About AHRI

The Association of Human Rights Institutes - AHRI, consists of 32 member institutions that carry out research and education in the field of human rights. The objective of AHRI is to promote research, education and discussion in the field of human rights.

AHRI Co-operation Agreement

The AHRI Co-operation Agreement (pdf) was signed in Reykjavik 22 September 2000. Bjarney Friðriksdóttir, former Director of the Icelandic Human Rights Center, was elected as AHRI's first Chair. The Netherlands Institute of Human Rights accepted to host the Secretariat with Peter Malcontent as Executive Secretary.

The Constitution for the Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI) was adopted in April 2011.

Secretariat (2009-2011)

The Secretariat is elected for three-year periods, and the present Chair will end its term in 2011.

• Chair, Director Nils A Butenschøn, NCHR
• Executive Secretary Ms Maria Sommardahl, Principal Executive Officer/Research Consultant, NCHR

Executive Committee (2009-2011)

The Executive Committee is elected for three-year periods. The present members will end their term in 2011.

• Manfred Novak (University of Vienna)
• Margot Salomon (London School of Economics)
• Vesna Petrovic (Belgrade Centre for Human Rights)
• William Schabas (Irish Centre for Human Rights) 

Funding

AHRI's main source of funding is through COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). COST is one of the longest-running European instruments supporting cooperation among scientists and researchers across Europe.

Today several AHRI member institutions participate in the COST project The Role of the EU in UN Human Rights Reform. See the Activities section for more details about this project.

Strengthening human rights as an academic field

The initiation of AHRI was motivated by the growing number of human rights institutions with a research agenda and the opportunity this created for developing and strengthening human rights as an academic field of study. The main purposes of the association are to coordinate research projects and applications for research funding, and organise seminars and conferences.

Several AHRI member institutions participated in the COST funded academic programme Human Rights, Peace and Security in EU Foreign Policy. This project's main objective was to increase and deepen knowledge on the functions of national and international instruments devised to pursue human rights, peace and security objectives in order to recommend modifications of the foreign policy of the European Union.

Founding history

AHRI was established in 2000 at a founding meeting in Iceland hosted by the Icelandic Human Rights Centre.

All active European academic human rights institutes were invited to join and the following founding members met in Iceland:

• Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR), Faculty of Law, University of Oslo
• Institute for Human Rights at Åbo Akademi University
• Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
• Danish Institute for Human Rights
• Icelandic Human Rights Center
• Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM)
• Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights