Carola-Educare ai diritti umani-ingl.impaginato En


Carola-Educare ai diritti umani-ingl.impaginato En

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EDUCATING TO AND FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
di Carola Carazzone1
I would like to find the best way to give a contribution, through several provocations,
to our engaging and topical debate on education to and for human rights as one of
the present tools of Youth Ministry ( for sure not the only one but one of the most
effective ).
For 150 years the Salesian Family has been working in 130 nations for the promotion
and protection of those rights which jurists today define as the rights of children and
adolescents, especially on the basis of the Salesian preferential option for the poor
and vulnerable.
So many Salesians are daily involved in the rights of children and adolescents, to give
them dignity and voice, to break the vicious circle of poverty, violations of human
rights, underdevelopment. Maybe without ever having studied the Conventions and
Resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly or by other Regional Organizations,
simply loving and educating in the manner of Don Bosco.
But the educational and social exiting challenge launched by the Rector Major with
the Strenna 20082, challenge that we will try to tackle during the Congress and above
all after the Congress, is wider still and regards all Salesian works: schools, oratories,
parishes, not only the works dealing with the marginalised.
As Salesian Family, the challenge for us is especially focused on prevention, on
breaking the vicious circle which perpetuates the constant violation of the human
rights and dignity of people, on promoting a grass rooted and disseminated human
rights culture, able to escape from the offices of the jurists and philosophers, and
become instead the heritage of human beings.
The challenge for us is to educate young people to participation, justice and
solidarity, to individual and social commitment to human development, to become
active as responsible citizens of the world.
It is a challenge to the Salesian, educative, pedagogical charism itself.
What does it mean today for Salesians to form the honest citizen?
What does it mean today to educate to an active responsible citizenship of the world,
which takes to heart the lot of humanity and society which is already globalised.
I consider my intervention on the theme of education to and for human rights as a
privileged one by way of the preventive system and holistic formation of good
Christians and honest citizens, drawing your attention to three preliminary
questions:
1 Carola Carazzone, Human Rights Office Coordinator.
2“Promoting human rights, in particular those of juveniles, as the Salesian way of promoting a culture of life and a change of
structures. The Preventive System of Don Bosco has a great social outreach: it wants to collaborate with many other agencies
in the transformation of society, working for a change in the criteria and views about life, in the promotion of the culture open
to others, in a sober style of life, in a constant attitude of selfless sharing and of a commitment to justice and the dignity of
every human being.
Education to human rights, in particular to the rights of juveniles, is the privileged way to implement in various contexts this
commitment to prevention, to integrated human development, to the construction of a world that is more fair, more just, more
healthy. The language of human rights also allows us to dialogue and to introduce our pedagogy into the different cultures in
our world” (from the basic content of the Rector Major's Strenna for 2008)
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• Which meaning for human rights?
• Why educate to and for human rights?
• How to educate to and for human rights?
1. Which meaning for human rights
In order to understand the long journey to international recognition of human rights,
Prof. Papisca used a metaphor, a river where the water flowing under solid surfaces
finds ways to emerge.
The adoption by the General Assembly of the United Nation on the 10th of December
1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – a starting point and not the
finishing one – gives voice to the emergence, in an international contest, of what was
already pondered and achieved, through reflection, discussion and witness through
the centuries, in many different cultures and civilizations, regarding affirmation of
the dignity of the human being.
It is the absolute, unconditional dignity of the human being which is the core, heart,
and raison d’être of human rights, and the foundation of – as expressed in the
preamble of the Universal Declaration – freedom, justice and peace.
Human rights are the universal, inviolable guarantees, only quite recently
(considering human history ) imposed on National sovereignty, for defence and
protection of the dignity of each person “ without distinction of any kind, of race,
colour, gender, language, political opinion, national or social origin, wealth, or other
condition”3.
What are these guarantees, what are human rights?
Unfortunately today we see an abuse of the term “human rights” emerging from the
restricted debate between jurists and philosophers in order to excite interest in broad
public opinion, but about which there is still quite huge confusion.
Unfortunately today many people have only read maybe once the Universal
Declaration and without having explored the human rights theme, talk about “human
rights” and get “human rights” mixed up with subjective rights4, or out of ignorance
or malice, hide their arrogance, privilege, revenge, luxury, selfish-interests under the
title of human rights.
