Global Human Rights Awareness, Education and Democratization

Abstract

The 1990s was the era of human rights awareness, democratic transitions, and growing involvement of international organizations and the nongovernmental sector in human rights education (HRE). The UN Decade for HRE from 1995–2004 was not only born out of the initiatives and pressures of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) but it also actively triggered many new private initiatives and commitments by governments to increase HRE. New information technologies, globalization, and the rise of civil society paved the way for new strategies and methods to disseminate the idea of human rights worldwide. With this in mind, two aspects will be discussed in this article. First, how HRE can become an integral part of all formal education systems. In this respect I will discuss the role of governments and state responsibility. Second, there were shifts and developments that made HRE an adaptable and coherent education concept oriented towards future challenges such as climate changes or migration. Coherent international concepts and a clear definition of HRE should help avoid the misuse of education in human rights for political or ideological reasons.

Anja Mihr is Senior Fellow at the European Inter-University Center for Human Rights and Democratization (EIUC) in Venice, Italy. In her latest research she is focusing on Transitional Justice, Reconciliation, Human Rights, and Democratization. In 2008 she was Visiting Professor for Human Rights at Peking University Law School in China and worked for the Raoul Wallenberg Research Institute on Human Rights at Lund University, Sweden. From 2006–2008 she was the European Program Director for the European Master Degree in Human Rights and Democratization at EIUC (www.eiuc.org). She received her PhD in Political Sciences from the Free University in Berlin in 2001. Mihr has worked for Amnesty International and the German Institute for Human Rights. Starting as a assistant professor at the Institute for Political Science and UNESCO Chair in Human Rights at the University of Magdeburg in 2002 in Germany, she was later a research director at the Humboldt University of Berlin carrying out the research project “Teaching Human Rights in Europe” from 2003–2006. From 2002–2006, Mihr also served as Chair of Amnesty International Germany.