HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR PEACEEDUCATION

BETTY A. REARDON

Human rights are fundamental and central to peace education which seeks toprepare learners to take responsible, informed action toward a less violent andmore just world. The substance and purposes of human rights concepts andstandards help to illuminate the characteristics of a peaceful society. Addressedspecifically, they provide concrete indicators with which to assess the presenceor absence of peace and justice. Taken as a whole with regard to the ethicaland conceptual norms and values that have produced the specific concepts andstandards, they offer an image of a culture of peace with the capacity to inspirethe desired learning for responsible action. As such they are a unique andessential pedagogical tool for peace education. The Global Campaign forPeace Education (GCPE) emphasizes this centrality as does UNESCO’S“Integrated Framework of Action on Education for Peace, Human Rights andDemocracy”, the goals and purposes of which inform the Campaign.

The GCPE was launched by an international group of educators in May1999 at the Hague Appeal for Peace Civil Society, held in the Hague to com-memorate the centenary of the founding of the International Court of Justice.It has become one of the major activities of the Hague Appeal for Peace whichrecognizes that achievement of the objectives set fourth in the 50 steps towardpeace that comprise the “Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice in the 21stCentury”. The Campaign, conducted by national and international networksof human rights and peace educators, is working to assure that all the schoolsof the world will undertake actual programs to implement the UNESCO’S“Integrated Framework”.

The current initiatives of GCPE encourage and facilitate human rightseducation through providing access to and information about teachingresources and preparation of teachers. With the cooperation of civil society,GCPE works with education authorities at all levels in all world regions tourge them to formulate appropriate policies and provide the resources toimplement human rights and peace education in the schools. The academicand substantive work of the Campaign is carried out by university-basedcenters in various parts of the world.

One of the first efforts in the area of resources is the development of anelementary and secondary teaching manual, using the “Hague Agenda” as aconceptual framework. The 50 steps toward peace arise from four core strands,one of which is International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law. Thisstrand provides a basis for a generalized approach to human rights education

International Review of Education – Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft– Revue Internationale de l’Education 48(3–4): 283–284, 2002. 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

specified in lesson plans and teaching activities for the various levels andsubject areas of elementary and secondary schools. Materials and methodsfrom all world regions have been incorporated into the manual by an inter-national team of graduate students at Teachers College Columbia University.The team has organized a resource center to gather curricula and provideinformation to educators seeking to introduce or enrich human rights and peaceeducation. Information about teaching materials is made available and sharedelectronically with a GCPE network of peace education centers in other worldregions.

The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights declared all human rightsto be universal and interrelated. This concept of holism is reflected in theapproach to human rights and peace education advocated in the “IntegratedFramework” that is being followed in the curricula and pedagogies advo-cated by the GCPE. The task now is to develop a form of peace educationthat illuminates the fundamental relationships between human rights andpeace. This of course includes those relationships articulated in the preambleto The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but also, and especially, thosethat enable us to devise a reality-based, human and practical education forresponsible citizenship within a global culture of peace.

The author

Betty A. Reardon, Ed.D, is currently Academic Coordinator of the Hague Appealfor Peace Global Campaign for Peace Education and Director of the Peace EducationCenter at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, where she was foundingdirector of the Peace Education Program. She is a widely published author and editorin the field of education for peace and human rights.

Contact address: Dr. Betty A. Reardon, Director, Peace Education Program, Box171, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA. E-mail: bar19@columbia.edu

284