human rights and peace education essay

COMPASS Manual for Human Rights Education with Young people

Peace and violence.

Violence: concepts and examples

What is violence.

Violence is a complex concept. Violence is often understood as the use or threat of force that can result in injury, harm, deprivation or even death. It may be physical, verbal or psychological. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines violence as "intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation". 1 This definition emphasises intentionality, and broadens the concept to include acts resulting from power relationships.

8 million light weapons are produced each year. 2 bullets are produced each year for every person on the planet. 2 out of 3 people killed by armed violence die in countries "at peace". 10 people are injured for every person killed by armed violence. Estimates from www.controlarms.org

An expanded understanding of violence includes not only direct "behavioural" violence, but also structural violence, which is often unconscious. Structural violence results from unjust and inequitable social and economic structures and manifesting itself in for example, poverty and deprivation of all kinds.

Forms of violence can be categorised in many ways. One such classification includes:

• direct violence, e.g. physical or behavioural violence such as war, bullying, domestic violence, exclusion or torture
• structural violence, e.g. poverty and deprivation of basic resources and access to rights; oppressive systems that enslave, intimidate, and abuse dissenters as well as the poor, powerless and marginalised
• cultural violence, e.g. the devaluing and destruction of particular human identities and ways of life, the violence of sexism, ethnocentrism, racism and colonial ideologies, and other forms of moral exclusion that rationalise aggression, domination, inequity, and oppression.

Question: Are direct, structural and/or cultural violence present in your community? How?

Today's human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts. Mary Robinson

Violence in the world

Each year, more than 1.6 million people worldwide lose their lives to violence. For every person who dies as a result of violence, many more are injured and suffer from a range of physical, sexual, reproductive and mental health problems. Violence places a massive burden on national economies in health care, law enforcement and lost productivity. World Health Organisation 2

Structural and cultural forms of violence are often deeply impregnated in societies to the point of being perceived as inherent. This type of violence lasts longer, thus eventually having similar consequences as direct violence, or, in some cases, even leading to the oppressed using direct violence as a response. Lower education opportunities in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, limited access to leisure for foreigners, harmful working conditions in certain fields of work, and so on, are acts of structural and cultural violence which have a direct influence on people's access to their rights. Yet these forms of violence are rarely recognised as violations of human rights. What follows are some examples about different forms of violence worldwide. These are not the only ones. More information about the effects of armed conflicts can be found in War and Terrorism and in various other sections of this manual.

Military spending, arms trade and violence 

The production and trade in arms and weapons is undoubtedly one of the greatest threats to peace, not least because of the economic, financial and social dimensions of arms production. The production and export of arms is often encouraged on economic grounds with little con- sideration to the impact on peace and security. World military spending is steadily increasing; in 2014 the world spent an estimated €1776 billion on the military. The database of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute3 shows in 2014 the USA (€610 billion) as the biggest military spender, followed by China (€216 billion) and then three European countries, Russia ($84 billion) the United Kingdom ($60 billion) and France (€62 billion). Europe as a whole spent $386 billion.

Data from the Overseas Development Institute (www.odi.org ) shows that we could deliver free primary and secondary education in all the poor countries around the world for $32 billion per year, this is less than a single week's global military spending.

Question: How much does your country of residence spend on arms production and purchases annually?

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that at least 740,000 women, men, young people and children are killed each year by armed violence; most of those affected live in poverty. The majority of armed killings occur outside of wars, although armed conflicts continue to generate a high number of deaths. Moreover, a huge number of people are injured by armed violence and face long-term suffering because of it. According to Amnesty International, about 60% of human rights violations documented by the organisation have involved the use of small arms and light weapons. 4

Controlling Arms Trade Control Arms is a global civil society alliance campaigning for an international legally-binding treaty that will stop the transfer of arms and ammunition. The campaign emphasises that domestic regulations have failed to adapt to increasing globalisation of the arms trade since different parts of weapons are produced in different places and transferred to other countries to be assembled. Control Arms is calling for a "bulletproof" Arms Trade Treaty that would hold governments accountable for illegal arms transfers. www.controlarms.org

A form of inter-personal violence, bullying is one of the forms of violence that affects young people and is often not considered as a form of violence. Bullying refers to aggressive behaviour which is repeated and intends to hurt someone. It can take the form of physical, psychological or verbal aggression. It can take place in any situation where human beings interact, be it at school, at the workplace or any other social place.  Bullying can be direct, confronting a person face-to-face, or indirect by spreading rumours or harming someone over the Internet, for example. Although it is difficult to have clear statistics, research shows that bullying is an increasing problem. Victims often do not dare to speak out, and it is therefore extremely difficult to identify and support victims of bullying.

Is corporal punishment legitimate?

Corporal punishment is the most widespread form of violence against children and is a violation of their human rights. In the past, some argued that smacking was a harmless form of punishment which enabled parents to educate their children, whereas others considered it a violent form of physical punishment. The Council of Europe campaign Raise Your Hand Against Smacking provoked strong debates in Member States, and took a human rights stand against this practice.

Gender-based violence

More information about gender and gender-based violence, can be found in the section on Gender, in chapter 5, and in the manual Gender Matters, www.coe.int/compass

While male-dominated societies often justify small arms possession through the alleged need to protect vulnerable women, women actually face greater danger of violence when their families and communities are armed. Barbara Frey 6

Gender-based violence is one of the most frequent forms of structural and cultural violence. It is present in every society and its consequences affect virtually all human beings. According to the UNFPA, gender-based violence "both reflects and reinforces inequities between men and women and compromises the health, dignity, security and autonomy of its victims. It encompasses a wide range of human rights violations, including sexual abuse of children, rape, domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment, trafficking of women and girls and several harmful traditional practices. Any one of these abuses can leave deep psychological scars, damage the health of women and girls in general, including their reproductive and sexual health, and in some instances, results in death" 5 . Gender-based violence does not have to be physical. In fact, young people suffer much verbal violence, especially targeted at LGBT (young) people and girls.

Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels. Article 1 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders

In situations of conflict, women become particularly vulnerable and new forms of violence against women emerge. These can range from mass rape to forced sexual assaults, forced pregnancy, or sexual slavery. The polarisation of gender roles during armed conflicts is increased, women thus being seen as objects of war and territories to be conquered.

Violence Against Human Rights Defenders

Useful information for human rights defenders: www.frontlinedefenders.org/ www.amnesty.org/en/human-rights-defenders www.ohchr.org    http://www.civilrightsdefenders.org

Investigating, reporting human rights violations and educating people about human rights and campaigning for justice can be dangerous work. Human rights defenders are people who individually, or with others, promote and protect human rights through peaceful and non-violent means. Because of their work, human rights defenders can be subjected to different types of violence, including beatings, arbitrary arrest or execution, torture, death threats, harassment and defamation, or restrictions on their freedom of expression, and association.  In 2000, the United Nations established a Special Rapporteur whose main mission is to support implementation of the 1998 Declaration on human rights defenders. The "protection" of human rights defenders includes protecting the defenders themselves and the right to defend human rights. The Special Rapporteur seeks, receives, examines and responds to information on the situation of human rights defenders, promotes the effective implementation of the Declaration and recommends strategies to protect human rights defenders. 7

Question: How free and safe is it to report or denounce human rights abuse and violations in your country?