The expression is also useful to some countries for claiming the legitimacy of military
intervention or an “ethical“ war against terrorism; or it is useful for some people from
rich nations to invoke the protection of their rights as consumers. European Union
members have denied support for poorer nations who transgress these rights;
autocratic political representatives have used them to sustain their new justification
for colonialism by the West and to insist on unacceptable interference in internal
affairs. The media have used them (or their brutal violation) to attract fleeting, flimsy
public opinion.
The alarming risk is that, considering the complexity, the many ramifications of
international human rights law (currently there are some 130 different primary
source items on this), the full meaning and value of the parts and the whole could be
lost.
In every continent the affirmation of international human rights law has been in
conflict and is in conflict not only with the strong impulse of national sovereignty and
3 art.2 of the Universal Declaration.
4 As expressed in art.1 of the Universal Declaration, Human Rights are innate, considering the dignity of the human being as
such. They pre-exist the written law and become ius positum in virtue of their recognition, not of their attribution as has been
the case for subjective rights.
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defending non-interference in its internal affairs, but also with conflicting political,
geopolitical and especially economical interests.
Human rights eat away at status quo, power structures and dominant ways of living:
they are the strongest way to foster and protect the most disadvantaged, the
youngest, the poorest.
The history of human rights is a conflicting one: it is the story of the human struggle
for dignity and freedom.
Not of course any freedom.
When we talk about human rights we refer only to the freedoms fundamental to
human dignity - inherent rights and fundamental freedoms – ones we identify with one
of the fathers of the Universal Declaration, Franklin D. Roosevelt: freedom of speech,
freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
Each covenant, each international agreement, each body in charged of the promotion
or protection of one or more human rights has been a victory, the result of debates,
pressures, compromises, involving a large number of people.
If one looks, diachronically, at the history of human rights, one cannot help but note
that progress beginning from 1990 was not even hopeful up to the fall of the Berlin
wall: in 1990 only 10% of the world's nations had ratified the then six main
International Conventions on human rights. In 2008 that number had grown
spectacularly, reaching almost half of all nations, with five of the fundamental
Conventions ratified by more than 160 countries.
Many Eastern countries, besides, following the fall of the Berlin wall, have put
human rights in their national Constitutions, as happened previously in many Afro-
Asian countries, once they achieved independence from colonial regimes.
Many countries, in more recent years, have introduced education to human rights in
school programmes and created new institutions for promoting human rights and
dealing with their violations: Guarantee Authorities, Independent national
commissions, Ombudspersons, Civil defenders.
Again, the 90's saw the institution of International Tribunals for the former
Yugoslavia, Rwanda, while in 2000 there was the special court for Sierra Leone, in
2003 the Special Tribunal for Cambodia and, on 1 July 2002, after half a century of
campaigning for its institution, the permanent International Criminal Court came
into force.
If, we were saying, it is true that one cannot avoid noting of these results, it is the cry
– where at least there is a cry and not deafening silence – of massive violations of
dignity and the freedom of people that echoes daily from the four corners of the earth.
The cry of the 1 billion 100 million people living on less than a dollar a day; of the 2.8
billion people living on less than 2 dollars a day; of the 1 billion 200 million who have
no access to drinkable water and the 2 billion 600 million who have no access to any
kind of medicine; the 854 million illiterate adults5; the 25 million internally displaced
people (forced to flee within their own countries)6, the one in three women in the
world who have suffered violence7.
5 UNDP, Report on Human Development, 2006.
6 UNHCR, 2007.
7 Amnesty International, 2007.
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1.1. Two key issues for human rights
Far too often too many countries adopt selectivity and fictitious human rights policies
that are dichotomous: some rights yes, others no; for certain vulnerable groups yes,
for others no; theoretical recognition perhaps, effectively carried out – with
consequent restrictions also in terms of national sovereignty – almost never.
No society or nation is immune.
Questions of human rights are not just questions for developing countries. Indeed it
is the nations defining themselves as “advanced democracies” which are more often
than not adopting a policy of human rights which we might say is ambivalent (double
standards).
“The international community must identify new ways and means for removing
current obstacles and face the challenges to full realisation of all human rights, and
eliminate the continuing violation of human rights which still goes on in the world”.8
This is the human rights challenge: how to guarantee the effective practice of rights
abstractly proclaimed? What to do to eliminate the constant violation of human rights
which still exists in the world? What to do to prevent this violation? What changes in
thinking and action to propose to put an end to today's failures?
