Public law comprises the fundamental branches of law that regulate the organization of the state, the exercise of public power, the relationship between the individual and the state, and the constitutional limits of that relationship. While fields such as constitutional law, administrative law, and criminal law form its historical core, contemporary phenomena such as digital transformation, artificial intelligence applications, climate change, global migration movements, and international security threats continuously transform and expand public law.
Doctoral programs in public law in Türkiye have long been based primarily on a traditional curriculum. However, today’s public law scholars are expected not only to analyze normative regulations but also to master comparative legal methodology, conduct interdisciplinary research, and develop original solutions to new legal challenges emerging in the digital age.
Ibn Haldun University positions legal education not merely as a technical professional training, but as a holistic academic activity that emphasizes a civilizational perspective, philosophical foundation, and ethical responsibility. This vision provides a highly suitable ground for offering doctoral-level education in a field such as public law, which lies at the core of the state–individual relationship. The university’s structure, which brings together disciplines such as law, political science, philosophy, sociology, and international relations, creates an interdisciplinary research environment where the multifaceted problems of public law can be examined in depth.
In conclusion, the establishment of this program is not only an academic expansion but also a strategic choice aimed at increasing Türkiye’s visibility in the international legal literature, training qualified public law scholars, and contributing to the capacity to rethink the relationship between law and the state.
The primary aim of the PhD Program in Public Law is to train academics and legal professionals with theoretical depth, methodological diversity, and the capacity for original research in public law. The program is based not only on teaching existing legal texts, but also on cultivating thinkers who can understand these texts within their historical, comparative, and philosophical contexts, critically evaluate existing law, and propose new norms.
In this framework, the program serves the following objectives:
The PhD Program in Public Law offers students a broad range of research areas by addressing both classical disciplines and contemporary transformations in a holistic perspective. The main research areas include:
The program prioritizes achieving the following goals:
To ensure advanced theoretical and methodological specialization in different sub-disciplines of public law,
To encourage the production of original and high-quality scientific articles in national and international peer-reviewed journals,
To develop theoretically grounded and practice-oriented solutions to contemporary public law issues such as digitalization, the environment, and artificial intelligence,
To conduct comparative research between the Turkish legal system and the jurisprudence of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and the United Nations human rights bodies,
To improve students’ competencies in academic writing, research ethics, and scientific publication processes,
To equip graduates with professional competencies enabling them to work effectively as academics, high-level bureaucrats, consultants, judges, and experts in international organizations,
To strengthen Ibn Haldun University’s research-based education and civilization-oriented legal approach, contributing to its international academic visibility.
The PhD Program in Public Law will serve not only individual academic career goals but also broader academic and societal contributions at national and international levels.
The program will support students in publishing articles in internationally indexed journals, presenting papers at national and international conferences, and producing doctoral dissertations that contribute to the field. In this way, Türkiye’s academic output in public law literature will increase, and the university’s visibility in international indexes such as Scopus and Web of Science will be strengthened.
Graduates of the program will directly contribute to the development of Türkiye’s legal system through advisory roles in legislative processes, scientific analysis of judicial jurisprudence, public policy evaluation, and civil society activities. Research in current and priority areas, such as digitalization, artificial intelligence, and environmental law, will provide valuable scientific input to lawmakers and judicial bodies.
The program will create a foundation for establishing academic collaborations with leading law faculties and research centers in Europe and other regions. Within this framework, student and faculty exchange programs, joint research projects, and publication initiatives will be implemented, strengthening Ibn Haldun University’s international network.