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

这项为期三年的研究阐明了亚太地区高等教育机构提供的研究生人权课程的机遇和挑战。目前，世界上有100多个此类方案(仅限国际方案)，其中16个设在亚洲。该地区的这些方案一直在响应人权领域的专业培训需求，特别是在民主化后的国家。同时，还应注意亚洲方案的独特性，例如侧重于人权的人类学研究的方案，其目标是社会文化歧视问题(如对“达利特人”的歧视)，而这些问题可能无法在人权法律研究中得到充分处理。另一个例子是旨在赋予少数群体权力的计划。大多数计划都是国际计划(英语是教学语言)。因此，这类方案吸引和促进具有不同背景的学生之间的对话(在民族和族裔出身、宗教、文化、职业等方面)，这最终可能有助于促进对人权和该区域区域机制需要的共同理解。另一方面，英语可能会成为来自真正基层人权工作者的参与者的障碍。英语也成为反馈通过这类项目进行的研究结果的障碍。

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.