1.2. Indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights: civil, cultural,
economic, political and social
Rights are inherent to the human being, as if they were written into one's DNA: the
State does not grant them, does not enlarge on them, but limits itself to recognising
them.
Civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights are all equally essential for the
dignity and freedom of each human being. The human person is ontologically one:
soul and body, spirit and organic matter, in its indissoluble integrity.
For fifty years Socialist countries maintained that it was necessary to ignore civil and
political rights in order to foster economic and social rights, while other nations of the
Western Bloc said the opposite, that it was necessary to suppress economic and
social rights in order to guarantee civil and political rights.
Today it is no longer possible to justify the old dichotomy of the cold war and, as still
happen in too many countries, to justify the violation of civil and political rights in
order to promote social and economic rights or vice versa, inasmuch as one can only
be effectively enjoyed if the other is at the same time.
Human rights in fact are indivisible because at their core is the human being, with
his inviolable right to live a life of dignity in every dimension: civil, cultural, economic,
political and social.
Besides, human rights are interdependent, in the sense that civil and political rights
without economic and social rights are empty, and vice versa.
Between the realisation of civil and political rights and the realisation of economic
and social rights there is not a relationship of subordination, but one of vital
reciprocity. They nurture each other triggering a virtuous circle and they cancel one
another out if they are put into a vicious circle.
Indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights are still just words, way off
from real facts, abstract concepts with respect to the today reality. Too often human
rights for the ius positum in practice mean only civil and political rights.
8 Preamble to the Declaration of the World Conference on human rights, Vienna 1993
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At worldwide level, even in the United Nations, we see even more, from both sides, a
mutilated view of human rights, the indivisibility and wholeness of the person. We
see the divide between nations with a high level of economic development who want
to keep the status quo and poor nations who forcefully claim their right to
development and certain economic social and cultural rights.
One set of public opinion (or, seen from another perspective, an electorate) which in
Europe and North America claims to be very sensitive to human rights, is in reality
only so for certain civil and political rights.
It is easy to point to nations where women cannot report sexual violence, and then
pretend that environmental degradation doesn't concern us or that the dramatic
poverty of most people in the world doesn't exist or doesn't depend on the way we go
about production and consumption or on our lifestyle. And it is also easy to proclaim
people as champions of human rights who do not recognise immigrants or asylum
seekers, or those who seek development cooperation.
1.3. A common responsibility to share
Use of the language of human rights presents notable benefits, but it can also
accompany easy exploitation.
There are many benefits accruing from the use of the language of human rights as an
instrument of social change so that every person in the world can enjoy a life of
freedom and dignity. In our new globalised context human rights become a tool which
can go beyond narrow national confines to pose limits and common objectives, create
alliances and strategies and mobilise resources, both human and economic.
But, as we were saying, the language of human rights becomes risky or even false
and misleading if not seen as part of rights and responsibilities. In juridical terms
rights cannot exist without duties, otherwise they are not rights but expectations,
interests, feelings.
If, regarding our own rights, we are ready to draft a long list and call them rights, or
worse still human rights, mere interests, while, with regard to others' rights, we are
not even ready to recognise the responsibilities and duties which correspond to the
most basic and vital needs, well then, probably, it would be better to avoid speaking
about human rights.
The perspective of human rights is in fact by its very nature inclusive: all human
rights for all human beings. Responsibility of all and each one: communitarian
personalism and holistic humanism.
Children’s rights, women's rights, minority groups' rights, rights of persons with
disability are not 'special' rights.
Every human being has a right to enjoy all human rights and the State, the
community, other individuals have the duty to act to guarantee the individual, taking
account of his or her special circumstances and differences, the best possible
enjoyment of those rights.
It is inescapable and urgent to overcome the exclusivity of the responsibility of States
and identify the responsibilities of every agent: institutional, economic and social
which is able to influence the effective realisation of human rights. In our new
globalised context the responsibility of the State today is necessary but no longer
sufficient.
The exclusivity of the Individual-State perspective, which we have inherited from the
European and North American Enlightenment of the 18th and 19th centuries, and
which still marks today's mechanisms for promoting and protecting human rights, is
insufficient.
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Today we need a system of responsibility for the promotion and protection of human
rights which is much more differentiated and which involves, as well as States, global
organisations and international financial institutions (World Commerce Organisation,
World Bank, International Monetary Fund), businesses, NGO's, media, schools,
communities, families, individuals: everyone able to have a huge impact on the
effective enjoyment of human rights.
2. Why to educate to and for human rights
As the Rector Major urges us, we want to educate young people to and for human
rights with the aim of building a new world, more fair, more just, more healthy first of
all because too often education today is a market education, at the service of
maintaining the status quo which continues, in the era of globalisation, to privatise
riches ever more in a few hands, a few people, a few groups, a few countries and, at
the same time, socialise poverty.
“The drama of modern day humanity” – the Rector Major teaches us9 - “is the rupture
between education and society, the divide between school and citizenship”.
Salesian education instead must be “an education to values, a promoter and creator
of responsible citizenship”.
The Rector Major speaks to us of humanising education and the of the youth ministry
of involvement, claiming that the Salesian educational proposal for a culture of
justice, solidarity, change of structures, while arising from the preferential option to
stay amongst the poorest, concerns all Salesian works and not those just dealing
with marginalisation.
Secondly, we want to educate young people to and for human rights because the
Salesian Family educates each year millions of youngsters and has a unique
representation worldwide – not comparable to any other educational agency - for
playing a key role at world level in promoting human rights.
Working together with other agencies the Salesian Family will be able to have a
determinant impact and to give a most meaningful contribution in light with the
salesian charism itself.
We do know that the issue of education to human rights is a more or less recent one.
The international law of human rights has been slow to recognise education to
human rights as the aim end and mean of human development and the prime and
undeniable tool of prevention10.
For a long time education has been considered only a question of access, a question
of quantity and not quality, not a question in itself of human rights.
On the other side, for a long time the perspective of the movement for human rights
was too often exclusively one of a “punitive” nature: denouncing violations once they
have been committed.
Now, denouncing violations of human rights is certainly a major item available to
NGOs, associations, individuals, even more so now with the information era upon us,
new technologies like blog, chat, forum on line, but also with a computer and internet
access, as part of international campaigns, movements, appeals on behalf of human
rights.
9 Cf Fr. Pascual Chàvez Villanueva, Education and citizenship. Lectio Magistralis for the Degree Honoris Causa, Genoa, 23
April 2007.
10 Bases of the right-duty of education to human rights are considered the following international norms: art. 26, paragraph 2,
of the Universal Declaration; art.13 of the International Covenant on economic, social and cultural rights; art. 7 of the
International Convention on the elimination of any form of racial discrimination; art. 10 of the International Convention on
the elimination of all form of discrimination against women; art. 29 of the International Convention on children’s rights.
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These denunciations, sometimes, can save the life of a victim.
Denunciation can also be useful in sensitising new people, common people who
normally are not interested in ideas about human rights – I am thinking of the great
campaigns against the use of child soldiers, or the death penalty, where the role of
public opinion has been fundamental.
Denunciation is a vital tool not only ex post for protecting human rights already
violated, but also ex ante for promoting human rights, sensitising to prevention of
violations.
The problem however is that the exclusivity of the perspective of denouncing, which
has characterised much of the activity up till now with regard to human rights, can
end up being reductive.
In fact it is necessary to spread a culture of human rights, to educate to human
rights, persuade, beyond simply prohibiting; prevent rather than simply cure.
Up till now ridiculously few resources have been invested in prevention, education to
human rights, both in school and out of school.
Non-government organisations, too, have only recently begun to invest in resources
for education to human rights.
To the cause of preventive education to and for human rights the Salesian Family can
bring a unique, out standing and irreplaceable contribution.
3. How to educate to and for human rights
An education that did not go beyond describing injustice in the world and violation of
human rights, would inevitably be ally in this injustice.
Education in human rights cannot limit itself to making human rights known, but
should be an education not only TO but also FOR human rights, and should lead to
commitment, solidarity, action.
The aim is of course not merely contemplation of abstract values but incarnation:
action-oriented education, education to action, gesture, taking a position, critical
analysis, thinking, being informed, considering critically information received from
the media. It is an education that should be ongoing and daily.
Education to human rights, in a non-static and evolving vision, in fact, is not and
cannot be, about revealing an immutable and static truth, but is a dialogue that
taking into account international situations and concerns11 is contextualized at local
level (glocalization).
Seen this way, education to and for human rights must of necessity be
multidimensional and seen as an holistic and ongoing education to active and
responsible citizenship, one capable of joining the descriptive to the prescriptive, the
knowing to the being, and integrating the passing on of knowledge with the formation
of personality.