If you look at them [conflicts] and remove the superficial levels of religion and politics, quite often it is a question of trying to access resources, trying to control those resources, and trying to decide how those resources will be shared. Wangari Maathai

The fight for resources

The possession of or control over natural resources such as water, arable land, mineral oil, metals, natural gas, and so on, have often fuelled violent conflicts throughout history. The depletion of certain resources and the shortage of others, such as water or arable land, is expected to become more widespread due to growth of consumption and climate change. This may create more regional or international tensions, potentially leading to violent conflicts.

Question: How is your country part of the competition for scarce resources?

Peace, human security and human rights

War and violence inevitably result in the denial of human rights. Building a culture of human rights is a pre-condition to achieving a state of peace. Sustainable, lasting peace and security can only be attained when all human rights are fulfilled. Building and maintaining a culture of peace is a shared challenge for humankind.

What is peace?

A culture of peace will be achieved when citizens of the world understand global problems, have the skills to resolve conflicts and struggle for justice non-violently, live by international standards of human rights and equity, appreciate cultural diversity, and respect the Earth and each other. Such learning can only be achieved with systematic education for peace. Global Campaign for Peace Education of the Hague Appeal for Peace

FIAN is an international human rights organisation that has advocated for the realisation of the right to food. www.fian.org

The above campaign statement offers a broader understanding of peace: peace means not only the lack of violent conflicts, but also the presence of justice and equity, as well as respect for human rights and for the Earth. Johan Galtung, a recognised Norwegian scholar and researcher, defined two aspects of peace. Negative peace means that there is no war, no violent conflict between states or within states. Positive peace means no war or violent conflict combined with a situation where there is equity, justice and development. The absence of war by itself does not guarantee that people do not suffer psychological violence, repression, injustice and a lack of access to their rights. Therefore, peace cannot be defined only by negative peace.

The concept of peace also has an important cultural dimension. Traditionally, for many people in the "western world", peace is generally understood to be an outside condition., while in other cultures, peace also has to do with inner peace (peace in our minds or hearts). In the Maya tradition, for example, peace refers to the concept of welfare; it is linked to the idea of a perfect balance between the different areas of our lives. Peace, therefore, is to be seen as both internal and external processes which affect us.

Human security

A concept closely related to peace and violence is human security, which recognises the interrelation between violence and deprivation of all kinds. It concerns the protection of individuals and communities from both the direct threat of physical violence and the indirect threats that result from poverty and other forms of social, economic or political inequalities, as well as natural disasters and disease. A country may not be under threat of external attack or internal conflict but still be insecure if, for example, it lacks the capacity to maintain the rule of law, if large populations are displaced by famine or decimated by disease or if its people lack the basic necessities of survival and access to their human rights.

Human security furthers human rights because it addresses situations that gravely threaten human rights and supports the development of systems that give people the building blocks of survival, dignity and essential freedoms: freedom from want, freedom from fear and freedom to take action on one's own behalf. It uses two general strategies to accomplish this: protection and empowerment. Protection shields people from direct dangers, but also seeks to develop norms, processes and institutions that maintain security. Empowerment enables people to develop their potential and become full participants in decision making. Protection and empowerment are mutually reinforcing, and both are required.

Question: How does insecurity affect the young people with whom you work?

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015 recognise the important role of security for development. SDG 16, sometimes shortened to “Peace and Justice” is to “promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”. There are 10 targets, for instance 16.1 to reduce all forms of violence, 16.2 end abuse and all forms of violence against and torture of children. The full list of targets is  in the further information section of the activity, “How much do we need?”.

The linkages between SDG 16 and human rights are:

• Right to life, liberty and security of the person [UDHR art. 3; ICCPR arts. 6(1), 9(1);
• ICPED art. 1] including freedom from torture [UDHR art. 5; ICCPR art. 7; CAT art. 2; CRC art. 37(a)]
• Protection of children from all forms of violence, abuse or exploitation [CRC arts. 19, 37(a)), including trafficking (CRC arts. 34-36; CRC–OP1)]
• Right to access to justice and due process [UDHR arts. 8, 10; ICCPR arts. 2(3), 14-15; CEDAW art. 2(c)]
• Right to legal personality [UDHR art. 6; ICCPR art. 16; CRPD art. 12]
• Right to participate in public affairs [UDHR art. 21; ICCPR art. 25]
• Right to access to information [UDHR art. 19; ICCPR art. 19(1)] (www.ohchr.org)

Peace as a human right

Peace is a way of living together so that all members of society can accomplish their human rights. It is as an essential element to the realisation of all human rights. Peace is a product of human rights: the more a society promotes, protects and fulfils the human rights of its people, the greater its chances for curbing violence and resolving conflicts peacefully. However, peace is also increasingly being recognised as a human right itself, as an emerging human right or part of the so-called solidarity rights.

Non-violence is the supreme law of life. Indian proverb

All peoples shall have the right to national and international peace and security. African Charter on Human and People's Rights, Article 23

The connection between international human rights and the right to peace is very strong, notably because the absence of peace leads to so many violations of human rights. The UDHR recognises, for example, the right to security and freedom (Article 3); prohibits torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 5), and calls for an international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in the declaration can be fully realised (Article 28).  The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits propaganda for war as well as "advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" (Article 20). The right to peace is also codified in some regional documents such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and the Asian Human Rights Charter. The creation of the Council of Europe was itself based on the conviction that "the pursuit of peace based upon justice and international co-operation is vital for the preservation of human society and civilisation".

The right to peace in UN Human Rights Council "The Human Rights Council … 1.  Reaffirms that the peoples of our planet have a sacred right to peace; 2.  Also reaffirms that the preservation of the right of peoples to peace and the promotion of its implementation constitute a fundamental obliga- tion of all States; 3.  Stresses the importance of peace for the promotion and protection of all human rights for all; 4.  Also stresses that the deep fault line that divides human society between the rich and the poor and the ever-increasing gap between the de- veloped world and the developing world pose a major threat to global prosperity, peace, human rights, security and stability; 5.  Further stresses that peace and security, development and human rights are the pillars of the United Nations system and the foundations for collective security and well-being; …" 11

The opposite of violence isn't non-violence, it's power. When one has moral power, power of conviction, the power to do good, one doesn't need violence. 9 Nelsa Libertad Curbelo 10

Human security is a child who did not die, a disease that did not spread, a job that was not cut, an ethnic tension that did not explode in violence, a dissident who was not silenced. Human security is not a concern with weapons – it is a concern with human life and dignity. Human Development Report, 1994

The Santiago Declaration on the Human Right to Peace, adopted in 2010 by The International Congress on the Human Right to Peace, is one of the most elaborate documents on peace as a human right.  The declaration recognises individuals, groups, peoples and all humankind as holders of the "inalienable right to a just, sustainable and lasting peace" (Art. 1) and "States, individually, jointly or as part of multilateral organisations", as the principal duty holders of the human right to peace". The declaration also calls for the right to education "on and for peace and all other human rights" as a component of the right to peace because "education and socialization for peace is a condition sine qua non for unlearning war and building identities disentangled from violence". The right to human security and the right to live in a safe and healthy environment, "including freedom from fear and from want" are also put forward as elements of "positive peace". Other dimensions of the right to peace are the right to disobedience and conscientious objection, the right to resist and oppose oppression and the right to disarmament. The declaration also devotes a specific article to the rights of victims, including their right to seek justice and a breakdown of the obligations entailed in the human right to peace.

Question: In practice, what does the human right to peace mean for you?

Legitimate (state) violence

Not all violence is illegal or illegitimate. Violent acts are sometimes necessary in order to protect the human rights of other people. I may have to use violence for self-defence; I expect a policeman to use, in extreme cases, some kind of violence to protect me or my family from violence from other people. My human right to security implies that the state and its agents protect me from violence. A human rights framework implies that violent actions by state or public agents is justified (and sometimes required), provided that it is organised and enacted within a human rights framework, including respect for the rights of the victim.

All persons have a right to peace so that they can fully develop all their capacities, physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual, without being the target of any kind of violence. Asian Human Rights Charter, 1998, paragraph 4.1

This raises questions about the primacy of some human rights over others: the right to life is a clear human right, and still in many cases, human beings are being punished violently or killed, as a consequence of their acts. Examples from throughout history illustrate how civil movements have brought about change and better access to people's human rights. However, peaceful movements are often suppressed by violent police or army action. Repressing people's right to freedom of expression and association. The "Arab Spring" movements initiated in 2011 showed how youth in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries gathered and peacefully reclaimed their human rights, but were violently attacked and put into detention by state armed forces, many losing their lives.

Question: When is armed intervention by policy justified?

Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough to eat. It is not the characteristic of there not being enough to eat. Amartya Sen

From a human rights perspective, the deprivation of the liberty of a person as a consequence of a criminal offence does not take away their inherent humanity. This is why the measures taken by the state against people who have acted violently against others must not be arbitrary, must respect their inherent dignity, and must protect these persons against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. One of the aims of detention is the social rehabilitation of prisoners.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. Ghandi

The rule of law and protection of human rights and freedoms are crucial safeguards for an effective and just criminal justice system. Yet, while protecting the innocent 12 , custody and imprisonment are often also, unfortunately, the places where human rights violations appear. According to human rights standards, in particular the Convention on the Rights of the Child, specific rehabilitation mechanisms must be put in place for young offenders, such as "laws, procedures, authorities and institutions specifically applicable to children alleged as, accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law" (Art. 40). This, however, is not always the case. According to Penal Reform International, the way authorities deal with young offenders can often lead to long-term physical and psychological ill-health. For example, exposure to violent behaviour in detention and separation from families and community may undermine the idea of rehabilitation and push them further into criminal activities. Based on the UNICEF estimates, today there are more than one million children in detention worldwide.

Question: Can imprisonment be an effective way to rehabilitate and educate children and young people who have committed a criminal offence?

Death penalty

The death penalty is forbidden by the European Convention on Human Rights as well as in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Protocol 1). Outlawing the death penalty does not justify human rights violations. It is also based on the belief that violence cannot be fought with more violence. The outlawing of the death penalty is also a statement about the infallibility of justice: history shows that judicial mistakes are always possible and that there is the risk that the wrong person may be executed. However, the outlawing of the death penalty is also a testament to the belief of the right to life and dignity - and to a fair trial.

Penal Reform International is an international non-governmental organisation working on penal and criminal justice reform worldwide. www.penalreform.org

In 2011, 1,923 people in 63 countries were known to have been sentenced to death and 676 executions were known to have been carried out in 20 countries. However, the 676 figure does not include the perhaps thousands of people that Amnesty International estimates have been executed in China. 13    Belarus is the only country in Europe that in 2012 still carried out executions. According to Amnesty International, prisoners on death row in Belarus are told that they will be executed only minutes before the sentence is carried out. They are executed by a shot to the back of the head. The family members are informed only after execution, and the place of burial is kept in secret.

Young people and a culture of peace

Conflict transformation, reconciliation, peace education, and remembrance are part of the actions that carry the hope for a life free from violence and for a culture of peace. We have to learn from the past and make efforts to avoid the reoccurrence of terrible events against humanity which previous generations lived through. There are still local wars and armed conflicts in some places of the world. It is comforting to know that we are not defenceless and that we have tools to eliminate violence. Young people play an important role in this change.

Only societies based on democracy, the rule of law and human rights can provide sustainable long-term stability and peace. Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe

The Council of Europe works to promote social justice, and to avoid the escalation of violent conflicts and prevent wars and terrorist activities. The organisation encourages political leaders and civil society to build and nourish a culture of peace instead of a culture of violence and it raises awareness of the cost of violence, the perspectives of a peaceful future, the importance of democracy and democratic skills, as well as promoting humanism, human dignity, freedom and solidarity.

The Council of Europe's youth sector has over 40 years of experience in working on intercultural learning, conflict transformation and human rights education. The adoption by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe of the White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue "Living Together as Equals in Dignity", confirmed the political relevance of these approaches, and emphasised the need for dialogue between cultures for the development and safeguarding of peaceful societies.

Meet your own prejudice! Instead of talking about it, simply meet it. The Living Library Organiser's Guide 14

The 7th Conference of European Ministers responsible for Youth (Budapest, 2005) was devoted to youth policy responses to violence. In the final declaration, the ministers agreed, amongst others, on the importance of taking stock of all forms of violence and of their impact on people, on the need to develop violence-prevention strategies and to recognise young people as actors in violence prevention, "whilst raising their sense of responsibility and actively promoting their participation and co-operation" in this domain. The declaration also recognises human rights education as containing an essential dimension of violence prevention. The ministerial conference was the culmination of a project against violence in daily life which resulted in various educational instruments and initiatives to prevent and address violence, such as the manual for Living Library organisers.

As peace ambassadors we should become the eyes and ears of the Coun-cil of Europe in our countries and in Europe. Zlata Kharitonova, participant in Youth Peace Ambassadors

The youth sector of the Council of Europe has also initiated and supported youth-led projects addressing conflict and promoting peace education. The Youth Peace Camp has been running since 2004, and brings together young people from different conflicting areas to engage in dialogue on the understanding that they share common values and experiences, often very painful ones. The programme helps youth leaders to recognise and address prejudice, combating aggressive and exclusive forms of nationalism, and implementing intercultural learning and human rights education. For some of the participants this is the first time in their lives that they have talked face-to-face with young people from "the other side". The camp is now held annually at the European Youth Centre and occasionally in member states.

Multiplying peace education After the Youth Peace Camp 2011, six Israeli and Palestinian participants decided to keep meeting on the cease fire or so-called "green line". Every month other young people from both sides join the afternoon meeting, which includes discussions, sharing personal stories and having fun. As a joint group they engage in community work on both sides of the line, each time in a different community on a different side, always in a community affected somehow by the ongoing conflict.

The Youth Peace Ambassadors project, initiated in 2011, engages youth leaders in specific grassroots level peace education projects with young people, aiming at transforming conflict situations in their realities. The project is built on a network of specifically trained young people who strengthen the presence and promote the values of the Council of Europe in conflict-affected areas and communities.

Undoing Hate In the last two years, the streets of Prijepolje, a multicultural town in Serbia, became surrounded by "wrong" graffiti, filled with hate speech towards foreigners and people with different religions (Muslim and Orthodox). Most of the graffiti is written by boys from 2 different hooligan groups. My project brings together 10 boys, aged 14 – 18, from both a hooligan group and ethnic/religious minorities, who will redecorate the town by using graffiti to undo the hate graffiti which was put up in various places. While doing so, a peace-building documentary will be filmed. This project should help to create a strong basis for peace building, mutual understanding and tolerance. Edo Sadikovic, JUMP organisation, Serbia (Youth Peace Ambassador's project)

Networks for peace

The following are some examples to consider the variety, seriousness and creativity of peace builders and human rights defenders.

Combatants for Peace – is a movement which was started jointly by Palestinians and Israelis who have taken an active part in the cycle of violence and now fight for peace.

