Programme Overview

The Master of Liberal Arts and Sciences with specialization in Human Rights and Sustainability Programme (MAHRS) is a new interdisciplinary graduate programme at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, scheduled to start in the academic year 2023. It is designed as a transdisciplinary MA programme, bridging international law, social sciences, and humanities. It includes internships for students in International Organizations, Think Tanks and CSO/NGOs with a related focus in their work. MAHRS will primarily focus on and operate with Central Asian (CA) countries, namely the five post-soviet countries Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan as well as Afghanistan and Mongolia. These seven countries are core to the Academy’s educational outreach and research as stipulated in the Charter of the OSCE Academy. The MA in Human Rights and Sustainability will be the first in Central Asia.

Programme Objectives

• Learning, applying, monitoring, and implementing human rights, governance and sustainability principles and norms, as stipulated by international and regional Human Rights Regimes and the 2015 SDGs (Agenda 2030) will be the key content of MAHRS.  
• To foster new generation of human rights and sustainability defenders and advocacy able to contribute to a world in which human dignity, equality, freedom, human security, sustainable development, democracy, the rule of law and respect for all human rights are realized.  
• To train young professionals who know how to apply, monitor and implement human rights, governance and sustainability principles and norms, as stipulated by international and regional Human Rights Regimes.
• To equip students with the analytical research and academic skills.  
• To give through the internships in inter-governmental, governmental and non-governmental organizations an opportunity to immediately put into practice the knowledge acquired during the course.