Global Campus Open Knowledge Repository
Our Open Knowledge Repository is a digital service that collects, preserves, and distributes all digital materials resulting from the rich and varied production of the Global Campus of Human Rights. It is an ever growing collection which aims to give visibility to our research outputs, educational content, and multimedia materials; sustain open access for knowledge transfer; and foster communication within and beyond academia.
Communities in DSpace
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- The Global Campus Human Rights Journal is a peer-reviewed bi-annual publication that serves as a forum for rigorous scholarly analysis, critical commentaries, and reports on recent developments pertaining to human rights and democratisation globally.
- Publications series about various projects developed by Global Campus of Human Rights.
- A selection of the best master theses of each regional programme (annual award) as well as the full collection of all dissertations.
- This collection includes the Global Campus of Human Rights Annual Report and specific activities reporting.
- The Global Campus of Human Rights Magazine is a quarterly promotional publication on the network activities. It is published both in English and Italian.
Recent Submissions
Workplace Gender Equality in Kyrgyzstan: Case study of the NGO sector
(2025) Tenizbaeva, Akylai
Can organizations advocating for social justice practice what they preach? This thesis delves into the paradox of workplace gender equality within Kyrgyzstan's NGO sector—where champions of equity often lack internal structures to uphold their ideals. Despite their critical role in shaping societal norms, NGOs face significant challenges in aligning internal practices with gender equality principles.
Using a qualitative approach, including interviews with NGO staff and an expert from UN Women, this study uncovers a reliance on informal practices over formal gender policies. While supportive workplace cultures exist, systemic barriers such as entrenched societal norms and donor-driven pressures hinder progress. The findings reveal a complex interplay between aspiration and practice, highlighting both innovative successes and persistent gaps.
This research offers actionable recommendations to bridge the divide between advocacy and implementation: adopting standalone gender policies, integrating robust evaluation mechanisms, and tailoring global best practices to Kyrgyzstan's unique context. By addressing these issues, NGOs can lead by example, creating workplaces that truly embody the equality they strive to promote.
Invisible and unheard: transgender men in Pakistan and silent resistance to domestic practices and state authority
(Global Campus of Human Rights, 2026-03-19) Aurangzaib, Zai
Despite Pakistan’s human rights commitments, transgender men and AFAB gender-diverse individuals remain invisible. Discrimination and violence against them are under-reported, revealing gaps between legal protections and lived realities.
The State of Democracy in Africa
(2025) ; Murden, Davina
"The State of Democracy in Africa" offers an in-depth, Global Campus alumni-driven analysis of democratic trends across 30+ African countries. Shifting from broad narratives to lived experiences, the volume examines democracy's third-wave promises against realities of backsliding, hybrid regimes and resilience.
The introduction frames Africa's democratic journey—from post-colonial optimism through 1990s multi-party transitions to today's challenges like executive overreach, term-limit evasions, and shrinking civic space. Key discussion points include:
Democratic backsliding patterns: Judicial manipulation (Zimbabwe), media suppression (Mali, Mauritania), and indefinite rule costs (Djibouti, DRC).
Hybrid regimes prevalence: Africa's high share of flawed/anocratic systems amid weak institutions and economic pressures.
Resilience stories: Senegal's 2024 elections, Kenya's digital activism, Gambia's transition, and civic pushback via protests/Afrobarometer demand (66% support democracy).
Reconceptualising Exile through the Lived Experience of Human Rights Defenders
(Global Campus of Human Rights, 2025) Sheykhali, Sara; Fouad, Mostafa
This study examines how exile reshapes the identities, practices, and protection needs of human rights defenders (HRDs). Drawing on 18 life-history interviews with exiled HRDs and three expert consultations, the research explores exile not merely as a condition of dis-placement but as a dynamic space of reconfiguration, where activism, belonging, and safety are continuously negotiated. Using a qualitative, intersectional approach, the study identifies patterns of continuity and rupture in HRDs’ activism across geographies, with at-tention to gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and socio-political context.
Findings reveal that exile transforms both the risks and modalities of human rights work: HRDs often experience renewed agency through transnational advocacy and digital mobi-lisation, yet face profound challenges related to legal precarity, socio-economic marginali-sation, and emotional exhaustion. Institutional protection mechanisms, while vital, remain largely reactive and unevenly accessible, particularly for grassroots and intersectional ac-tivists. The analysis argues for a reconceptualisation of exile from a protection-centric framework to one recognising exiled HRDs as political actors whose exile produces new forms of civic engagement, solidarity, and resistance.
Ultimately, the report calls for policy and institutional responses that move beyond tempo-rary safety to enable sustainable, dignified, and participatory forms of exile, acknowledging the exiled defender not as a passive beneficiary of protection but as an active agent in the global human rights ecosystem.
How US-Israel attack on Iran is impacting Africa
(Global Campus of Human Rights, 2026-03-12) Mayamba, Johnson
The war between the United States, Israel and Iran may appear geographically distant from Africa. Yet its consequences are being felt across the continent. For millions of Africans from the Horn of Africa to Uganda, Sudan, the Gulf of Guinea and South Africa, among others, the conflict is not simply a geopolitical crisis. It is rapidly becoming a human rights crisis driven by inflation, food insecurity, disrupted trade, and heightened regional instability.