Institutionalisation of human rights in Turkey in the context of international assessment mechanisms

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2013
Çakır, Çağrı
The thesis aims to analyse the process of institutionalization of human rights in Turkey, by assessing the nature of the institutions with the focus on the dynamics forcing Turkey to establish a totally new structure devoted to human rights. In line with this aim, firstly worldwide development of institutionalization in the area of human rights is examined. The process of accession to EU has been a strong impetus for Turkey to ensure the compliance with the Copenhagen political criteria and to undertake legislative reforms for this purpose. Therefore in line with the ongoing trends in the international area, the process of institutionalization of human rights in Turkey until December 2012 is analysed. However changing recommendations of EU along the road changed the nature of the reforms after 2006 in terms of establishing new structures. Especially after 2006, Turkey faced a new agenda oriented to establish new independent democratic structures to ensure and monitor that human rights are implemented within the country accordingly with international standards. These institutions are namely Human Rights Institution of Turkey, Ombudsman, Law Enforcement Monitoring Commission and Equality Body. However having independent structures is not common within Turkish public administration. This study mainly analyses the legislation of these new institutions and draft legislation to be established and the evaluations made so far by the independent experts, the Council of Europe, United Nations and external and domestic human rights NGOs to identify whether these institutions are in line with EU acquis/EU best practices.

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Citation Formats
Ç. Çakır, “Institutionalisation of human rights in Turkey in the context of international assessment mechanisms,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2013.