Search for Common Ground implements conflict-transformation programmes.

Responding to Conflict   provides training for conflict transformation. Inspiring examples of and study notes for conducting training can be found on their website.

The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict is a global network seeking a new international consensus on moving from reaction to prevention of violent conflict.

The United Network of Young Peacebuilders is a network of youth-led organisations working towards establishing peaceful societies.

1 World report on violence and health, WHO 2002, Geneva p 5: http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2002/9241545615.pdf 2 www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/en/ 3 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI):  www.sipri.se 4 http://controlarms.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/killer_facts_en.pdf   5 www.unfpa.org/gender/violence.htm 6 Progress report of Barbara Frey, UN Special Rapporteur, "Prevention of human rights violations committed with small arms and light weapons", UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2004/37, 21 June 2004, para 50  7 Source: www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/SRHRDefenders/ 8 Evans, A., Resource scarcity, fair shares and development, WWF / Oxfam, Discussion paper, 2011   9 From the film Barrio De Paz 10 Nelsa Libertad Curbelo is a former nun and street gang mediator in Ecuador 11 UN General Asembly, 15 July 2011, Document A/HRC/RES/1/7/16 of the Human Rights Council 12 Based on the UK criminal Justice systems aims, see: http://ybtj.justice.gov.uk/ 13 Amnesty International death penalty statistics 14 Don't judge a book by its cover – the Living Library Organiser's Guide, Abergel R. et al, Council of Europe Publishing, 2005

Download Compass  

• Violence: Concepts and examples
• 12 February Red Hand Day
• 21 March International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
• 15 May International Day of Conscientious Objection
• 29 May International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers
• 4 June International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression
• 26 June United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
• 6 August Hiroshima Day
• 21 September International Day of Peace
• 2 October International Day of Non-Violence
• 10 October World Day Against the Death Penalty
• 24-30 October Disarmament Week
• 9 November International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism
• 11 November International Day of Science and Peace
• 25 November International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
• 2 December International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

What you need to know about UNESCO’s Recommendation on Education for Peace

(Reposted from: UNESCO. November 24, 2023 )

What is the Recommendation about?

The  Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development  is a non-binding guidance document that focuses on how teaching and learning should evolve in the 21 st  century to bring about lasting peace, reaffirm human rights and promote sustainable development in the face of contemporary threats and challenges. 

It acknowledges that education in all its forms and dimensions, in and out of schools, shapes how we see the world and treat others, and it can, and should, be a pathway to constructing lasting peace. The Recommendation logically links different thematic areas and issues, from digital technologies and climate change to gender issues and fundamental freedoms. It indicates that positive transformations are needed in all these domains because education cuts across all of them, being both impacted by all these factors and influencing them. To realize these ambitions, this text outlines what exactly needs to change in approaches to education and how. 

The newly  adopted  text updates the “ 1974 ” Recommendation that almost 50 years ago  united  Member States in positioning education as a key driver of peace and international understanding. For the past two years, UNESCO  has been revising  this visionary tool.

What is unique about the Recommendation?

• It outlines  14 guiding principles, concrete learning outcomes and priority action areas  for holistically reshaping all aspects of education systems, from laws and policies to curricula development, teaching practices, learning environments and assessment. For example, it highlights that beyond critical literacy and numeracy skills, learners should acquire competencies like empathy, critical thinking, intercultural understanding and environmental stewardship.
• It covers educational activities in  all settings and at all levels, and throughout life , connecting the dots between areas that have not been previously considered together. For example, the nexus between learners’ physical and mental health and their ability to access and attain education, the impact of climate change on the education system, as well as knowledge gained outside the classroom. 
• It applies to  all education stakeholders  – from policy-makers and teachers to informal educators and tradition-bearers – as a baseline to transform their policies, practices and approaches to build empathetic and inclusive learners. For example, using this document, teachers can see how to adapt their lesson plans to integrate specific topics and activities, or local community leaders can advocate for specific changes in policies and curricula. 

What are the highlights of the Recommendation?

• New understanding of peace

Peace in the 21st century is not just the absence of violence and conflicts. It is also a positive, participatory, and dynamic process that nurtures our ability to value human dignity and take care of ourselves, each other, and the planet we share. 

• Education for sustainable development 

Education systems need to effectively improve their resilience to climate-driven crises and deal with their repercussions.  Fostering knowledge  about the root causes of climate change, its impact, and ways to adapt and mitigate while not causing further damage to the planet is needed for individuals to make informed decisions and work towards creating a more sustainable society.

• Global citizenship education

The new text states that promoting the philosophy, principles, and components of  global citizenship education  is essential to preparing learners that value human dignity, cooperation and dialogue. This may encompass teaching and learning about the impact of past and current events and conflicts, exploring economic, social, and political linkages between countries and societies, and nurturing empathy and respect for the diversity of cultures and opinions.

• Gender equality and education

Women still account for almost two-thirds of all adults unable to read, and girls often cannot fully enjoy their right to participate in, complete, and benefit from education. Promoting  gender equality  and acknowledging its importance for realizing the right to education for all is one of the Recommendation’s guiding principles, reflecting UNESCO’s global priority.

• Education in the digital era

In an age where information is abundant, diverse, and easily accessible,  media and information literacy , and digital skills are tools educators and learners need to navigate the world. The Recommendation underscores the challenges of misinformation and hate speech, as well as the opportunities of new technologies for teaching and learning. It highlights the importance of critical thinking, empathy, and understanding of key principles of digital security, privacy, and ethical online interactions.

Why is the adoption of the Recommendation so timely?

There are new challenges and threats to human rights and international understanding that require new approaches to education. The legal landscape has transformed, too: over the past 50 years, the international community has developed a robust set of agreements and frameworks to promote peace and prevent violence. New research and data have also enriched the development of effective policies and monitoring of their impact.

The new Recommendation is inspired by the “ Futures of Education ” report that highlighted the need for a more relevant and forward-looking vision for teaching, learning, and innovating. It brings education with the times, considering how the world has changed and will continue to evolve in the decades to come. 

How will we know the real impact of the Recommendation?

The “1974” Recommendation, predecessor of the current text, has been found to have triggered a wide range of initiatives all over the world. These initiatives include introducing new course content into curricula and teacher training, utilizing new teaching methods such as learner-centered and participatory approaches, creating new institutions, and developing exchange programs.

Member States will submit reports on implementing the new Recommendation to the UNESCO  Executive Board  – its governing body, every four years. This report will then be analyzed, transmitted to the General Conference, and shared with other specialized agencies. It demonstrates their commitment to international solidarity and helps monitor their progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4,  target 4.7 .

What is the next step?

Now that Member States have adopted the Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development, UNESCO will support countries in translating these ideas into action at the local, national, and international levels. 

• Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development
• Text of the 1974 Recommendation
• Revision of the 1974 Recommendation
• UNESCO’s work in global citizenship education

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Characteristics of Human Rights

Rights can be put into three categories:.

Pacifist feminism

Reflections on Peace Education

Alicia Cabezudo International Association of Educators for Peace

Education for peace and respect for human rights is particularly important in this period, if we compare the values this education promotes with the daily violence, the horrors of war and the gradual destruction of values such as solidarity, cooperation and respect for others: all of them problems that assault us every day.

Indiscriminate persecution, massacres and ethnic cleansing are difficult to explain when our shocked and surprised students ask us about them; perhaps they are even incomprehensible in the context of education. It is harder still to clarify these processes when the possible solution for acts such as these is, in fact, the continued bombing of cities and of a desperate civilian population.

