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Gerber, Paula --- "Human Rights Education: A Slogan in Search of a Definition" [2010] ELECD 210; in Joseph, Sarah; McBeth, Adam (eds), "Research Handbook on International Human Rights Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Human Rights Law

Editor(s): Joseph, Sarah; McBeth, Adam

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847203687

Section: Chapter 21

Section Title: Human Rights Education: A Slogan in Search of a Definition

Author(s): Gerber, Paula

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

21. Human rights education: a slogan in search
of a definition1
Paula Gerber



The term `human rights education' is too often used in a way that greatly oversim-
plifies its connotations.2

1 Introduction
In recent times human rights education (`HRE') has become one of the hot
topics in international human rights law and numerous books have been writ-
ten exploring different aspects of HRE.3 This new-found interest in HRE is
no doubt due, in part, to the United Nations' endeavours to promote HRE
through initiatives such as the UN Decade for Human Rights Education
(1995­2004)4 and the subsequent World Programme for Human Rights
Education (2005­ongoing).5 Despite these efforts, there is still a great deal of

1 Parts of this chapter have been previously published as Chapter 3 in Paula
Gerber, From Convention to Classroom: The Long Road to Human Rights Education
(VDM Publishers, Germany, 2008). My title is a play on Hillary Clinton's infamous
statement that `[c]hildren's rights' is a slogan in search of definition': Hillary Rodham,
`Children Under the Law' (1973) 43 Harvard Educational Review 1.
2 Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment 1: The Aims of
Education, UN Doc CRC/GC/2001/1 (17 April 2001) (`General Comment 1') [19].
3 See for example Gudmundur Alfredsson, `The Right to Human Rights
Education' in A Eide, C Krause and A Rosas (eds) Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights: A Textbook (Kluwer Law International, The Hague, 2nd rev ...