Opportunities and Challenges in Post-graduate Human Rights Programs in Asia- Pacific Region

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This three-year long research clarified the opportunities and challenges of post-graduate human rights programs offered by higher education institutions in Asia-Pacific region. There are now more than a hundred of such programs worldwide (international programs only), among which sixteen locate in Asia.Such programs in the region have been responding to the need of professional training in the field of human rights, especially in the countries after democratization. At the same time, attention should also be paid on the uniqueness of Asian programs, such as the one that focuses on anthropological studies on human rights to target issues of socio-cultrual discrimination (such as discrimination against "Dalit"), which may not be fully dealt with legal studies on human rights. Another example is the program that aims to empower minority groups.Most programs are international programs (English is a medium of teaching). Therefore, such programs attract and facilitate dialogue among students with different backgrounds (in terms of national and ethnic origin, religion, culture, occupation, etc), which in the end may contribute to foster common understanding of human rights and of the need of regional mechanisms in the region. On the other hand, English can be a barrier to the participants from truly grass-roots based human rights workers. English also becomes the obstacle to feed back the outcomes of research conducted through such programs.