We also come across extreme everyday situations when we analyse the inequality and injustice of our socio-economic surroundings and the brutal violence of our “ideal” modern societies… in which it is the state itself that attacks the population, where individualism and self interest are promoted and where whatever is considered “different” becomes “dangerous”. These are all wars, of a different type, but with the same ingredients of injustice, violence and destruction.

Here the responses of educators become drained of content and their explanations no longer work. The practice of building knowledge through research, reading, the analysis of information, interviews, genesis of conflicts, systematisation of what has been learnt, the development of critical thinking, etc, should lead us to rethink the educational model applied until now. This model is perhaps slightly naive, despite its apparent progressive pedagogical nature, and it is one with which educators ourselves have come to be unhappy.

I believe that Peace Education, although considered a transversal element in many educational curriculum models around the world, has in fact been conceived as a secondary matter. Something necessary but accidental, important but not essential, present but “absent”. A view of the curriculum which dignifies it without modifying it, without designing new alternatives for a humanitarian, ethical, civic education — something increasingly necessary in the world we live in.

Because Peace Education means developing a critical, serious and profound approach to the current situation of which we form a part and the historical epoch in which we find ourselves, an undeniable reality that does not always appear in the plans of the Ministries, of educational institutions nor of many principals and teachers.

Peace Education has been conceived as a secondary matter; something necessary but accidental, important but not essential, present but “absent”

“Peace is not defined only by the absence of war and conflict, it is also a dynamic concept that needs to be grasped in positive terms, such as the presence of social justice and harmony, the possibility for human beings to fully realise their potential and respect for their right to live with dignity throughout their lives. Sustainable human development is not possible without peace. And without just, equitable, ongoing planning, peace cannot be maintained.” 1

These concepts, particularly relevant in the context of the analysis we are currently trying to develop, should influence all imaginable pedagogical proposals for Peace Education, giving it a multidimensional character, able to reach into different areas.

We are witnessing today a reworking of our models and our vocabularies and we understand that there are major changes in the concept of peace, above all as it relates to the opposite term, “war”. This conceptual modification should be integrated, along with the methodology for teaching it, into the learning of teachers and students.

Indeed, after many years the idea of peace has evolved and a broader and more complex understanding of it now relates it to the concepts of fairness, justice, respect for human rights, the rights of peoples and tolerance. Alongside this process, teaching practices in Peace Education have also been modified, taking on a clear commitment to the principles of democratic participation along with the implementation of educational activities which include issues of nonviolence and conflict transformation by peaceful means, with a view to building a more compassionate, juster and fairer society.

Peace, as an individual, social, national and international value must be analysed in depth from an interdisciplinary and multidimensional perspective

Armed conflicts in other parts of the world now make us more open to a cognitive, systematic and up to date treatment of the miseries and cruelties of war and also to the analysis of its terrible consequences, using the multiple resources that the media allow us, bringing it closer to us. Peace, as an individual, social, national and international value must be tested and analysed in depth from an interdisciplinary and multidimensional perspective.

The geographical and historical treatment of the subject is necessary but not sufficient. Concepts and issues such as nationalism, sovereignty and the state; the role of the UN in the world of today; the reality of different ethnicities and their complicated coexistence; intercultural dialogue; solutions and disagreements within conflicts; the situation of refugees and their terrible defencelessness before the attacks of “friends” and enemies; crime related to drugs and prostitution; the dangers of nuclear war; the arms race and the arms trade as a profitable global business are urgent and important issues.

All of these issues desperately need to be the subject of reflection, debate, research and criticism by both teachers and students in an ongoing exercise of deepening knowledge, developed both individually and collectively on the basis of obtaining information from many sources, promoting the exchange of different opinions, developing critical judgment and the respect for diversity 2 .

But even this is not enough if we isolate the international problems that distress us so much from the everyday “wars” of the society in which we live. Marginalisation, social exclusion, violence and persecution are not things that we can only find in news reports about Mexico, Colombia, Syria, Crimea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan…

An obligatory task of education is to link direct open conflicts with those “wars” which have other features

There are other “wars” much closer to home, right next to us. Social inequality, lack of vital resources for much of the population, unemployment and poverty create hopelessness and distrust of democratically elected governments. Authoritarian mechanisms, the control of information, crimes, delinquency and impunity are part of our political life.

In this sense, war is not so far away… and not only because of the globalisation of the arms trade or the information that we receive from the transnational media. It is a daily war to survive in terrible conditions of housing and health, of education and employment, of the insufficiency of essential public services and insecurity, with basic inherent principles of human dignity being trampled on every day in many countries and continents.

It is an obligatory task of education to link these two aspects: the direct open conflicts with those “wars” which have other features but are no less intense. Only through a comprehensive analysis of the roots of violence, its characteristics, forms and consequences can we make it possible to achieve a critical reflection, at the levels of both the individual and society, so as to generate possible changes that may lead towards a lasting peace in today’s world.

This is the great educational challenge for the coming years and for our pedagogical work in the field of Peace Education.Let us dare to face up to it.

1. Iglesias Díaz, Calo (2007). Educar pacificando: Una pedagogia de los conflictos , 1ª edición, Madrid, Fundación Cultura de Paz Editorial.

2 Bazán Campos, Domigo (2008). El oficio de pedagogo. Aportes para la construcción de una pràctica reflexiva en la escuela , Rosario, Argentina, Ed. Homo Sapiens.

Photography : United Nations Development Programme in Europe and CIS / CC BY / Desaturada. – Kids celebrate peace, friendship and tolerance on United Nations day –

© Generalitat de Catalunya

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The role of women in peace research, transversal politics: a practice of peace, always disobedient, neither a destructive war nor an oppressive peace, first international congress of women, la haya, 1915, materials and resources recommended by the icip, islamic state and the kurds, new heavyweight players in the middle east, news, activities and publications about the icip, interview with adilia caravaca, president of wilpf.

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Human Rights and Peace Education: Tools of Reconciliation

2021, HUMAN RIGHTS: A SPECTRUM OF PERSPECTIVES, Jai Kisan Bhardwaj & Tripty Choudhary (Ed.s), ISBN: 978 93 87916 95 1, V L Media, New Delhi, pp 11-22

The paper looks at the ways how peace education can help in the cause of human rights protection and reconciliation of differences that are often the case of multiethnic societies and also for interethnic relations.

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Part 1: Analytical Review of Existing Data, Policies, Reports and Legal Frameworks Part 2: Gender Analysis of the Role of Security Organs in Prevention and Response Part 3: Security Organs’ Action Plan This Africa Region Security Organs Capacity Building Workshop on Violence Against Women and Girls: Prevention, Response and Peacekeeping, was held in Rwanda, already a continental leader in the field, and strategies of police, army and correction agencies from several African nations were shared.

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Introduction What some practitioners call education for democracy, civic education, tolerance education, or human rights education, are all ultimately education for the creation of a culture of peace. In fact, all of these are necessary ingredients for peace. Peace education has always been concerned with understanding the root causes of all forms of violence and their subsequent eradication. Democracy, human rights and peace remain central to our practice and fundamental to our goals for education. Certainly, in the wake of the World Trade Center tragedy--and its global repercussions--some may ask the question of whether there is any potential for peace. What is certain however is that a "quick-fix" solution, or a pre-packaged "tool," imposed either locally or globally, which fails to account for specific contexts will not work. Rather, what is necessary is a paradigm shift that shapes content and pedagogy by incorporating issues of human security, equity, justi...

