HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL ADVISORY COMMITTEE DISCUSSES HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The Human Rights Council Advisory Committee this morning started to discuss a request from the Human Rights Council for the Committee to prepare a draft declaration on human rights education and training.

Elena Ippoliti of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Research Division provided a brief history on how human rights education was being tackled by the United Nations. She said that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights mentioned that every States should provide for human rights education. Further, all main human rights international instruments included provisions on human rights education and training. There had also been a decade on human rights education lasting from 1994 to 2004 which had been aimed at increasing partnership between actors.

In the general debate, Advisory Committee Experts wondered what the added value of a declaration on human rights education would be if other instruments carried provisions on the issue. Experts wondered whether they had to submit a draft declaration by March 2009, or if they had to first gather information and send an interim report to the Council by that date. One Expert said that the new declaration should become a framework declaration that could serve as guidance for States and other stakeholders. Another Expert said the progress report that the Advisory Committee would send to the Council should be based on the current situation of human rights education in all States.

Speaking on the issue of human rights training and education were the following Experts of the Advisory Committee: Purificacion V. Quisumbing, Emmanuel Decaux, Wolfgang Stefan Heinz, Vladimir Kartashkin, Chung Chinsung, Chen Shiqiu, Mona Zulficar, Shigeki Sakamoto and Halima Embarek Warzazi.

Speaking as the main sponsor of the resolution, Switzerland, also on behalf of Morocco, said that there was no actual deadline for the submission of the draft declaration. India and Nigeria noted that what was requested by the Advisory Committee were elements of a draft declaration, not a draft declaration in itself.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Experts of the Committee also discussed and adopted three documents submitted by the Bureau, namely a revised version of the draft programme of work, a draft proposal of the Bureau on the organization of work and conduct of business and the provisional agenda. A general discussion was held on issues relating to the organization of work. Among other issues, Experts asked how they would comply to the request by the Human Rights Council to prepare a draft declaration on human rights training and education to be submitted to the Council in March of 2009, and whether they should set up a working group or name an Expert to tackle this issue; the time limits allotted to speakers; if the Secretariat would be providing the Experts with background material on the issue of human rights training and education; how the Committee would set priorities to deal with pressing issues like the global food crisis; and why government observers were not allowed to refer to human rights situations other than those in their own country.

Speaking on issues relating to the organization of work were Committee Experts Jose Antonio Bengoa Cabello, Vladimir Kartashkin, Halima Embarek Warzazi, Emmanuel Decaux, Wolfgang Stefan Heinz, Miguel Alfonso Martinez and Purificacion Quisumbing.

The Advisory Committee is scheduled to meet again at 3 p.m. this afternoon to resume its general debate on human rights education and training.

Discussion on Request to the Advisory Committee Stemming from the Human Rights Council Resolution on Human Rights Education and Training

ELENA IPPOLITI, of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Research Division, provided a brief history on how human rights education had been taken up by the United Nations. She said that human rights education was already included in many instruments. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights mentioned that every State should provide for human rights education. Further, all main human rights international instruments included provisions on human rights education. Treaty bodies had also issued a plethora of General Comments on this issue. International human rights law already provided a broad basis on the subject of human rights education.

There had also been a decade on human rights education lasting from 1994 to 2004 which had been aimed at increasing partnership between actors. The Secretariat had reported several times to the Commission on Human Rights on the Decade and had also evaluated its impact. The Decade had been a useful platform for stakeholders to develop national comprehensive plans in human rights education. At the end of the decade the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had been mandated to conduct a study on the follow-up of the Decade. As a result, a world programme on human rights education had started in 2005. This was different from the decade because it was an open-ended period. It was cut into different phases, focusing on different subjects.

She also noted that there were several human rights education initiatives also taking place inside the United Nations and there were three Human Rights Council resolutions dealing specifically with human rights education. Concluding her overview, she said that the United Nations General Assembly had also adopted a resolution proclaiming the International Year of Human Rights Learning, which would start in December 2008.

PURIFICACION QUISUMBING, Advisory Committee Expert, asked what the value added would be to having a declaration on top of all the work of the treaty bodies and international instruments. What could the Advisory Committee achieve?

