“The Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Dataset contains standards-based quantitative information on government respect for 13 internationally recognized human rights for 195 countries, annually from 1981-2004. It is designed for use by scholars and students who seek to test theories about the causes and consequences of human rights violations, as well as policy makers and analysts who seek to estimate the human rights effects of a wide variety of institutional changes and public policies including democratization, economic aid, military aid, structural adjustment, and humanitarian intervention. This first version of the dataset was made possible because of a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Political Science Division and additional financial support from the World Bank.”