About the Center
Human Rights Research and Application Center
General Information
T.C. Maltepe University Human Rights Research and Implementation Center was established on December 9, 2005 and started to run thesis and non-thesis master's programs in the 2008-2009 academic year. Within the framework of non-formal education programs, the Center organizes human rights and ethics training programs for public officials in cooperation with the Human Rights Boards of the districts in the region.
On 13 May 2009, a UNESCO Chair in Philosophy and Human Rights was established within the Center through an agreement signed with UNESCO.
Since its inception, the Center has organized a number of international conferences, two national and seven international, including “Problems Encountered in the Protection of Human Rights” (2007), “Human Rights in the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration” (2008), “Rethinking the Philosophy of Law: Theories of Law, Human Rights and Constitutions” (2009) and ‘The Problem of Identities and Human Rights in Southeast Europe’ (2009), ‘Ethical and Human Rights Problems Encountered in the Creation and Application of Law’ (2011), ‘Violence and Human Rights’ (2012), ‘Looking at Events and People with Human Rights Knowledge’ (2014), ‘Value, Values and Meaning’ (2016) and ‘Human Rights in the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration’ (2018) and published the papers presented in five of these conferences as a book.
The Center has given its opinion on some human rights violations, for example on terminally ill patients in prisons, upon its own request or decision; and in cooperation with the Human Rights Center of the Ankara Bar Association, the Center conducted a study on the “Draft Law on the Human Rights Institution of Turkey”, brought it in line with the Paris principles and submitted its recommendations to the relevant sub-commission of the Constitutional Commission of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.
Mission of the Center
The mission of the Center is to contribute, through its research, meetings, books, formal and non-formal education and other activities, to increasing the number of people who look at what is happening in Turkey and the world from a human rights perspective, to spreading this perspective and to ensure that clearly understood human rights are taken as a basis when laws are made and implemented.
Vision of the Center
The Center's vision is a Turkey and a world where there are no human rights violations caused by ignorance, where people do not die from treatable diseases, where there are no hungry people, and where an increasing number of people live a life worthy of human dignity.