About us

Welcome to CREHR, the Centre for Researching and Embedding Human Rights.

CREHR is an interdisciplinary initiative driven by a unique psychosocial orientation to human rights principles and practice.

The heart of CREHR's mission is to engage psychosocially with theorisations and practices aimed at achieving acknowledgement, reparation and peace, when human rights are suppressed or violated.

We are interested in human rights not only as a legal framework, but as an underlying set of values and interventions that demand an interdisciplinary, multi-faceted approach to research, policy and practice.

OUR MISSION

The Centre brings together scholars, policy makers and practitioners united by a shared commitment to human rights, to forward the exercise and enjoyment of human rights through:

• Research. Through interdisciplinary research, publications and collaborative research projects, we aim to foster and embed the development, respect and implementation of human rights principles in everyday life and practices.
• Networking. The Centre is a home for critical dialogue, knowledge exchange and public events.
• Impact. To contribute to the protection and implementation of human rights principles through teaching and training programmes with practical, clinical and policy impact beyond the academy.

CREHR was established in 2019 at the University of London, and is a collaboration between: 

• Birkbeck's Department of Psychosocial Studies in the School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy
• Birkbeck's School of Law 
• The Human Rights Consortium at the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

CREHR is a member of the Human Rights Researchers Network.

Stanley Cohen

The creation of CREHR has been deeply influenced by the work of the late Stanley Cohen, Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, in particular on emotional management and denial in human rights.

The Centre aims to take forward his groundbreaking work by developing a psychosocial framework for acknowledgement and reparation following human rights violations.