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Peace defined means the absence of war. War and peace have always been not only military but also political issues advantage. Educational systems are confronted with exceptional challenges during violent conflict. During the conflict International humanitarian law is particularly important. Geneva Conventions a specific reference to protection related to education in wartime. Education peace is also related to the creation of values and skills that help students achieve fullness a life that embraces all people. Education peace relates to aid pupils to recognize many forms and causes violence and promote values and skills to live society. Peace marketing is trying to influence social behavior, change attitudes, habits, and not to the marketing person, but to the benefits of society in general. Article analyzes peace education concepts, role education in promoting peace marketing, universities peace initiative.

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Christiana Nikolitsa-Winter

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Kevin Kester

Each year the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU), operating under the auspices of UNESCO, hosts a peace education trainingof-trainer’s program for teacher-educators from across the Asia-Pacific. In this thesis, I examine through a qualitative case study approach the programmatic design and evaluation of the APCEIU training program, seeking to monitor its medium-term impact on educators. The research is framed within a larger study of peace education programs around the world. Frameworks of peace education conceptualized by Betty Reardon and Swee-hin Toh, and critical approaches to peace and development as animated by Paulo Freire and Johan Galtung, provide the theoretical foundations for the study. Research findings are based on consultation records, documentary analysis, observations, and questionnaire responses from evaluations of the 2009 program. In the medium-term impact assessment report, 14 educators offered data pertaining to their post...

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Mobilizing the global community to advance peace through education

Education is a fundamental human right and a formidable means of empowering people and societies when designed to do so.

According to a recent study conducted by UNESCO, one in four teachers do not feel ready to teach human rights and gender equality. And only about one-quarter of teachers can explain well how to protect and support human rights.

Ensuring education genuinely prepares learners to become active and engaged in the promotion of peaceful and just societies requires more sustained attention. It also requires well prepared and motivated teachers and educators, inclusive school policies, youth participation and innovative pedagogies, among other measures.

To help countries transform their education systems with this objective in mind, UNESCO is revising one of its landmark normative instruments entitled the Recommendation concerning education for international understanding, co-operation and peace and education for human rights and fundamental freedoms , also known as the 1974 Recommendation.

In September 2022, the first draft of the revised Recommendation was sent to UNESCO’s Member States, drawing increased attention to the instrument and its potential impact.

UNESCO Chairs focusing on Global Citizenship Education and related areas, met in Paris in the margins of the 30th anniversary celebration of the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs Programme (November 2022) to discuss joint areas of interest and the 1974 Recommendation. They expressed strong support for revising the instrument and engaged in a fruitful dialogue to identify strategic activities that would help operationalize global citizenship education, including strengthening the link between education and culture and mother tongue education in curricula, train teachers on violent pasts, consult and involve more students.

A session dedicated to the revision of the 1974 Recommendation also took place in the framework of the 7th International Conference on Global Citizenship Education:  Platform on Pedagogy and Practice; GCED in the Face of Digital Transformation that Connects and Divides , organized by the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU) on 4 November 2022. The event helped to raise awareness of the relevance of the revised instrument and its contribution to building peace around the world, acting as a tool to inspire, guide and motivate different stakeholders working in the educational domain.

Among the panelists, H.H. Khondker Mohammad Talha, Ambassador, Permanent Delegation of Bangladesh to UNESCO and Ama Serwah Nerquaye Tetteh, Secretary-General, Ghana National Commission for UNESCO reaffirmed their commitment to take forward the revised Recommendation, including through the ongoing updating of national curricula and strengthening the monitoring framework to support the design and implementation of effective educational policies.

H.H. Khondker Mohammad Talha notably stressed the importance of rights and responsibilities, which is a core principle of the human rights-based approach that underpins the revised text and should be reinforced.

Professor Daehoon Jho, Department of Social Studies Education, College of Education, Sungshin Women’s University, Republic of Korea, underlined that the principles and concepts of the 1974 Recommendation were integrated in the national curricula, and the adoption of the revised recommendation will provide a unique opportunity to further strengthen these efforts.

The panelists also stressed the importance of consulting and involving civil society in the revision and implementation processes. Rilli Lappalainen, Founder and Chair of Bridge 47, President of CONCORD Europe insisted on the need to mobilize financial as well as human resources on the ground to concretely apply the principles of the revised recommendation.

The revised 1974 Recommendation remains “an inspirational and aspirational document”, as stated by Ms Nerquaye, and should continue to be going forward in order to ensure education truly instills in learners the knowledge and understanding of local, national, and global issues and a sense of belonging to a common humanity.

UNESCO will continue to promote this important work through outreach activities and events and mobilize Member States to ensure that the instrument is better known, understood and used.

Resources :

• Resolution 17 of UNESCO's General Conference 41st session on the revision of the 1974 Recommendation
• First draft of the revised 1974 Recommendation and Preliminary report (CL/4401)
• More on the Revision of the 1974 Recommendation
• Launch of formal consultations with Member States
• Multi-stakeholder consultations

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CIAO DATE: 11/00

Peace and/or Human Rights?

Zlatko Isakovic *

Copenhagen Peace Research Institute

The aim of this address is to elaborate options and actual and possible implications of the dilemma: does the world need both peace and respect for human rights or just one of them? It seems that a theoretical effort aimed to answering this question requires previous, at least short, elaboration of the existing conceptions and structures of both peace and human rights as well as some other related phenomena.

One of the starting points of theories on peace was the attitude that force is imminent to society in its early stages, and that it could and should be eliminated by the development of culture and legal institutions, systems, etc., since it represents a threat to social life. This provided the basis for the theory launched by Jonathan Dymond and Richard Cobden in the nineteenth century. Dymond considered that war, like the slave trade, would disappear if people began questioning its purpose and refused to give in. It was useless to distinguish between unjust and just, defensive and aggressive wars. The second author believed that removing barrier to free trade was the unique means for lasting peace (more details see Chan, 1984: 108–13; Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff, 1990: 199–200: Isakovic, 2000: 144-145).

As the twentieth century brought the eruption of wars, the pacifists have been rejecting force as a means or way to ‘resolve’ conflicts, considering that its use only underline the disputes preventing settling the problems and reproducing itself. They urge replacing force by non-violent resistance (giving a significant role to persuasion). These ideas were at least partially implemented by Mahatma Gandhi, who - among other efforts - set mass of citizens of his country the example of disobedience to the British authorities by rallies, demonstrations and by boycotting British products until 1947, when his country became independent (see Merton, 1965). A US black human rights activist Martin Luther King applied an at least similar tactics. The similarities of means (non-violent resistance) and goals (advocating human rights) utilised by these two activists show the links between peace and human rights. In addition, both of the men were assassinated. For Galtung, “Gandhi is a rich source of creative and non-violent inspiration for the theory and practice of both sides of conflict” (1997).

Peace studies or research become an academic multi-disciplinary discipline in the last four decades only. Its main theoretical sources and streams are:

Peace research or study is focused on organized violence in conflicts between human beings, at the first place primarily on obvious cases of consciously used and instrumental violence.