On these basics, education to and for human rights should comprise, as taught us
Rector Major in the Commentary to Strenna 2008, at least three dimensions:
cognitive dimension (knowing, thinking critically, conceptualising, judging:
Don Bosco would say “reason”),
affective dimension (trying out, having experience, empathy: Don Bosco would
say “loving kindness”;)
volitional, active behaviour (choices and actions, putting certain behaviours
into action: Don Bosco would say “religion”).
11 In the perspective indicated in paragraph 2 of art. 26 of the Universal Declaration, in art 13 of the Covenant on economic,
social and cultural rights and in art.29 of the Convention on the rights of the child.
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3.1. Education to and for human rights and not 'teaching'
If by teaching we mean a traditional kind of didactic activity where one person only,
the teacher, has something to teach, while the rest (students) just have to listen and
learn, then human rights cannot be taught: one educates to human rights.
Human rights are not taught 'from above' top down or imposed.
One educates to human rights (from the Latin e-ducere), human rights are
transmitted and grasped, if by these words we consider that there is space for mutual
comparisons, dialogue and personal rethinking.
Human rights still seem to be a matter for people who sporadically shine (or
dishonourably so) in the media, to then disappear, locked up in the offices and
studies of philosophers and jurists.
Education to and for human rights has to get out of the restricted environment which
is the competence of jurists and lawyers without any interdisciplinary aspirations of
it becoming the heritage of all, the heritage of anyone who feels ready to open and
maintain an intercultural dialogue which draws its basis from human rights.
Education to and for human rights is an education to all levels in every social
context. Everyone, children, older youth, adults, can be educated to the ethical value
of human rights and their practical effects on social existence.
Everyone, even a child (think for example of so-called peer to peer education) can
become, in turn, an educator and promoter of human rights.
Education to human rights in the past (and sometimes today) was understood as an
education in civics which takes place in school.
This is an extremely limited and limiting perspective for at least four reasons:
a) too inwardly referring in terms of one's own context,
b) often reduced to a merely cognitive, theoretical, normative teaching of material
considered as the domain of juridical studies, where human rights teaching is
still anchored to norms and their content,
c) restricted to adults as the only ones able to reach children, adolescents,
d) limited to schooling.
Today much research has confirmed the limits of this traditional approach (civic
learning) based exclusively on knowing about political institutions and their history,
and proposes a much broader approach, socio-civic learning which is a stimulus to
practical experience, acceptance of responsibility and participation, an approach that
has so many elements in common with the Salesian style of education.
3.2. Interdisciplinary and holistic nature of education to and for human rights
Human rights, in fact, are not only matter for juridical and philosophical
consideration, but are interdisciplinary material. They can be taught and discussed
in school in the context of many subjects: history, geography, foreign languages,
literature, biology, music, economics.
Human rights should be an integral part of training and updating of teachers, so the
teachers themselves can be able to redevelop and mainstreaming human rights in a
multidisciplinary approach as a cross-curriculum leit motive in different subjects. But
that is still in the future somewhat and human rights continue, even at university
level, to be a specialized matter, rather than something cross-curriculum.
Education to human rights at the school level, then, though fundamental, does not
cover, nor can it ever cover, the multiplicity of possible ways for spreading a human
rights culture. NGOs, associations, oratories, social centres, youth centres can play a
key role in education to and for human rights.
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The best solution would be a truly holistic education to human rights: an education
that goes alongside formal elements, as well as non-formal and informal elements, an
holistic education involving both in-school and outside of school settings.
Holistic education for human rights overcomes the merely juridical and cognitive
aspect, and favours passing from understanding, to interiorising, to commitment and
taking on responsibility.
One could say in fact that education to citizenship, democracy, peace, through
human rights involves every educational setting and would be articulated in three
successive phases:
• the first is an understanding of one's own rights, duties and underpinned values;
• the second is personal reflection, interiorising those values and rights;
• the third is learning to put them into practice and learning to defend one's rights
and those of others.
3.3. Ongoing education for a grass-rooted culture of human rights
To speak then of ongoing education for a culture of human rights means to educate
to commitment to causes and to the issues that arise day after day in our lives at
local or international levels.
It is important in fact to stress the systematic element tied in with the concept of
culture. We are not dealing with sporadic interventions, but coherent ethical
interdependent principles, which have to bring about appropriate understandings,
abilities, attitudes, not sterile claims but actions.
Besides, today educating means teaching a person to educate him or herself
constantly, in a fluid and continually evolving society. This is why we find the need
for ongoing education.
