Essex Human Rights Summer School

The Essex Human Rights Centre is holding a summer school on Human Rights Research Methods at its Colchester campus from 30 June to 5 July 2014.  Methodology has a direct bearing on the strength, persuasiveness and legitimacy of human rights research findings and their impact on policy and practice.  Strong methodology is also a central requirement in order to secure funding.  Yet, we often focus on the substance of human rights without sufficient attention to the methods used.  This summer school seeks to fill that gap by providing the core methods and skills needed to carry out human rights research whether documenting human rights violations, drafting human rights reports and articles or preparing funding bids.  Participants will learn everything from interviewing victims to researching in repressive societies to becoming ‘quantitatively literate’ in human rights research.  The teaching team includes anthropologists, lawyers, political scientists, psychologists and sociologists, three current and former UN Special Rapporteurs, a member of the UN Committee against Torture, the Interim Director of Law and Policy at Amnesty International and donors, all with significant experience on the theory and practice of human rights.  It is an ideal course for human rights professionals working in NGOs, international organisations and government, academics and postgraduate students.  To find out more, visit: www.essex.ac.uk/hrc/summerschool