Dimitrijevic and Stojanovic maintain that peace is not more than an international instrumental value; the researcher’s obligation is to define peace, and not something else that one would like to achieve by peace (1988: 290). According to Galtung, however, peace researchers should never hope to reach a final conclusion on the possible meaning of “peace” as in that moment the basis would be established for their research and practice’s ossification and for the creation of a technocratic orientation in peace producing. The main duty would be to discover the anti-peace’s manifestations in the light of culture and structure, which should lead to a new Theory of International Relations, which viewes world politics as broader than just politics between states. Peace research was also in need of a general peace and conflict theory and critical research (that should be used for prognosis too), constructivism, or visioning. The abolition of war as a social institution should be the goal of peace research (more details see 1988: 246–57; Malhotra and Sergounin, 1998: 477–80; Isakovic, 2000: 149). Many scholars propose developing peace education in order to fight violence. Galtung considers “a major focus of peace education is to enable and empower people to handle conflicts more creatively and less violently” (1997).

To understand peace and violence one needs to consider basic human needs - for survival, freedom, well-being, and identity. “Development aims to promote those needs: violence insults them: peace preserves them” (Galtung, 1997).

The same author considers “there are three types of violence and hence three types of peace: direct, structural and cultural. Direct violence insults human needs with the deliberate intention to hurt and harm; structural violence does so more indirectly. Cultural violence is symbolic and refers to those aspects of our cultures that are used to legitimize direct or structural violence”. These three notions have their dialectic negations - direct, structural and cultural peace. It is senseless to focus on only one of them (Galtung, 1997; compare Naidu, 2000).

Galtung stresses “conflict is part of a double, yin/yang totality: both Creator and Destroyer.” He considers “deep inside a conflict there are one or more contradictions or incompatibilities. When handled creatively they can be the driving force of human social and moral development” (1997).

Wiberg holds that “recognizing conflict behaviour is no major intellectual challenge: behaviour is by definition visible, and ‘conflict behaviour’ may rather uncontroversially be defined as ‘behaviour designed to deprive the other party of value’”. The values may be life, physical or mental health, self-esteem, freedom, social status, welfare, etc. The essential assumption is that one recognizes hostile behaviour when one sees it, at least when it is directed against ourselves (it could be more difficult when one looks at a foreign culture, having some different values). The major controversy, however, has to do with the relations between effects and intentions in conceptualizing the term “violence”. There is the narrow empirical concept of “direct violence” (which is the normal sense in everyday language) and the Galtung’s theoretical concept of “structural violence”, “which is there to the extent that people die or suffer serious harm unnecessarily: as a consequence of distribution of resources rather than overall scarcity. Empirical assessment must compare, e.g., actual mortality and what it would have been under certain assumptions.” While an empirical methodology and empirical studies has been made, it is concluded that “the concept remains highly controversial, on political, philosophical, and empirical grounds”. Wiberg attempted no final verdict (1998).

2. Human Rights

Values are considered a major issue in peace research as well as in theory of human rights as one can say that their interests are not focused just on understanding violence but also on contributing to the human condition’s improvement (for peace research see Malhotra and Sergounin, 1998: 463; Wallensteen, 1988: 9).

There are at least five other groups of to some degree controversial and open questions related to definitions of human rights.

• There is the disputable distinction between “nonessential” and “fundamental” human rights, which include a single core (consisting of, for instance, the right to equal freedom of opportunity or the right to life).
• Human rights could be observed as group and/or individual demands for the sharing and shaping power, enlightenment, wealth, and other values, “most fundamentally the value of respect and its constituent elements of reciprocal tolerance and mutual forebearance in the pursuit of all other values.” Thus, they imply claims against persons and/or institutions. “At bottom, human rights limit state power”.
• Many considerations of human rights stress that they are “qualified by the limitation that the rights of any particular individual or group in any particular instance are restricted as much as is necessary to secure the comparable rights of others and the aggregate common interest. Given this interdependency, human rights are sometimes designated prima facie rights, and it makes little or no sense to think or talk of them in absolutist terms”. However, sometimes it is hard to determine in which cases a right should and could be limited by the common interest and rights of others.
• It was concluded that rights determined to be human rights are quintessentially universal or general in character, i.e. equally possessed by all human beings (in some cases even the unborn) in all parts of the world. This conception is incompatible with that of “the divine right of kings” and some similar, but it is not always easy to define privilege.

Thus, there are disagreements between attitudes on human rights as (predominantly) moral, divine, or legal phenomenon, which are to be validated by custom, intuition, principles of distributive justice, social contract, etc. It is not clear whether they are (partly) (ir)revocable, (un)limited. The debate on these matters will last as long as there exist scarcities among resources and contending approaches to public order (more details see: “Human Rights”, 2000).

However, it is at least partly possible to define human rights; the definition has been changed through time and space (from the concept of “natural rights”, via “the rights of Man”, which did not necessarily include the rights of women, to the present concept and expression “human rights” which was created after the Second World War). Since that time, human rights have become universally and internationally recognised as a result of approving the treaty on establishing the United Nations in 1945 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The next important steps were made in 1976 when entered into force and effect the International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights (previously approved by the United Nnations General Assembly in 1966) (see Henkin, Neuman, Orentlicher and Leebron, 1999: 73).

French jurist Karel Vasak developed the notion of the “three generations of human rights”, which could be observed as an additional form of this phenomenon’s structure.

• The first generation are the following civil and political rights: the right to life, liberty, and the security of the person; freedom of residence and movement; to asylum from persecution; freedom from racial and equivalent forms of discrimination; freedom of opinion and its expression; freedom of peaceful association and assembly; freedom from slavery or involuntary servitude; freedom from arbitrary detention, arrest, or exile; the right to a public and fair trial; freedom from torture and from cruel, degrading, or inhuman punishment or treatment; freedom from interference in correspondence and privacy; freedom of conscience, thought, and religion; and the right to directly or indirectly participate in government; the right not to be deprived of one’s property arbitrarily; the right to own property, etc. Certain rights can be assured thanks to some affirmative government action. “What is constant in this first-generation conception, however, is the notion of liberty, a shield that safeguards the individual, alone and in association with others, against the abuse and misuse of political authority. This is the core value” (“Human Rights”, 2000; also see Henkin, Neuman, Orentlicher and Leebron, 1999: 323-324).
• The second generation includes economic, social, and cultural rights such as the right to work and to protection against unemployment; the right to social security; the right to leisure and rest; the right to education; the right to a standard of living adequate for the well-being and health of self and family; and the right to the protection of one’s literary, artistic, and scientific production. The enjoyment of certain mentioned rights do not necessarily require affirmative state action. “Nevertheless, most of the second-generation rights do necessitate state intervention in the allocation of resources because they subsume demands more for material than for intangible values according to some criterion of distributive justice. Second-generation rights are, fundamentally, claims to social equality” (“Human rights”, 2000; see also Scherrer (1999): 14; Henkin, Neuman, Orentlicher and Leebron, 1999: 321-322).

The rights of this generation tend to be posed as collective ones; each of them, however, has both collective as well as individual dimension. It is considered, “[Finally], the third generation of solidarity rights, while drawing upon, interlinking, and reconceptualizing value demands associated with the two earlier generations of rights, are best understood as a product, albeit one still in formation, of both the rise and the decline of the nation-state in the last half of the 20th century” (“Human Rights”, 2000).

3. Conclusions

Some peace researchers have a dilemma whether the present state system can provide effective future security. Within an interdependent world, in which weapons of mass destruction threaten both defeated and victors alike, self-help would not be an efficient method for providing security. One predicts a new and changed world order providing greater security, in which would be important the individual security rather than the state security. According to this vision, peace, human rights, economic welfare and environmental balance will be most successfully achieved by transnational or international institutions, and not by states (see Tickner, 1995: 187). The less the institutions are dominated by a state or a group of them the better are their chances for success.

