The Observatory aims at becoming a tool for dialogue among the various cultures of the Mediterranean area, their synergies and their common roots. Through this dialogue, which systematically gathers specific information about interculturality and human rights in the Mediterranean, we intend to promote knowledge and respect towards human rights.

Founded in 2002, the Interculturality and Human Rights Euromed Observatory is the result of an agreement between the Generalitat de Catalunya (Departament de Presidència. Secretaria de Relacions Exteriors) and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Grup de Recerca del Gènere, la Interculturalitat i els Estudis Culturals Mediterranis. GIEM) and points at creating a centre of information, research and debate on the intercultural and human rights dialogue in the Mediterranean basin.

The main objective is to supply a wide range of people - mainly researchers, members of Non Governmental Organizations, students, politicians, civil servants, journalists and other opinion-makers- with instruments and elements of analysis and exploration of the intercultural dialogue between the northern and southern Mediterranean countries, as a key element to observe the human rights.

The Euromediterranean Seminar (Barcelona, 2001) -which promoted the Congress in Barcelona (1995)

http://www.gencat.es/icm/activitats/2001/ceuromeddiscus.htm

- put forward the need to launch a Human Rights Observatory in order to promote dialogue between cultures. The dialogue seeks to contribute to the elimination of the stereotypes in all countries of the image of "the other", as well as to join towards the defence of Human Rights, and in particular the Children's Rights, the non-discrimination on the basis of sex, the democratic values, the denunciation of any expression of xenophobia and the repulse to terrorism.

As a result of the Congress, of the Euromediterranean Seminar, of the claim of the Mediterranean peoples and the political interlocutors and organizations, the group of research GIEM gave birth to the Euromediterranean Observatory of Intercultural Dialogue and Human Rights, an instrument for peace, knowledge and analysis of the cultural diversities and similarities of the Mediterranean.