Since its creation in 1998, the University of Washington Human Rights Education and Research Network (HRERN) has grown dramatically. The central goals of the HRERN are

• to teach undergraduate students about human rights principles, challenges, and debates;
• to train a cohort of graduate students who will become the next generation of human rights educators and scholars;
• to promote human rights scholarship as a core area of faculty and graduate research;
• to cultivate ties between the University of Washington and local, national, and international human rights organizations.

The centerpiece of the HRERN is an interdisciplinary Human Rights Minor open to students in all three University campuses. A large selection of courses provides opportunities to study the legal, philosophical, historical, economic, political, psychological, cultural and literary dimensions of human rights. To obtain the Minor, students complete a required set of courses, some of which make human rights their central theme while others situate human rights in a broader social or intellectual context. Students also fulfill an “experiential learning component” in the form of an internship, study abroad program, or service learning activity.

Beyond offering traditional classes, the HRERN sponsors the highly innovative Washington D.C. Human Rights Seminar as well as a number of study abroad programs, workshops, internships, research projects, and guest lectures focused on human rights. It supports a major library collection and film directory as well. The HRERN has benefited from a close working relationship with allied units at the University of Washington, especially the Comparative Law and Society Studies (CLASS) Center and the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.