make that shift from assumption to evidence?
Well, there are many reasons. The first one is a theoretical point in that they think a norm is enough to make a policy. The second level of explanation is, I would say, cultural and technical. Most of the people who have come to work in the human rights field have a legal background. And with a legal background sometimes they simply don’t know, or do not have experience, or are not trained in research matters in how to build evidence. So they don’t think it’s useful; second, they don’t know how to do it. I’m generalizing here, but people who do have a legal background know what constitutes evidence, particular ones who work in criminal law because they have to bring evidence in front of a court. So they have this concept when there is a case, but not when they are lawmakers, where they are not acting essentially as lawyers. The reason is because nobody has asked them. Human rights is a very strange area because in many cases where projects and programs are implemented, they are supply
