BIM Annual Report 2008 - Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für ...

BIM Annual Report 2008
Introduction
border control; democratic participation of citizens; information society and data protection and access
to justice as its focus areas.
Besides this new EU focus on fundmental rights, human rights issues are of course also part of different
programmes of the European Commission. In 2008, the BIM was among other projects involved in
a comparative study on “Positive Action Measures” against discrimination in the EU, Canada, the USA
and South Africa. Preparatory work was done for the implementation of an EU research project on
instruments to analyse a human rights based approach to Corporate Social Responsibility.
Human rights expertise of the BIM, specifically in the field of democracy and rule
of law, is also applied to EU enlargement and neighbourhood policies. In 2008,
among other activities preparations were under way for an extensive Twinning
project to combat trafficking in human beings in Romania.
Research Platform „Human Rights in the European Context“
Based on the concept of the BIM as a bridging institution between university and non-university research
and with the perspective of the prolongation of the long-standing cooperation between the BIM
and the University of Vienna, the research platform „Human Rights in the European Context“ was established
in spring 2008.
It assembles academics of 12 departments of the University of Vienna with the purpose of strengthening
the inter-disciplinary research on the topic of Human Rights in Europe trhough application of the
„Human Rights Based Approach“.The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights serves as the platform's
centre of communication and coordination. In 2008, a number of comprehensive project applications
were submitted under European and national calls.
The platform gives specific attention to the support of dissertations and research work of young researchers.
For this purpose, a concept was developed to establis an “initiative college” at the University
of Vienna which gives junior researchers the opportunity to gain a PhD in the area of „Empowerment
through Human Rights“. The college has been approved and will start in winter term 2009.
Since spring 2009, the research platform brings human rights topics to a broader public through three
different formats of events (Public Lecture Series, Cinema and Human Rights, Inter-University Round
Table).
Study Series
The BIM is editor of a human rights study series since 1999 which has been
published by Verlag Österreich until 2007. In 2008, a relaunch of the series in cooperation
with Neuer Wissenschaftlicher Verlag was prepared and led to the
publication of the first new volumes at the beginning of 2009. The three books are:
„Human Rights and Business“, „Global Standards – Local Action“ and „Indicators
and Monitoring Systems in External Policy-Making of the EU“.
New organisation structures
Concerning the internal structure of the institute, the establishment of thematic teams was an important
step at the beginning of 2008. Since the BIM has grown significantly in terms of staff over the last
few years a clearer distinction of topics and according resources became necessary. These considerations
resulted in focusing of BIM activities into six topical areas:
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