As the second and final stage of the research project titled “Current Debates in Human Rights Law”, academicians attending from the international organizations were interviewed and given questions based on the current concept of human rights.

On the other hand, the data obtained from the international congress and summer school, the participating academicians’ interviews and suggestions led to the interview’s development on a different premise in terms of the scope and the group’s formation. 

In this international congress and summer school, it was seen as an undeniable reality that academics from different countries discuss similar issues in the field of human rights. However, it has been observed that the perspective of human rights phenomenon has been different due to historical, social, geographical and cultural reasons. This finding has made it necessary to focus on this issue in the interview questions of this project, which aims to question the universal quality already attributed to human rights.

In addition to viewing the human rights phenomenon from the Western perspective, evaluating the different cultures and societies’ attitudes and solutions in different geographies was a natural step in an interview involving different nations and legal systems. Diversity among the interview group has made it obligatory to transcribe the verbal interviews.

In this context, as of February 2019, after the researchers worked on the interview questions and received consultation again, the questions were revised for two frameworks that both challenge and take the existing human rights concept as a base.

After deciding to expand the geography covered and increasing the number of people to be studied, several countries were selected to pilot for regions such as Europe, Asia Pacific countries, the Middle East, Africa and South America. Researches retrieved the contact information of academics working in this field from these countries’ major universities via internet searches in languages in which they are proficient.

Then, the interview questions were sent via email with an ASBU extension project email address (humanrightsproject@asbu.edu.tr), along with a text that provides preliminary information about the project. As the number of responses obtained as of June 2019 only reached 10, a much more extensive research was conducted to expand the interview group in June and July.  Efforts were made to reach one university from each country in the world, particularly some of the familiar leading ones.