The OPERA Framework monitoring activities to date has been less consistent. Thus, questions abound regarding how different users can effectively interpret and practically apply indicators in different settings. Exhaustive lists of potential indicators on individual rights can be overwhelming to apply in practice, if they are not responsive to the real-life limitations of data-availability or the limited capacity of (state and nonstate) human rights monitoring bodies—the ultimate users of such techniques. Complex formulas used to calculate various human rights indices can be similarly difficult for human rights advocates. More fundamentally, a challenge that human rights advocates continue to face is how to interpret the statistical data gathered through quantitative methodologies. Indicators, for example, can be judged against benchmarks. But identifying optimal benchmarks can also be challenging and there are pros and cons for various approaches. For example, benchmarks established through international or regional development agreements may enjoy political support. However, as in the case of the MDGs, they are often compromise benchmarks that do not correspond to the full scope and nature of human rights obligations. A ‘scoping’ exercise with the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights might provide greater oversight in the selection of benchmarks, but it still gives states considerable discretion, which as a result may be set too low and in ways that limit the comparability of states’ performance. Benchmarks calculated through the achievement possibility frontier address the concern that comparative human rights assessment may be used in a politicized manner, by avoiding the need to name countries specifically. However, a trade-off of this anonymity is that it can mask relevant contextual characteristics of the comparator countries. By using the highest performance ever achieved at a certain level of development, independent of many other factors affecting performance, the approach arguably also sets an unduly high bar in terms of the performance expected of states. Another risk of fetishizing quantitative tools and techniques, therefore, is that these tools can narrow the lens of analysis, reducing a complex reality to simple, verifiable numbers, and thereby making invisible relevant factors. The multi-dimensional territory under view, in other words, can be too easily confused with the two-dimensional map attempting to represent it. While various quantitative approaches are complementary, and using them in combination strengthens their impact by providing a clearer picture of a state’s compliance with its obligations to fulfill ESC rights, the use of quantitative tools and techniques ‘does not replace the normative analysis of a human rights situation’.75 Ultimately, no single set of quantitative measures, however comprehensive, can conclusively diagnose whether a state is meeting its obligation to fulfill ESC rights. As OHCHR rightly points out, failure to meet a benchmark is not in and of itself a breach of an obligation; further investigation and analysis is required.76 Similarly, a state’s ranking on a particular index can draw attention to apparent underperformance in relation to its resources, and quickly illustrate any deterioration or improvement from one period to the next, making such indices useful advocacy tools. However, seeing such measures as conclusive risks reducing human rights assessment to a technocratic exercise that analyzes the trees while missing the forest, and masks the value judgments that are inherent in choosing particular indicators and collecting specific data.77 In practice, both qualitative and quantitative data are required to build evidence of violations as neither, alone, is enough to fully assess a state’s level of compliance. To push for concrete change, human rights advocates still need to articulate why a situation is the way it is. Indicators and indices need to be complemented with more detailed analysis of a range of relevant factors to offer more prescriptive recommendations to improve law and policies. Bringing together both quantitative and qualitative analysis can ensure better corroboration between a broad selection of evidence. In CESR’s 12