Raoul Wallenberg Institute (RWI) work in Turkey aims at contributing to more human rights responsive academic and justice sector actors. They have maintained cooperation with institutions in Turkey since 1996, initiating more permanent cooperation in 2007 around human rights education for justice sector institutions, universities and NGOs.

Since then, RWI has cooperated with Anadolu University, Ankara University, Dokuz Eylül University, Istanbul University and Selçuk University on strengthening human rights education and research. Similar work has also been carried out with the Turkish Police Academy and Justice Academy, and cooperation on Clinical Legal Education has in addition been carried out with the Ministry of Justice. The focus of this work is on strengthening relevant institutional frameworks at partner institutions.

Additional work is carried out with junior academics outside the institutional framework with a view to enabling a new generation of academics to support the development of human rights work at academic institutions. Part of the support for such junior academics focuses on research support through grants and scholarships. The other part focuses on networking among junior academics, and joint events for presenting results.

In addition to such institutional and individual level support, RWI also seeks to bring together different stakeholder groups around policy initiatives and new methodological approaches. The introduction of Clinical Legal Education at universities is part of such work, as well as work on inclusion and on particular themes such as human rights and religion and human rights and peace.

Results Achieved

The cooperation in Turkey to date has contributed to:

• an increased and important focus, including with the Ministry of Justice, on Clinical Legal Education in the development of legal and human rights education
• the establishment of a number of new courses and programmes dedicated to human rights with partner educational institutions
• increased access to human rights material at partner universities and institutions
• an active human rights research network spurring collaborative, academic initiatives on different human rights issues by participating junior academics; and new and original human rights research in Turkey.