Within this contex one can conclude, first, that it is possible that the definitions of negative and positive peace could include respect for some of the human rights elaborated in the previous segment of this text. There is the another important question could peace be observed as the mentioned “aggregate common interest” or one of such interests which limit human rights if the right to peace is not one of (internationally recognised) human rights? Moreover, war as a (very) favorable condition for gross and other violations of human rights other than the right to peace. Vice versa gross violations and breaches of human rights, which are numerous and serious in war circumstances, often lead to wars.

If one analyses the human rights belonging to the three generations, one could conclude that most of them - and particularly, for instance, the right to life and most of the other rights of the first and some of the second generation - are possible or at least easier to be implemented and respected in practice in peace time. War is in the direct contradiction with the right to peace, and one may state that particularly for aggression, as the act which triggers war (and for that reason is forbidden by the UN Charter) (more details Isakovic, 1999). At the other side, if one analyses the existing notions of peace, in many cases they seem to be hardly compatible with a disrespect for numerous of the mentioned human rights. Pursuing peace at any coast (including sacrificing of human rights) could lead to sacrificing of at least the positive peace; pursuing human rights at any coast (including sacrificing of peace) could lead to sacrificing of at least the right to peace and some fundamental human rights in mentioned meaning. However, it seems that mankind needs more peace and human rights at the same time than one by one. They are conditioned or interrelated like the two sides of the same coin, which means one cannot have one of them without having the second.

The dilemma human rights or peace can be avoided or resolved by inclusion of peace (and peace organisations and movements) within the categories of human rights (and human rights organizations and movements) or the inclusion of human rights within notions of peace.

In my opinion, if such inclusions are not acceptable for any reason, i.e. if the world needs more or less distinct notions of the two phenomena (and movements and organisations), at least in situations in which they are in relationships of collision, i.e. in relationships of conflict or incompatibility, then one must decide which one of them is more important. However, a problem could occur in finding the borderline between these two phenomena because of the tendency that they may be becoming two aspects of the same phenomenon, which the international community tends to protect in two to some degree different ways. Does any violation of one of the two phenomena or their segments represent sufficient reason for sacrificing the other phenomena or its segments?

One should add that although the general theoretical conclusion could be that people(s) should not have to choose, in real life situations there is sometimes a choice to make.

Additional dilemma could be the human rights or state sovereignty (for instance, see Møller, 1998: 3; Henkin, Neuman, Orentlicher and Leebron, 1999: 1217-1218). In the long term, the rights – supported by the process of globalization – seem to have a better chance of success. There is also the unresolved question of the price (particularly related to super and some great or continental powers) (more details: Isakovic, forthcoming: Chapter 5, Section 2).

Ottawa, June 2000

Zlatko Isakovic President Balkan Peace International Research Network http://uottawa.ca/associations/balkanpeace Visting Scholar The Balkan Teaching and Research Group The Institute of European and Russian Studies (EURUS) Carleton University Ottawa

The aim of the address has been to elaborate actual and possible implications of the dilemma: does the world need both peace and respect for human rights or just one of them? The first part of the address is devoted to presenting the main elements of the notion of peace and briefly reviewing its historical genesis, stressing the possibility that the definition of peace could include respect for (some of) the human rights.

The second part deals with the structure of human rights, particularly “third generation” human rights, which include the right to peace.

The dilemma can be avoided or resolved by inclusion of peace (and peace organisations and movements) within the categories of human rights (and human rights organizations and movements) or the inclusion of human rights within notions of peace.

In the author’s opinion, if such inclusions are not acceptable, i.e. if the world does need distinct notions (and movements and organisations), at least in situations in which they are in collision, i.e. in relationships of incompatibility, then one must decide which one of them is more important. In that case, an additional dilemma could appear: does any violation of one of the two phenomena or their segments represent sufficient reason for sacrificing the other phenomena or its segments?

Although the general theoretical conclusion could be that people(s) should not have to choose between human rights and peace, in real life situations there is sometimes a choice to make.

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SDG 4 in Dispute: Between the Right to Education and the Human Capital Agenda

• First Online: 23 August 2024

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• Andressa Camile Pellanda 3  

Part of the book series: Sustainable Development Goals Series ((SDGS))

The chapter argues that despite facing several crises and being subject to past tendencies, there was still resistance and impact from educational forces in the construction of Sustainable Development Goal 4. However, as expected, economists had a significant role in defining the terms of SDG 4 for its implementation. The first part of the analysis contextualizes the right to education in an international context, providing a meaning for educators’ defense. It then presents the battle between two education concepts and the strategies currently used to mitigate the neoliberal idea underlying the economic agenda. After contextualizing the concepts, the chapter analyzes the creation of Agenda 2030 and the general issues it seeks to address. Then, the focus narrows down to the analysis of SDG 4 from the perspective of the political dispute between the two education concepts, identifying marks in different phases and parts of the objective’s elaboration process. Afterward, it delves into key issues related to the Brazilian case, focusing on the narrowing of educational reforms that tend to emphasize standardized tests for the assessment of competencies. This discussion raises important questions about the broader implications for education in the country. Finally, the chapter presents the first signs of impact resulting from this puzzle, a result of apparently conciliatory international negotiations.

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Peace educator and activist Paul K. Chappell to speak at OSU Sept. 10

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Paul Chappell, the director of the Peace Leadership program at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, will speak on "Radical Empathy and Realistic Hope" at 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 10, at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

Chappell's focus is on the kinds of relationships between people, communities, and nations that make nuclear weapons a reality, and how we might restructure those relationships based on a better understanding of our capacity and need for empathy.

He works on what he calls "peace literacy" - a practical approach that treats peace as a skill set. He has partnered with OSU philosophy Professor Sharyn Clough to lead a team working across the U.S. and Canada to bring peace literacy to classrooms.

The peace literacy program focuses on basic concepts such as empathy, caring, trauma, healing and the human condition. It delves into why people join gangs, become white supremacists, and are driven to violence. It gives people the tools to understand this behavior and then offers a path towards peaceful change. 

"Paul Chappell is a powerful speaker with a disarmingly gentle soul," Clough said. "The peace literacy program couldn't be any more relevant to what's happening in our country right now. Part of what makes him different is that he offers hope - hope for healing."

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was part of the recent successful campaign at the United Nations to pass the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty, which passed in July, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, with the goal of leading towards their total elimination.

Chappell is a West Point graduate and veteran of the war in Iraq. He's part Korean, part black, part white, and grew up in Alabama in the 1980s. He has dealt with rage, trauma and bullying in his life and now tours the world giving workshops to people, teaching them the tools to understand and heal aggression, learn the elements of respect, and maintain empathy in difficult situations.

Chappell is also an author who has written a series of books, including his latest, "Soldiers of Peace: How to Wield the Weapon of Nonviolence with Maximum Force."

Inspired by Chappell, Clough and Linda Richards, who are co-directors of OSU's Phronesis Lab , have designed a series of lectures and workshops called "A Year in Peace Literacy." Chappell's lecture is the keystone of the series.

The lecture will be held in the Construction and Engineering Hall in The LaSells Stewart Center, 875 S.W. 26 th St. The event is sponsored by the OSU College of Liberal Arts School of History, Philosophy and Religion. A $5 donation at the door is suggested, but no one will be turned away because of lack of funds. Proceeds from the lecture will go to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Sharyn Clough, 541-738-8056, [email protected]

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