The ritualization of human rights education and training: The fallacy of the potency of knowing

ABSTRACT

Human rights education and training have become one of the principal pillars of the international human rights movement. Based on a comprehensive survey of training resources and approaches developed for police internationally, this article concludes that they principally follow a dry information transmission model using a traditional lecture-style pedagogy. Looking across the large body of training material available internationally, it appears that there is a fixed body of resource material that circulates and gets recycled, the regularity of its employment rather than its quality now bequeathing it the title best practice. Human rights training has taken on a ritualistic quality. Rather than simply assuming that such ritualism is indicative of mindlessness or cynicism, however, this article treats it as a point of curiosity. It asks: How is it that a template of action has developed and is continuing to expand, with the support of a range of stakeholders when it evidently falls short on key dimensions? Why continue to repeat a performance that seems so ill conceived? The article proposes eight explanations for the persistence of ritualized practices in human rights training for police.

Notes on contributor

Danielle Celermajer is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney and Director of the Human Rights Program. She was Director of the European Union (EU) funded Enhancing Human Rights project, working in Sri Lanka and Nepal to prevent torture, and of the EU funded Masters of Human Rights and Democratisation (Asia Pacific Program). She is author of Sins of the Nation and the Ritual of Apology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Notes

1. In the context of human rights, one finds the terms education and training used virtually interchangeably. In pedagogic literature, training refers to processes directed to the acquisition of specific knowledge and skills associated with a particular task of job, whereas education refers to a less instrumental process of knowledge acquisition, although the dichotomy has been critiqued (Tight 2002). Throughout this article, I use the terms as referenced in the context or, when referring specifically to the policing context, use training to emphasize the practical emphasis.

2. A suite of publications discussing the larger project can be found at http://sydney.edu.au/arts/research/ehrp/research/publications.shtml.

3. In this context, one must distinguish between ritualism, denoting a useless repetition of routinized practices, and ritual, the efficacy of which operates through shifting meanings and patterns of practice (Celermajer 2013).

4. Committee against Torture, Forty-seventh session, 31 October–25 November 2011, para. 20 (c).

5. A/HRC/7/3/Add.6, 26 February 2008, para 94(x).

6. General Assembly Resolution 49/184 of 23 December 1994.

7. Established pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 12/4 (1 October 2009). The Draft Plan of Action for the Second Phase of the World Programme for Human Rights Education explicitly concerns “Action promoting human rights training for civil servants, law enforcement officials and the military (United Nations General Assembly 2010: 37).

8. A/RES/66/137, see in particular Article 11.

9. Human Rights Education Associates is an international organization indicative of the specialist educational organizations, but most major INGOs such as Amnesty International have dedicated education sections.

10. The survey was sent to 268 police forces, militaries, and/or training colleges and, where appropriate, was translated into French and Spanish.

11. The response rate was approximately 6% and follow-up interviews indicated that the information that had been provided was not necessarily accurate and, consistent with what we know about the unreliability of surveys, would require further testing to verify.

12. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for drawing the connection with this literature.

13. One hundred percent of the respondents to our survey of human rights training by security organizations indicated that their training included information on international legal standards.

14. “The goals of courses developed by the Office are not limited to the imparting of standards and practical skills, but also include exercises designed to sensitize trainees to their own potential, however unwitting, for violative behavior” (United Nations 1997a: 4).

15. On ethical dilemmas and attitudinal change, see Longstaff (1995); on intergroup contact theory, see Allport (1954).

16. For a similar conclusions, see Kenny (1996: 10.2.2).