Institute for the Study of Human Rights

The Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR) was established in 1978 at Columbia University as the Center for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR). In spring 2010, Columbia University elevated CSHR from center to institute status. ISHR is committed to its three core goals of providing excellent human rights education to Columbia students, fostering innovative interdisciplinary academic research, and offering its expertise in capacity building to human rights leaders, organizations, and universities around the world.

ISHR supervises the undergraduate human rights major (offered only as a concentration until 2011), the GSAS human rights MA program, and a number of other human rights initiatives which are well-regarded in the field.

Most other college human rights departments take a broad view of the discipline, incorporating things such as justice studies, philosophy, peacekeeping training, relevant domestic issues and the study of social movements. ISHR staff are instead distinguished by their massive NYC-induced fetish for the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, generally believing these (and Africa) to be the sole source and end of human rights.

ISHR is located on the 7th floor of Riverside Church tower at 91 Claremont Avenue between West 120th Street and West 122nd Street.