UN FORUM SERIES – a cartographer’s guide to measurement: mapping where we are, determining where we want to be and getting into the messy in-roads of legislation

This post was contributed by Michelle Staggs Kelsall, doctoral candidate in law at the University of Nottingham and former Deputy Director of the Human Rights Resource Centre (for ASEAN). When I think about measurement, it brings to mind for me a popular children’s song that depicts the meticulous workings of an inchworm. ‘Two and two are four,’ sings the inchworm, ‘four and four are eight’ she continues, to which the chorus of children replies: Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the marigolds, You and your arithmetic, you’ll probably go far, Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the marigolds, Seems to me, you’d stop and see, How beautiful they are