The project “Human Rights in the European Constitutional Order” represents an innovative step towards strengthening awareness of human rights and European law at the Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague.

As part of this initiative, a 40-hour English-language course entitled Human Rights in the European Constitutional Order has been developed. The course focuses on an in-depth exploration of human rights protection within the European Union. Participants are introduced to key documents, such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and gain an understanding of the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union in this area.

One of the course’s central features is its emphasis on the protection of vulnerable groups, including ethnic and religious minorities, asylum seekers, and migrants. The course offers both theoretical insights and practical skills related to European human rights protection mechanisms. It also provides a platform for open dialogue among students, academics, and the wider public on the importance of safeguarding human rights within the EU framework.

The project further includes a series of roundtables and workshops, serving as forums for the presentation of student research findings and for active discussion among participants. The best student papers are regularly published in electronic form, enabling the dissemination of their insights to a broader audience.

The project is co-funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ programme under the initiative Human Rights in the European Constitutional Order.

The StandUp4LGBTIQ project, implemented under the European grant scheme Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV), aims to raise awareness and understanding of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights among individuals from the LGBTIQ+ community, civil society actors, and the legal professional community. Geographically, the project focuses on Central and Eastern Europe, with particular emphasis on the Czech Republic and Slovenia. The Centre contributes to the research component of the project, while the implementation phase is carried out by partner organisations from civil society.

Within the Centre, the project is realised through two main avenues: the development of an elective course focusing on issues of equality for LGBTIQ+ individuals, and research into the legal framework for the protection of LGBT+ persons. This research places particular emphasis on the protection afforded under EU law, as well as on analysing the dynamics of strategic litigation in this field.

Publications:

• Řepa, K. Možnosti a limity uplatnění principu rovnosti v oblasti ústavněprávní argumentace stejnopohlavních manželství. [Under Peer Review]
• Tomšej, J. Daleká cesta za rovností: několik poznámek k novému institutu partnerství. Online. Právní rozhledy. 2025, roč. 33, č. 6. s. 197-201.

Funded by the European Union under project no. 101143023 StandUp4LGBTIQ.

The Centre is actively involved in the project “Beyond Security: The Role of Conflict in Strengthening Resilience” (CoRE), coordinated by the Faculty of Arts at Charles University and funded under the Excellent Research call of the Jan Amos Komenský Operational Programme. This is a unique and large-scale initiative involving universities and experts from across the Czech Republic. A key component of the project is a five-year research agenda entitled “Conflict in the International Context: Strategic Regions”. In collaboration with the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University, the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, the Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Law at Masaryk University, and the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, research teams led by Professor Helena Hofmannová from the Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights (Faculty of Law, Charles University), Professor Ondřej Císař from the Institute of Sociological Studies (Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University), and Professor Emil Aslan from the Institute of Political Studies (Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University) focus primarily on analysing international developments in so-called “strategic regions” (e.g. the Visegrád Group, the South Caucasus, and Southeast Asia) through the lens of “culture wars” as well as actual armed conflicts.

In addition to standard academic publications, the outcomes of this multi-year research will include a lecture series on the evolution of culture wars and internal conflicts, aimed at central government authorities, media professionals, and exporters, among others.

Beyond conventional topics related to conflict in strategic regions, CoRE seeks to promote research into contemporary phenomena that currently drive global conflicts but have remained largely overlooked in legal scholarship—particularly in the Czech context. These include, for example, the clash between “genderism” and “anti-genderism”, the transcontinental alliance of far-right movements with radically misogynistic ideologies, and “anti-Westernism” in the non-Western world, i.e. theories of alternative modernisation models in opposition to liberal democracy. Nevertheless, the central objective of the project remains the development of a comparative and trans-regional perspective based on the study of key regions relevant to Czech national interests.

PI: Lukáš Lev Červinka, Ph.D.
period: 09/2025 - 02/2028
project MSCA Fellowship CZ - CZ.02.01.01/00/22_010/0013392, P JAC

The project focuses on the democratic participation of the Roma minority in the Czech Republic and reacts not only to the long-term systemic discrimination and exclusion of Roma both at the national and transnational level but also to the Czech Roma Integration Strategy 2021-2030 and 2020-2030 EU Roma Strategic Framework, which both emphasise the importance of the Roma participation in democratic processes.

Two research objectives frame the RomCzePoP: to examine 1) whether Roma is part of the Czech political people, i.e. Czech sovereign, and 2) whether the Czech state supports its integration into the Czech political people or rather promotes its exclusion from it.

The project adopts a highly innovative socio-legal concept of political people as an organisational system and argues for the understanding of the people as a living collective influencing democracy, instead of being cast away as a pre-constitutional subject. To examine the Czech political people, the RomCzePoP qualitatively analyses a variety of sources (from political manifestos and media, to equal access to education) to examine, whether they include the Roma aspect or give agency to Roma. Similarly, to examine the Czech state policies, qualitative analysis of key legislation, education curriculum, or actions against hate crime, is carried out to determine, whether the Czech Republic supports Roma democratic participation or rather excludes Roma from it.

This unique research focus is accompanied by innovative methods of participatory action research, adopted by the RomCzePoP, which enables a high level of participation of Roma stakeholders in all stages of the project. Moreover, the project will be carried out not only at the CHR, but also at the UCD Centre for Constitutional Studies and at the Czech Government Commission for Roma Minority, within which the research outputs will be translated into policy recommendations.

It is the first time such a project is to be carried out in Czechia.