EMMANUEL DECAUX, Advisory Committee Expert, said that it could be good to have a representative of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation come to speak to the Committee about UNESCO’s initiatives on human rights education, as it was his understanding that they were also active in human rights education.

WOLFGANG STEFAN HEINZ, Advisory Committee Expert, asked if there was a country overview at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in terms of best practice information that could be used to make recommendations. In addition, he wanted to know what the usual experience was regarding the timeframe of such as task.

VLADIMIR KARTASHKIN, Advisory Committee Expert, said that he did not agree with the Chairman’s interpretation of the resolution that they had to submit right away a draft declaration to the Council. In his view, the resolution was rather asking the Advisory Committee to prepare a draft declaration and then submit it to the Council. The Council did not specify when the final draft should be sent. But the Council was asking for the submission, at its main session in March 2009, of a progress report, containing elements of the future draft declaration. The Council could thus then express its comments and views on the work done by the Advisory Committee. Further, the Council had not mentioned when the draft resolution had to be submitted.

It was also important to discuss how realistic was the request by the Council to send it a progress report by March 2009. Moreover, the Advisory Committee had to receive, gather and discuss relevant information and prepare a report for the Council’s March 2009 session.


CHUNG CHINSUNG, Advisory Committee Expert, said that it was extremely difficult to distribute questionnaires to government bodies. She wanted to know how the Secretariat would give support to this task.

PURIFICACION QUISUMBING, Advisory Committee Expert, said that she believed that the Advisory Committee was already mandated to prepare a draft declaration and while starting their work, they had to keep in mind that their end goal was to prepare a draft declaration. She also proposed to immediately form a Working Group that could start working on this subject. It should have adequate regional representation and could include Switzerland and Morocco, as they were the main sponsors of the resolution on human rights education in the Human Rights Council.

CHEN SHIQIU, Advisory Committee Expert, said that the Human Rights Council had instructed the Advisory Committee to prepare a draft declaration on human rights education and training. The task was not completed, although there was already a lot of work done within the UN system and at the regional and international level. The Human Rights Council believed that the Committee should play a role in human rights education.

The Council did not ask the Committee to complete a complete draft declaration on education; instead, they should submit elements to a declaration. In order to do this, they needed to request information from many organizations and bodies, including the Human Rights Council and various other organizations. The Secretariat should provide full assistance to this task. Mr. Cheng did not think that this task could be completed by March 2009. He suggested setting up a working group of three to four persons on the basis of voluntary participation so that work could immediately begin.

EMMANUEL DECAUX, Advisory Committee Expert, said that in his opinion the mandate from the Human Rights Council was very clear. First they had to seek the views of all stakeholders and they could not start these consultations in a vacuum. A compilation of all relevant documents on the subject by the Secretariat was also needed. On the basis of these elements they could then present a report to the Council by March. Depending on its reaction, they could then move to their final mandate which was quite clear: to prepare a draft declaration. For now, he thought that they should not skip the stages; they should first have a debate on the subject.

Turning to Ms. Quisumbing’s proposal to create a working group, he did not believe that it was a good option to include third parties in it like diplomats or representatives of non-governmental organizations, there were enough Experts among the members of the Advisory Committee.

MONA ZULFICAR, Advisory Committee Expert, stressed the importance of the task to prepare a draft declaration on human rights education. Many players had participated in such a discussion and it would be added value if this knowledge could be put in one declaration. The Committee had to produce only a progress report next March. Now, a working group from the Advisory Committee could be set up, supported by the Secretariat. The working group should submit a progress reporting in January, and then a time plan for the completion of the task could be set up. There was no strict timeframe and an open consultative working method was preferable.

SHIGEKI SAKAMOTO, Advisory Committee Expert, said that the new declaration should become a framework declaration that could serve as guidance for States and other stakeholders. The progress report that they would send to the Council should be based on the current situation of human rights education in all States. He also requested sufficient support from the Secretariat; it should provide information on the national implementation of human rights education.

HALIMA EMBAREK WARZAZI, Advisory Committee Expert, said that the Committee was already at a stage to start discussions with interested States. The questionnaires could be prepared by the Committee and she supposed that such questionnaires already existed. She suggested using these existing questionnaires for the work of the Committee.

