Youth is the most transversal of identities, where a civil space exists there will often be a powerful youth dimension to it. This placing enables young people to be powerful drivers of change through their unique access to diverse facets of society. In the context of a growing human rights crisis, their being sidelined in public discourse, youth must be enabled to lead the reinvigoration of a human rights culture.
Our political moment is one defined by strains on multilateralism, with politics that is frighteningly volatile, unproductively confrontational, and seemingly un-bridgeably polarised. In this setting, where we cherish the mere avoidance of the active dismantling of international structures and norms, it is nearly impossible to imagine the international community converging on consensus on the most fundamental and universal of values which we should universally share and uphold as a foundational to all we do on an individual, interpersonal and communal level. Yet seventy years ago, in the ashes of two world wars where conflict was rife and superpower ideological polarities distinct and omnipresent in international forums, exactly this was achieved.
It is important to note, one of the core reasons the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, was capable of being promulgated is the precise reason human rights are ever vulnerable. This reason is the focus of this article; the supremely relative nature of conceptions of human rights and the consequent inability of legal mechanisms to enforce them alone. This trait allowed for delegations sceptical of universal human rights’ place within international law to not bar the Declaration’s passing, with some of these delegations dismissing them as just “pious phrases” and feeling safe in their belief that these new rights were practically unenforceable.
However this perspective underestimated the norm-shifting, culture-leading role that the Declaration, subsequent conventions and their monitoring could have; where international condemnation and adjudication can fail, individual and group identification with human rights has ensured their continued force within society and international law. Yet, this relativity of the conception of human rights also requires human rights defenders to continuously and critically engage communities at all levels with their rights and promote the exploration and development of a human right culture, to ensure that human rights are grounded in their mission for human dignity.
This article is split into two core sections:
- The contemporary crisis for human rights; a cultural and institutional approach to human rights.
- A case study of youth organisations leading on human rights education.
The contemporary crisis for human rights
The far right is on the rise around the world, threatening our hard-won rights and freedoms and the values that have defined our liberal, democratic societies for more than 70 years.
Human rights as norms are in crisis. Political conflict undermines the work of regional bodies and, regarding the efficacy of our work, consider that in reviewing the human rights landscape the former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has suggested that there has never been so much suffering since World War II. Both in outcome and process, human rights structures are struggling to appear effective.
How is it that our national laws law permit continued disregard of human rights? How is it that our cultural insistence of respect for human rights is fading and fracturing and we are not capable of adequately protecting international structures and educational programs? In our landscape of global power shifts, the goal of moulding the aspirations of human rights into political reality must not be sidelined.
A cultural and institutional response
For continued progress, we must embrace the messaging of drafters of the UDHR; human rights are not primarily safeguarded by statute or court, but rather by a culture which demands respect for fundamental freedoms. A culture which insists on a comprehensive institutional approach to human rights.
To develop this normative culture where human rights are respected, we require multiple movements. First our institutions must continue to play their role; a mix of judicially developed and applied common law principles, parliamentary scrutiny of legislation and executive action in the context of international law, and the independent monitoring by our human rights commissions and international bodies. The second arm which will develop this culture is human rights education. Wherein individuals and communities engage with the concept of rights and their applications and conflict in their individual and community context.
Human rights education
Human rights education is immediately understood as the communication of human rights, their implications and aspirations. While HRE does encompass the teaching and learning of a culture of human rights, it simultaneously is a means of defining the form of human rights. Further, HRE is not only a moral imperative but a legal right found within international law.
This understanding of human rights education, the facilitated exploration and defining of rights, allows for the realisation of universal human rights while not requiring that every individual and state understands every right in exactly the same way. Cultural diversity is enabled to have a role in human rights, however the specificities of this role as well as the boundaries for cultural diversity to hold influence over rights should always be open for debate, multiperspectivity is not an excuse for absolute relativity.
Case studies: youth organisations leading on human rights education
On a practical level, human rights education entails the enabling an individual or group to explore a conflict of rights within their reality and to define the normative balance of rights. This explorations should made in the context of the group’s empathising with the parties impacted. As such, non-formal educational approaches are particularly effective here.
As human rights are seeing diminished space in public discourse, youth are leading the way in constructing alliances with diverse groups, who may not be traditionally seen as civic actors, to bolster the cultural appreciation of human rights.
This case study briefly outlines an example of young people as educators, telling the story of human rights, and ultimately being human rights education.
National Training Course on Human Rights Education
22 young people from diverse backgrounds gathered in Kilkenny, Ireland for a week of training as human rights educators, organised by Eurobug, municipal partners and the Council of Europe Youth Department.
Throughout the training course participants engaged in a programme of training as well as peer to peer and intercultural learning opportunities. Participants were supported to run their own sessions within the program, which enabled their own individual human rights context to be explored by the group.
Participants reflected on the series of powerful moments they experienced when activities enabled their empathising with distinct human realities. This process also allowed participants explore how many human rights abuses are systemic, and many perceived perpetrators are not truly in charge, but rather helplessly part of a system. Abuses were recognised as not always a consequence of a person actively choosing to deprive, and as such how we should address structural problems.
Related to structural issues, further activities encouraged participants to explore the role of privilege in relation to human rights. Anger as a tool and a hindrance was also explored. As the natural reaction to marginalisation, this is especially pertinent to minority perspectives. The activity explored anger as a tool and a motivator, but also as a potential hindrance which should not consume an activist but facilitate progress.
As well as making spaces for empathising and exploring human rights contexts, participants also were introduced to prerequisites for accessing human rights, trigger moments for different human rights, the underlying theory and history of human rights and the international and regional mechanisms for formally confronting violations.
Conclusions
We must demand and build a more fundamental solidarity within our society, as there are currently existential threats to our human rights structures. Shrinking civil space is having a deeper consequence of restricting the freedom to confront abuses of rights and any violation of human rights destabilises and threatens the entire human rights project, especially if unchallenged.
We too often overly criticise allies. Liberal political forces are struggling to unify around our fundamental shared values, instead we are often lost in bickering over the process. We need an organised and unified force and we need to collaborate to bolster our movement.
We now face a crisis and are just managing a scandal, this is the consequence of having failed to get angry and having failed to communicate rights to people. By bringing human stories to human rights discourse, we can foster greater connection with the movement. The first lesson of communication is to be seen and felt, and individual stories can make this happen. Human rights education will aid us in establishing recognition of our common vulnerabilities and move us towards a more substantive vision of equality which holds universal human rights at its core.
This is not an add on, it is at the heart of delivering upon our human rights commitments to the present and future generations.
Robert Nesirky 