WHAT IS AN INDICATOR OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND HOW DO WE USE IT?

The objective of this work is to provide a wide view of the human rights research with indicators situation. The fundamental concepts are analyzed here, what is an indicator, its place in law or juridical area and especially what are the indicators of human rights. The research through statistics and indicators is placed historically at the same time the most significant attempts of getting a "map" of the situation of human rights are collected here. General difficulties related to the concept of human rights and its methodology are gathered including the general agreement of the need of improving methodological tools and promoting better methods for assessing human rights. Finally, it is summarized here the recent recommendations on indicators following the United Nations literature. This work proposes a wide conclusion on the status questionis of the research of the human rights insisting on the need of using a strong theoretical previous frame.