The Salesian family has, as perhaps any other education agencies have, the practical
pedagogical means of reaching the minds and hearts of the young, the ability to
alternate theoretical understanding with practical experience, through
multidimensional techniques: theatre, music, sport, role play, artistic competitions,
film discussions, participation, volunteer work.
Today the Salesian family also has at its disposal the new technologies, which involve
the young so much with possibilities of offering online forums, blogs, chat on human
rights themes.
The General Assembly of the United Nations has declared 2009 “International year of
human rights learning”. This is a cause the Salesian Family must give its enormously
significant contribution to.
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THE ONGOING GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS MARCH: A KEY DATES CHRONOLOGY
1945
1946
1948
1949
1950
-…
1950
1954
1955
1957
1959
1960
1963
1965
1966
1968
1969
1973
Founding of the United Nations (UN)
Birth of the Arab League
Founding of the International Monetary Fund and the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now
the World Bank)
Inauguration of the United Nations Commission for Human
Rights
The United Nations General Assembly approves the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
The Organization of American States (OAS) is born
American Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man
European Council is born
Wars of national liberation and insurrections arise in Asia
and Africa.
Some countries obtain their independence
United States: movements for civil rights and politics against
racial segregation
European Convention on Human Rights
European Commission of Human Rights
Bandung Conference, at which 29 African and Asian states
condemn imperialism, racial discrimination, nuclear
armament and put forth the demand for a peaceful
cooperation for development
European Economic Community (EEC) and EURATOM
The birth of the European Court for Human Rights
Creation of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights
Wars for national liberation in countries still under imperial
rule continue. The fight gradually leads to independence and
self-determination in many countries
Feminist movements demand equality of rights and
opportunities
First session of the Inter-American Commission for Human
Rights
The foundation of the Organization for United Africa
UN Convention for the elimination of all forms of racial
discrimination
International Pact on Civil and Political Rights approved by
the UN General Assembly
International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
approved by the UN General Assembly
Teheran, first world conference on Human Rights
American Convention on Human Rights approved
International Convention for the Elimination and Punishment
for the Criminals of Apartheid approved by the UN General
Assembly
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1976 Amnesty International wins the Nobel Peace Prize
1979 UN Convention for the elimination of all forms of racial
discrimination against women (CEDAW)
Inter American Court for Human Rights begins work
1981 The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is
approved
1983 Arab Organization for Human Rights is founded
1984 UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment
1985 UN Committee for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
instituted
1986 UN Declaration of Development Rights is approved
1988 The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is
instituted
Adoption of the Additional Protocol to the American
Convention on Human Rights (San Salvador Protocol)
1989 UN Convention on Infant Rights
The Berlin Wall fell
Tiananmen Square Massacre
1990 Ethnic cleansing and war in former Yugoslavia, genocide in
–
Rwanda, conflicts in other African countries (Congo, Angola,
.... Sierra Leone, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea) and in some
areas of the former USSR
1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights installed
1993- International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia and for
1994 Rwanda established
1994 World Conference on the Population and Development in
Cairo
The end of racial segregation in South Africa
Inter American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment
and Eradication of Violence Against Women (Convention
Belem do Pará)
1998 The Statutes of the Permanent International Criminal Court
for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity is
approved
1999 NATO Conflict- Republic of Yugoslavia in Kosovo; war in
Cecenia e in East Timor
Optional Protocol to CEDAW that grants individual recourse
is approved
2000 Two Optional Protocols against the use of child soldiers and
the sexual exploitation and prostitution of minors are
approved
Special Criminal Court for Sierra Leone is instituted
2001 Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Durban
Terror attacks of September 11th in New York and
Washington
2002 The Statutes of the Permanent International Criminal Court
for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity take
effect
2003 February 15th: According to CNN 110 million in over 600
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2004
2006
2008
cities worldwide participate in the World Peace March
The Optional Protocols of the African Commission on Human
and Peoples’ Rights for the Constitution of an African Court of
Human Rights takes effect
The Arab League adopt the Arab Charter on human rights
The new UN Human Rights Council substitutes the
Commission on Human Rights
UN Convention on the Rights of People with disabilities is
adopted
UN Convention on the protection of all persons from forced
disappearance is adopted.
The UN Convention on the Rights of People with disabilities
entered into force
The Arab Charter on human rights entered into force
The Human Rights Council adopted the Optional Protocol to
the Covenant on economic, social and cultural rights for
individual complaints.
