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St. Thomas Law Review

First Page

699

Document Type

Article

Abstract

During the difficult decades of the 1970s and 1980s, human rights organizations (HROs), especially nongovernmental HROs, flourished in the Americas. The HROs directed their attention and resources toward documenting and denouncing the numerous and flagrant violations of human rights occurring in the region More recently the HROs found, partly because of their success, that demands for their services and funding for their projects have diminished. In an effort to revive and refocus their energy, many HROs have turned to human rights education as a new focus. Latin America has a strong tradition of popular education. Using techniques developed in popular education programs, many organizations began human rights education projects in troubled regions. Some well-respected nongovernmental HROs began to work within public educational systems to include human rights education as part of the formal curriculum. Governments eager to show their changed priorities supported and encouraged their ministers of education to include human rights components in elementary and secondary school educational programs. The human rights education programs essentially have been accepted by the world community without question. In the rush to develop materials and teaching guides, human rights educators have failed to question whether teaching human rights necessarily demands different techniques and priorities than teaching literacy or mathematics. The hidden curriculum of the schools, including the power relationships between teachers and students and the unspoken values communicated by the structure of the educational environment, remains unchanged. Human rights educators seldom attempt to evaluate the impact of inserting a human rights module into the traditional school curriculum. Other questions arise when one considers that human rights activists and scholars differ on both the importance given to different rights and the universal application of any given package of rights. Regions that have faced traumatic and disturbing periods of violence readily turn to tools and techniques that are purported to prevent, or at least reduce, future episodes of violence. Yet by their very nature these tools and techniques communicate an ideology. One might think the use of educational propaganda, even if the propaganda is in support of human rights, would be controversial. Nonetheless, even in regions that have successfully struggled for autonomy, human rights education is often proposed as a liberating force. This article documents the growing human rights education movement and explores the ramifications of the movement for indigenous peoples. It defines common models of human rights education and analyzes international legal provisions relevant to human rights education. The article then examines the various roles HROs have played in relation to indigenous peoples. Through a case study of the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua, it explores the implications for indigenous peoples of HRO human rights education projects. Finally, the article concludes that, although the projects may have beneficial aspects, indigenous peoples must carefully examine the curriculum and methodology of human rights education projects in order to judge the extent to which the project is in harmony with the rights and aspirations of indigenous peoples.

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