The human being, created and honored by God over all other creatures, is divinely granted the rights to dignity, liberty and safe living, along with the values ​​of justice and equality with other human beings, from birth to the end of his life.

This fundamental and principled definition of human rights transcends many interpretations or misuse of the concept in diverse meanings and for various purposes.

Man and his fundamental rights are the goal of every effort, or they should be.

In response to the aforementioned, the initiative to launch this academic Journal entitled "Studies in Human Rights" has been brought into light, aiming to contribute to the promotion of the culture of human rights, to raise awareness and understanding of this culture in all its forms and to pave the way before specialists, thinkers and intellectuals to put the issue of human rights in its right place.

This Journal, issued by the Sector of Foreign Information at the State Information Service, is one of a series of academic Journals issued by the SIS and they have been met favorably, such as the "Arab Perspectives", the "Asian Perspectives" and the "African Perspectives". This comes within the framework of the State Information Service mission to contribute to tackling issues of concern to Egypt at both the domestic and the international level properly. Surprisingly, great number of elite pioneers in various domains of human rights, such as laws and political science, sociology, education and other majors, hastened to make their knowledge and experience available in the very first Issue.

The studies and reports in this Issue tackle a number of fundamental issues relevant to human rights such as the impact of terrorism on the enjoyment of human rights. In the meantime, the Issue includes many studies and reports on Egypt's vision on human rights issues and the role of NGOs and national specialized councils in the field of human rights, along with the performance of the national committees and institutions in this domain, and the efforts of the Egyptian State in combating human trafficking as part of the protection of human rights.

At the international level, the Journal contains well-balanced review of the regional and international efforts targeting to uphold human rights principles, in addition to some endeavors of concerned organizations, such as the International Criminal Court, and the follow-up of many international human rights mechanisms such as the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, as well as other sections in Arabic, English and French languages.

I would like to extend appreciation and thanks to the prominent researchers, writers and intellectuals who have contributed to the themes of this Journal.

I also would like to express my deepest gratitude to the colleagues who have participated in every stage to make this idea a reality.

Finally, we hope this work would meet the acceptance of the readers and specialists in Egypt and abroad. We are looking forward to receiving your opinions and suggestions to help us develop this Journal to address the readers’ aspirations and to achieve its goal. We also welcome the contributions of specialists, expertise and researchers to contribute to the future Issues of this Journal.