Abstracts

Gloria Ramirez: Human Rights Education before the Challenges of the Emerging Human Rights of the 21st Century

This article examines Human Rights Education vis-a-vis the challenges of the emerging human rights of the 21st century. It discusses the difficult situation of HRE in the uncertain and insecure times of globalization and permanent violence particularly after the September 11 attacks. In spite of these unfavorable circumstances, it can be concluded that HRE has gained ground in the agenda of NGO´s to become a demand formulated hand in hand with the fight for democracy and peace. Due to the fact that human rights are the result of an unfinished process under permanent transformation, the article underlines emerging human rights as a dimension of human rights (education) and one of the challenges in the 21st century.

Nils Rosemann: The New Debate on Torture - A Challenge for Human Rights Education

Human Rights Education (HRE) involves more than knowledge of rights and wrongs. It developed to enable individuals to act in an informed way to protect human rights or to prevent human rights viola-tions. HRE is therefore both empowering and restraining in order to protect human dignity. Freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading practices is central to human dignity. This article starts from the universal and absolute prohibition of torture under international human rights law. While considering the contradictive relationship between war and torture the article focuses on the war against terror as defined by the US administration as "new type" of warfare "that requires" a "new think-ing in the law of war". From this point of departure the article elaborates the challenges to human rights education developing from the debate on the legalization of torture. While comparing the dis-cussion and application of law in Germany and U.S.A. the author argues for a more coherent interna-tional human rights protection system and for the establishment of a comprehensive accountability mechanism within international human rights law. Particular attention will be paid to artificial loopholes in international law which facilitate a lack of accountability. The article also focuses on the arguments for legalizing and legitimating torture so as to highlight how HRE can be employed to foster the norma-tive understanding of human rights such as the right to freedom from torture. By highlighting the moral, political, legal and social dimensions to human rights standards, it will be shown that HRE can help to close loopholes in international law and counteract arguments against the absolute prohibition of tor-ture.

Anja Mihr: Minority Participation - A Challenge for Human Rights Education?

Der Text behandelt die Frage, inwiefern Menschenrechtsbildung und Minderheitenrechte gelehrt werden können um Menschen in die Lage zu versetzen für Gleichheit und Gerechtigkeit zwischen Mehrheiten und Minderheitengruppen aktiv und gleichberechtigt einzutreten. Menschenrechtsbildung ist in erster Linie die Befähigung jedes Einzelnen seine Menschenrechte zu kennen und sich für diese sowie die Menschenrechte Anderer einzusetzen. Dazu gehören soziale, wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Menschenrechte ebenso wie politische und zivile, die jedem Menschen zustehen, gleich ob jemand zu einer Minderheitengruppe gehört oder nicht. Um jedoch Gleichheit zwischen den Gruppen zu erreichen müssen zunächst auch die Bedürfnisse der Minderheiten herausgearbeitet werden, um mittels des Bildungssystems diese offen anzugehen. Es gilt, deutlich zu machen, dass von der Einhaltung der Menschenrechte sowohl Minderheiten als auch Mehrheiten in einer Gesellschaft profitieren.
The questions to be asked when referring to human rights and human rights education (HRE) for minorities are - how to use HRE to:

minorities to become active participants in societal decision making processes and
achieve equality and justice between majority and minority groups in any given society? In this paper I will discuss human rights education as an empowering tool - helping individuals to become aware of human rights and empowering them not only to claim their own basic human rights but also to advocate for the rights of others.

It is this empowerment and action combined that helps to bring about equality and justice for all. For minorities and other groups and individuals in society, this means being knowledgeable about each others' political, civil, economic and cultural rights, customs and history so that there is respect for, and recognition of, difference. To achieve this, it is important to identify the problems faced by minorities and the needs of these groups and to endeavour to overcome short-comings in education systems so that diversity in society is seen as a positive thing - something which is beneficial to all.

Lothar Krappmann: The Rights of the Child as a Challenge to Human Rights Education

Often human rights education of children does not include children's rights. Children get the impression that human rights are rights of adults and are mainly violated in faraway regions of the world. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) ratified by almost all states has clarified that human rights are valid for children as well, that they have a right to be educated about these rights and to claim these children's human rights. This step has opened a new approach to children's human rights education, because rights of children belong to the social reality which children experience and, therefore, are not only theoretically learned, but can also be actively implemented. The article argues that the active exercise of their rights challenges children's evolving capacities and promotes their insight in children's and human rights.