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FUNDAMENTAL UN HUMAN RIGHTS CONVENTIONS
Conventions
International Convention for the
elimination of all forms of racial
discrimination
adoption
1965
entry into
force
1969
International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights
1966
1976
International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights
1966
1976
International Convention for the
elimination of all forms of racial
discrimination against women
1979
1981
International Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment
International Convention on the Rights
of the Child
1984
1989
1987
1990
International Convention on the
Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of Their
Families
1990
2003
Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities
2006
2008
Convention on the protection of all
persons from forced disappearance
2006
Not yet
entered
into force
Member
States
173
161
157
185
145
193
37
20
4
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EUROPEAN
SYSTEM
EUROPEAN UNION (EU)
27 Member
States -
www.europa.eu
-
Commission
- European
Parliament
- Council of the European
Union
- European
Ombudsman
- EU Fundamental Rights
Agency
- Court of justice of the European
Communities
COUNCIL OF EUROPE
(COE)
47 Member
States -
www.coe.int
- European Court of human
rights
- Commissioner for human
rights
- Parlamentary
Assembly
- Committee of
Ministers
- Congress of local and regional
authorities
- Secretary General
(Directorate for
human
rights)
- European Committee of
Social Rights
ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY
AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
(OSCE)
56 Member
States -
www.osce.org
- Office for democracy and human
rights
(ODIHR)
- High Commissioner for national
minorities
- Secretariat (specialized
offices)
AFRICAN UNION (AU)
53 Member States
www.african-union.org
-
- Commissione
dei diritti
African Court of human rights
African Commission for human
- Parlamento
panafricano
- Consiglio pace
e sicurezza
rights
Pan African Parliament
Peace and security council
ORGANIZATION OF
AMERICAN
STATES (OEA)
34 Member States
www.oas.org
- Interamerican Court of
human
rights
- Interamerican
Commission of
human rights
- Interamerican Institute of
human
rights
Newly established regional systems where mechanisms of human rights
promotion and protection
are not functioning
LEAGUE OF ARAB
STATES
22 Member States
www.arableagueonline.org
- Arab Charter of human rights
- Human rights Committee
- Council of Arab League
ORGANIZATION
OF THE
ISLAMIC
CONFERENCE
57 Member
States
www.oic-oci.org
- Cairo Declaration of
human
rights in islam
ASSOCIATION OF
SOUTH EASTERN
ASIAN COUNTIRES
(ASEAN)
10 Member States -
www.aseansec.org
- ASEAN Charter (20 Nov. 2007) with reference to human rights
and establisment of a human rights body
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SECURITY
COUNCIL
United Nations Human Rights System
SECRETARY
GENERAL
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Peacekeeping
missions
Internationa
l Criminal
Court
2002
Int. Criminal
Tribunal for
former
Yugoslavia
1993
Int. Criminal
Tribunal for
Rwanda
1994
Special Court
for
Sierra Leone
2000
UN Specialized
Agencies (ILO,
UNESCO, WHO,
FAO, WB, IMF,
WTO, etc) and
Programmes and
Funds (UNIFEM,
UNDP, UNICEF,
ACNUR, UNEP,
UNFPA,
UNDCCP,
UNICRI, etc)
OFFICE OF THE
HIGH
COMMISSIONER
FOR HUMAN
RIGHTS
1993
Universal Periodic Review
Congresso Internazionale Sistema Preventivo e Diritti Umani, Roma 2 – 6 Gennaio 2009
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
(ECOSOC)
COMMISSION ON CRIME
PREVENTION AND
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
COMMISSION ON THE
STATUS OF WOMEN
PERMANENT FORUM
FOR INDIGENEOUS
ISSUES
UN HUMAN RIGHTS
COUNCIL
(since June 2006 has replaced the
old human rights Commission)
Consultative Committee of the
Human Rights Council
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CONVENTIONAL
MCoEmmCitHteeAoNn tIhSe EMlimSination of
Racial Discrimination 1969
Human Rights Committee 1976
Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women
1981
Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights 1985
Committee against Torture 1987
Committee on the Rights
of the Child 1991
Committee on the rights of
migrants workers 2004
Committee on rights of persons
with disabilities 2008
SPECIAL PROCEDURES
extra-conventional
mechanisms
Country mechanisms
Thematic mechanisms
(Special Rapporteurs,
Indipendent Export, Working
Groups)