The Minerva Center for Human Rights at Tel Aviv University

The Minerva Center for Human Rights at Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Law is one of the the largest and most influential educational programs of its kind in the country.

The Center seeks to foster a diversified and pluralistic research environment that will help push forward Israeli and international human rights laws, standards and policies.

Primary Goals

At the heart of the Center's strategic plan are five cornerstone goals:

• To conduct multidisciplinary research and study on issues relating to human rights.
   
• To facilitate and advance legislative reforms and policy measures at both the national and international levels.
   
• To train and support the next generation of human rights scholars and activists in Israel. 
   
• To strengthen academic ties with educational institutions and human rights organizations in Israel, Germany and elsewhere.
   
• To conduct meetings, conferences, workshops and other activities dedicated to pressing human rights issues around the world.

The Center in a nutshell

The Minerva Center for Human Rights was established in 1997 as a joint center with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem through the support of the Minerva Foundation Company for Research in Germany.

For the past 15 years, the Center has been actively involved in many research projects and public activities dedicated to raising awareness, knowledge and dialogue on matters of human rights laws.

The Center organizes and coordinates conferences, seminars and faculty workshops, allocates research grants and fellowships, and engages in a wide range of educational events. 


Its main activities include publicly-held annual lectures, followed by discussions and hands-on workshops; theme-based conferences and international research groups, both in Israel and abroad; and Author Meets Readers speaker-series, featuring authors from the human rights' research community. 


The Minerva Center is managed and run independently from within the Buchmann Faculty of Law.

Prof. Leora Bilsky is the Center's Academic Director.