Cristina Sganga: Human Rights Education - As a Tool for the Reform of the Police

This article identifies the basic challenges faced by human rights activists when engaging police reform. It pays particular attention to the role of human rights education in such processes; moreover it explores what police and policing are meant to be and look like in a society where pluralism, human rights and the rule of law prevail. Lastly, it outlines the type of training required by a modern-democratic model of police functions.

Andre Keet, Nazir Carrim: Human Rights Education and Curricular Reform in South Africa

In this paper we chronicle the development of Human Rights Education (HRE) in South Africa within contemporary structures and processes of curricular reform in the country. We argue that human rights have been constituted as a discursive regime within education that traverses all education policy texts: laws, white papers, guidelines, recommendations and regulations. As such it has found a distinct expression in the new schools' curricula for General Education and Training (GET) and Further Education and Training (FET). We explore the history, processes and structures related to the infusion of human rights into the curriculum in two ways. First, the codification of HRE in the curricula is a product of a continuity and discontinuity with the anti-apartheid struggle for social justice and resistance to apartheid education. Second, the centrality of HRE in the curricula in South Africa is driven by a compliance-approach aimed at meeting an array of international obligations as far as HRE is concerned. In this compliance with global directives HRE in educational policy texts become political symbolic articulations that derive its 'logic' in large measure from the human rights language that is constructed within the systems of the United Nations.

Ulrike Niens, Jackie Reilly, Alan Smith: Human Rights Education as Part of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland

In a society emerging from decades of political conflict, the role of human rights education in Northern Ireland is of particular importance as a tool to preventing violent conflict and to promoting a culture of peace. More generally, a rights-based approach to education might refer to three dimensions; access to education, educational content and educational processes. This article aims to explore the effectiveness of a specific human rights education project that has been piloted in Northern Ireland's post-primary schools as an example of a project that addresses educational content and processes in a flexible manner. Conclusions are drawn relating to factors facilitating the successful development of a rights-based approach to education and of human rights education projects.

Malin Oud: Creative Tensions and the Legitimacy of Human Rights Education - A Discussion on Moral, Legal and Human Rights Education in China

This paper is a discussion of human rights education in China. Three major channels for dissemination of legal knowledge and shaping of values are examined - moral education, formal legal education and informal public legal education - against the background of the UN definition of human rights education and in relation to different approaches to human rights education discussed in the first section of the article.

Claudia Lohrenscheit: Dialogue and Dignity - Linking Human Rights Education with Paulo Freire's "Education for Liberation"

Viewed in the context of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004), it is clear that Paulo Freire's "Education for Liberation" and Human Rights Education (as it develops), have two core concepts of participation and empowerment in common. Participation is seen as the active involvement of individuals and groups in social, economic or political activities, while empowerment is viewed as the strengthening of individuals and groups and their liberation from oppressive conditions which crush human dignity.
This article examines the development of Human Rights Education (HRE) which grew from UN International Human Rights Conventions, and which resulted in a common understanding of and basis for HRE.
Not many authors (e.g. in Europe or the United States of America) currently involved in the development of human rights education rely on Paulo Freire's work as their main source of inspiration. In Latin America, however, the work of Paulo Freire is well-established and is referred to in current education discourse and practice. This article endeavours to link some of the core concepts of Freire's work to human rights education with a view to understanding education as a process of liberation involving dignity, dialogue and dissent. To this end, Paulo Freire's work is examined from the perspective of the German educational theorist and philosopher Gottfried Mergner who developed a theory on the social limits to learning and critically discussed Freire's work.

Bert Verstappen: www.HuriSearch.org - A Search Engine for Human Rights Information

This article provides a brief overview of search engines and describes how they work. It highlights HuriSearch, a human rights search engine, initiated by HURIDOCS - Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems, International. The article describes the background and aims of HuriSearch and the way in which the project has been implemented. This is followed by a comparison between HuriSearch and the general search engine Google, concerning the relevancy of searches and the depth of crawling. Finally, the future perspectives of HuriSearch are outlined.

© 2006 sowi-online e.V., Bielefeld Editor of JSSE 1-2006: Peter Fritzsche and Felisa Tibbitts WWW-Presentation: Norbert Jacke Processing: Claudia Hartmann URL: http://www.jsse.org/2006-1/abstracts.htm Publishing date: 2006/06/25