This project develops a world-level, longitudinal measure of global organizations and discourse devoted to human rights. Time series analyses of the expected growth in this measure focus on international conflicts and the rise of international organizations as principal causes. Another series of analyses would focus on the consequences of the rise of this global human rights regime for the policies and for the actual practices of individual nations. While national-level factors such as economic development also affect national human rights policies and practices, the growth of the global human rights regime and a nation's connections with the global system are also major explanations for nation-level changes in human rights.