Deck 1: Economics of Human Rights

Question 1

How does Economics assist with the study of human rights issues?

Answer 1

Economics is the study of choice when dealing with scarcity. Social issues are prime
places to study scarcity and the choices being made on those landscapes. This textbook is for those who want to 1) understand how economic applications can address social issues and 2) understand how economics can be applied to any topic. Economics is one way to analyze the choices being made in each area of human rights and to pinpoint positive or negative incentives that can be used in policy-making to affect those choices.
Economics takes the approach of observation to create hypotheses, collecting data related to these hypotheses, analyzing this data, reporting outcomes as well as whether the hypotheses were proven true or false, or not proven, and recommending which variables could change the incentives that affect decision-makers. The study of human rights also begins with observations. When those observations include violations of the agreed-upon human rights of a culture, the recommendation is that policy be used to prevent the human rights violations from occurring. In this regard, the study of human rights is a study of policy that reduces and obviates violations. Economics can be beneficial to this study as it takes existing hypotheses of the causes of the human rights violations, recommends what data should be collected or how to use existing data, analyzes this data in relation to existing hypotheses, and recommends variables that could change the incentives. Economics provide a set of tools that can help to identify and change incentives.

Question 2

Name some of the human rights issues.

Answer 2

Human rights groups address issues such as the death penalty, women's rights, children's
rights, human rights related to poverty, prisoners, people at risk, national security, countering terrorism, torture, refugee and migrant rights, censorship and free speech, human rights related to business, lesbian-gay-bisexual-transsexual (LGBT) rights, and human rights related to military, police, arms, and international justice.

Question 3

How does Economics assist with the study of human rights issues?

Answer 3

Economics is the study of choice when dealing with scarcity. Social issues are prime places to study scarcity and the choices being made on those landscapes. Economics is one way to analyze the choices being made in each area of human rights and how incentives affect those choices. Economics takes the approach of observation to create hypotheses, collecting data related to these hypotheses, analyzing this data, reporting outcomes as well as if the hypotheses were proven true or false, or not proven, and recommending variables that could change incentives. Study of human rights also begins with observations. When those observations include violations of the agreed-upon human rights of a culture, policy is recommended to prevent the human rights violations from occurring. The study of human rights is therefore more of a study of policy to reduce and obviate violations. Economics can be beneficial to this study as it takes existing hypotheses of the causes of the human rights violations, recommends the data to be collected or how to use existing data, analyses this data in relation to existing hypotheses, and recommends variables that could change the incentives. Economics is the set of tools to identify and change incentives.

Question 4

Name some of the human rights issues.

Question 5

What is the source of the most widely accepted definition of human rights?

Question 6

How is social justice different from human rights?

Question 7

Why are definitions important to valid research?

Question 8

How do a person's biases affect research?

Question 9

How does the U.N. Office of the High Commission on Human Rights (OHCHR) define human rights?

Question 10

What is a human rights violation?

Question 11

What is capital punishment?

Question 12

What is violence against women?

Question 13

What is an asylum seeker?

Question 14

What is terrorism?

Question 15

What is genocide?

Question 16

What is hate and what is a hate crime?

Question 17

What are the three documents that are the foundation for the United States philosophy on human rights?

Question 18

What is the main United States federal agency in charge of human rights issues?

Question 19

What are some of the ways the U.S. Department of State provides information about human rights?

Question 20

Why did the American Bar Association establish Rule of Law?

Question 21

What is the central international document dealing with human rights?

Question 22

How many articles does the UDHR have and what are some of the issues?

Question 23

What are some of the other international human rights agreements?

Question 24

Which offices of the United Nations Secretariat deal with human rights issues?

Question 25

How is the World Health Organization involved in human rights issues?

Question 26

What are the six main venues for the enforcement of human rights law and penalties?

Question 27

What is the main reason there are differences in opinion when dealing with a particular human rights issue?

Question 28

How did historical interest in human rights affect current-day human rights agreements?

Question 29

What are some steps an economist can take to find information to begin research?

Question 30

Where are some places that an economist can go to find information to begin research?

Question 31

What are some of the major human rights organizations and what are their focuses?

Question 32

What are some of the major United States federal agencies involved in human rights and what are their focuses?

Question 33

What is economics?

Question 34

What is scarcity?

Question 35

What are some of the ways that choices are a part of each of the human rights violations?

Question 36

What question can an economist ask to begin an economic analysis of a human rights issue?

Question 37

What are four questions that can be asked to determine economic efficiency in an agency's handling of human rights issues?

Question 38

What are some of the explicit (monetary) and implicit (nonmonetary) costs of human rights violations?

Question 39

What is marginal cost (MC)?

Question 40

How is marginal cost portrayed on a graph and why?

Question 41

What is net benefit?

Question 42

What is marginal benefit (MB)?

Question 43

How is marginal benefit portrayed on a graph and why?

Question 44

What does it mean at the point where the marginal benefit curve crosses the marginal benefit curve?

Question 45

What are incentives and how can policymakers use incentives to change outcomes?

Question 46

What happens to the marginal cost-marginal benefit graph and the equilibrium quantity and price when policymakers institute a positive incentive?

Question 47

What happens to the marginal cost-marginal benefit graph and the equilibrium quantity and price when policymakers institute a negative incentive?

Question 48

What are some of the inefficiencies in the economic structure of human rights?

Question 49

What are nine basic steps that can help an economist analyze a human rights topic with economic modeling?

Question 50

How would you prepare to do research in a specific human rights topic?

Question 51

How does economics play a role in human rights issues?

Question 52

What biases would you face when doing research in the economics of human rights?

Question 53

How does marginal cost play a role in the economics of human rights?

Question 54

How does marginal benefit play a role in the economics of human rights?

Question 55

Why is it important to read articles and talk with experts about a specific human rights issue before completing your economics of human rights research?