CHEN SHIQIU, Advisory Committee Expert, wondered how the Committee could prepare a report before March 2009 and how they could submit it to the Council as the Committee would not be in session at this time.

PURIFICACION QUISUMBING, Advisory Committee Expert, agreed with the Chair that there were five and not four regions that should be present in a working group. She volunteered to be part of the working group on human rights education.

ELENA IPPOLITI, of the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights Research Division, responding to the Experts’ questions, said that, concerning the questions about the resolution, countries that had drafted it were in a better position to give an answer. Concerning the work done by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, she noted that they received information on human rights education activities in member Countries on a regular basis and they summarized it on the Office’s webpage.

Concerning best practices in human rights education, it was noted that it was not in the capacity of the Office to report on them. However, they had been able to run two projects. They had collected good practices in the European Union and in another project they had made a collection of good practices in South-eastern Asia. This was more than just compiled information these were special projects on their own. Turning to the issue of questionnaires for States, she noted that there was often a low response rate linked to them.

On the issue of cooperation with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, she noted that the activities of the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights were jointly undertaken with them and they were speaking with one voice as they both were part of the United Nations. Further, there was also a United Nations Interagency Committee on human rights education which had also produced several joint initiatives.

MURIEL BERSET (Switzerland), speaking also on the behalf of Morocco, said that the objective for the Advisory Committee was an interim report by March 2009 and not a complete draft declaration. She was pleased to note that there were volunteers interested in this work as well as a general interest in the issue. Switzerland and Morocco were open to discuss issues relating to human rights education with the Experts of the Committee. Switzerland and Morocco had also created an informal group including other countries to discuss the topic.

MUNU MAHAWAR (India) said that human rights education had been identified as one of the most valuable tools in the promotion and protection of human rights. This issue was of great importance for the Human Rights Council. In India’s view, the work of the Advisory Committee should not be a negotiating exercise; it should not discuss drafts, commas and full stops. It should rather discuss the substance of what should go into the declaration. The rest would be the matter of intergovernmental negotiations. Further, the Council did not expect this task to be done by March of 2009, but they were awaiting a first feedback by then.

MIGUEL ALFONSO MARTINEZ, President of the Advisory Committee, wondered if it was possible for the Advisory Committee to include, in the report, an approximate timetable leading to the draft declaration. In his view, it seemed difficult for the Advisory Committee to indicate the amount of time it would take to prepare a draft declaration at such an early point in the work.

MUNU MAHAWAR (India), answering, said that it could be useful to include a timetable in the first report, but it was all up to the Advisory Committee to do so or not.

OSITADINMA ANAEDU (Nigeria) drew attention to the fact that the Human Rights Council may not accept the declaration of the Advisory Committee. Therefore it made sense that the Advisory Committee come up with elements that would be help the Council to come up with a draft Declaration. An open discussion would be a problematical working method; a Sub-Committee could better go into detail. The Council would give feedback and further instructions after a first interim report. Nigeria also supported the matters raised by India.

MURIEL BERSET (Switzerland), reacting to the statements made by India and Nigeria, said that the text of the resolution was clear enough, they were asking the Advisory Committee to prepare a draft declaration. It was also clear that the Council could then do what it wanted with this draft, such as adding amendments or changing some of its wording.

JOSE BENGOA, Advisory Committee Expert, pointed out that this Committee had to think about arguments on the usefulness of a Declaration on human rights education. A Declaration was much softer than a Convention which was binding. In most countries, the topic of human rights had not been subsumed in the curriculum for school children at the primary and secondary level. He asked what the reasons were that led people to believe that a Declaration must be more compelling than what they already had.

HALIMA EMBAREK WARZAZI, Advisory Committee Expert, recalled that a few years ago, the Sub-Commission had made a proposal to prepare a report on human rights education. She had, back then, taken the floor to underscore the importance of this. Such a declaration on human rights education was of course important, but one should not loose sight of the fact that there were millions of children in several countries that had no access to education at all.

PURIFICACION QUISUMBING, Advisory Committee Expert, said that sometimes it seemed that a Declaration could water down legal obligations already in place. But not all countries were States parties to such treaties. She wanted to clarify that any declaration would not water down obligations that were already embedded in existing treaties.

For use of the information media; not an official record

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