The Centre for Human Rights – Romanian Helsinki Committee – APADOR has established a documentation centre in the field of human rights and minorities and publishes the Romanian Human Rights Quarterly. It has also developed as a research centre for interethnic relations, and is the main source of information in Romania for analyses regarding: general concepts relating to national minorities and their rights; the situation and position of minorities in Romania, especially that of the Hungarian minority; concepts relating to the state and international law in connection with the situation of minorities in the modern state.

The Centre works in collaboration with the Council for National Minorities of the Romanian Government; the Inter-Ethnic Foundation of the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities; the Council of Europe; the Centre for Human Rights in Geneva; organisations of minorities from Romania, especially the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania; and many analysts.

Hungarians living in Romania represent both an ethnic and confessional minority. The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania was formed after the fall of the communist dictatorship, in December 1991, to represent the interests of the Hungarian minority. Its collective membership of over 500,000 includes groups, associations, societies, and workshops. The DAHR is a member of the European Democratic Union (EDU), Federal European Union of Nationalities (FEUN) and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO).

The Romanian Institute for Human Rights (RIHR) aims at furthering the rights protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by carrying out research on: human rights norms within cultural systems and social organisations; the implementation of human rights in Romania and the democratisation process; and on economic, social and cultural rights and public opinion. Its current research projects are, among others: ‘La Mise en oeuvre des droits civils et politiques prévus dans les documents internationaux et dans les actes normatifs du Parlement de Roumanie’ and ‘L’elaboration et la mise en oeuvre d’un programme pour la promotion de l’éducation aux droits et libertés de l’homme pour l’enseignement primaire et secondaire’.

The problem of interethnic relations (Hungarian-Gypsy, Hungarian-Romanian) has been one of the major research topics of the Centre for Regional and Anthropological Studies. The Centre also launched programmes aiming at the supervision of students’ anthropological fieldwork in this region (Szeklerland).