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CHAPTER ONE

The 1974 UNESCO "Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Co-operation

and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms"

I. INTRODUCTION

This book introduces American educational policy makers, school administrators, and teachers to the objectives and principles articulated in the 1974 UNESCO "Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms."* The Recommendation is an important policy statement bearing on vital contemporary educational issues. It deserves serious consideration whatever one's views about the propriety of some recent UNESCO action. 1

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is one of a number of so-called specialized agencies (e.g., ILO, WHO, FAO) that are affiliated with, but not formally a part of, the United Nations. Each of these agencies has its own organizational structure, consisting of a secretariat as well as executive and policy-making bodies. The functions and powers of these bodies are spelled out in the constitutions of these organizations. The UNESCO Constitution is embodied in a treaty that entered into force in 1946 and thus brought the Organization formally into being. Its current membership consists of 135 states.

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*The Recommendation is reproduced in the Appendix.

The UNESCO Constitution declares that it is the purpose of UNESCO to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations. (Art. 1.)

The 1974 UNESCO Recommendation, which was adopted to promote these aims through education, recognizes that genuine international understanding, cooperation and peace cannot be achieved without successful efforts to promote the protection of human rights on the national and international plane. Andrei Sakharov echoed this proposition in his statement accepting the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize: "What made me particularly happy was to see that the [Nobel] committee's decision stressed the link between defense of peace and defense of human rights, emphasizing that the defense of human rights guarantees a solid ground for genuine long-term international cooperation." 2 The 1974 UNESCO Recommendation not only affirms, the link that exists between international education and human rights education; it also calls on governments, education officials and teachers to recognize this interrelationship and to translate it into action through appropriate educational policies, practices and programs.

This book is designed to encourage and facilitate these efforts by providing some of the background material and information we believe American readers will find helpful in assessing and acting upon the principles and objectives of the Recommendation. We begin with a short description of the drafting history and legal status of the Recommendation, followed by an analysis of its principal provisions. Subsequent chapters provide an historical survey of concepts and programs of international education; a description and analysis of international human rights principles and systems for their protection; a review of relevant social science research findings concerning the international knowledge and attitudes of young people; and a review of selected curriculum materials for students in grades 7 to 12 dealing with the topics of the Recommendation.

The choice of these topics was motivated by three basic considerations. First, the orientation of human rights education in the United States has been almost exclusively domestic in the sense that American students and teachers think of human rights primarily in terms of U.S. constitutional guarantees. Available teaching materials also reflect this orientation. International human rights, on the other hand, is a subject that receives little attention in the American classroom. Its obvious importance, if only as a pedagogic tool for bringing a global perspective to critical national and international issues, suggests that there is a real need for an international component to American human rights education. It would familiarize American students with the subject in order to explore the assumptions and policy implications inherent in the belief, which is reflected in international human rights instruments and in

the 1974 UNESCO Recommendation, that mankind's yearning for human rights and human dignity is universal. 3 But the study of international human rights will not find its way into the American school curriculum until American teachers have access to the information they need to understand and present the subject. Since they do not currently have that information, we attempt to provide it in this book.

The second consideration that explains the choice of topics covered in this book is related to the fact that "education for international understanding, co-operation and peace" is not tied to any one or a limited number of school subjects. To encourage and help develop programs and curricula that promote global understanding requires knowledge about prior experience with such programs as well as research concerning the actual or potential impact of this type of education. These and related issues are explored in the chapters which provide an historical survey of international education concepts and programs and which review social science research findings concerning the international knowledge and attitudes of young people.

Finally, we believe that the practical value of this book would be greatly diminished if it failed to include a chapter dealing with available curriculum materials on the topics of the 1974 UNESCO Recommendation. This chapter, which was prepared by Dr. Richard W. Fogg, is intended to help teachers and school administrators implement the principles of the Recommendation by translating them into meaningful and pedagogically sound learning experiences.

II. THE LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL

CONTEXT OF THE RECOMMENDATION

A. Its Legal Status

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The manner in which international organizations establish international standards or legal norms differs from organization to organization. UNESCO employs two legislative instruments for the adoption of international standards: international conventions and recommendations.

International conventions within the meaning of the UNESCO Constitution are treaties drafted under the auspices of the Organization. They are adopted by a two-thirds majority vote of the UNESCO General Conference 5 and become legally binding only for those states that have ratified (accepted) them. UNESCO recommendations, on the other hand, are passed by a majority vote of the General Conference and come into force as soon as they have been adopted. But as their name suggests, recommendations are non-obligatory statements of principles or norms which the Organization recommends should be applied or implemented by the Member States. We may consequently characterize the 1974 UNESCO Recommendation as a legislative or quasi-legislative act that invites but does not compel United States compliance with its provisions.

Although the Member States have no legal obligation to give effect to the

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provisions of a UNESCO recommendation, they are required by the UNESCO Constitution to bring the recommendation to the attention of those national agencies in their country that are empowered to regulate and act upon the subjects dealt with in the recommendation. The UNESCO Constitution also requires the Member States to file periodic reports with the Organization detailing what action, if any, they have taken to give effect to the recommendation. These requirements are designed to accomplish two principal objectives: first, to give appropriate national agencies an opportunity to consider the advisability of implementing the recommendation; and, second, to encourage such implementation by putting governments on notice that their actions or inactions will have to be publicly explained and defended. An analysis of this constitutional framework suggests that, although governments do not have to comply with a UNESCO recommendation, there is an institutional expectation that they will make a good faith effort to do so.

The subject matter of the recommendation as well as the constitutional structure of a given country determines which national agencies have to be informed of the adoption and contents of a UNESCO recommendation. Since the 1974 UNESCO Recommmendation deals with diverse educational practices, policies and programs, the U.S. government would seem to be under an obligation to transmit copies of the instrument to all chief state school officers, to major private educational organizations, to the U.S. Commissioner of Education and to the U.S. Congress. The subjects covered by the Recommendation fall within the general jurisdiction of the States of the Union because they concern education, but many related policies are today also governed by federal guidelines. Programs designed to implement some provisions of the Recommendation might therefore qualify for funding under specific federal legislation applicable, for example, to teaching about ethnic heritage, to efforts to eliminate racial and sex stereotypes, as well as to area study, foreign exchange, and language programs.

The 1974 UNESCO Recommendation specifically invites the Member States to apply the provisions of the Recommendation "by taking whatever legislative or other steps may be required . . . to give effect. . . to the principles" that it proclaims. (Preamble, para. 7.) The Recommendation also calls on the Member States to bring it to the

attention of the authorities, departments or bodies responsible for school education, higher education and out-of-school education, of the various organizations carrying out educational work among young people and adults such as student and youth movements, associations of pupils' parents, teachers' unions and other interested parties. (Preamble, para. 8.) The publication and dissemination of this book by the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO represents one attempt to comply with the foregoing provisions. It gives concerned Americans an opportunity to learn about the Recommendation and examine its relevance for American education.

B. Its Drafting History

Over the past two decades UNESCO has developed a set of formal rules governing the drafting and adoption of, as well as the reporting procedures applicable to, international conventions and recommendations. They have been codified in the "Rules of Procedure concerning Recommendations to Member States and International Conventions covered by the terms of Article IV, paragraph 4, of the Constitution." These rules envisage a drafting process that consists of a number of stages spread over a substantial period of time designed to ensure that the end-product, be it a convention or recommendation, has received careful consideration by the entire UNESCO constituency. This process, which was also followed with regard to the 1974 UNESCO Recommendation, fosters consensus among UNESCO Member States in favor of the particular standard-setting measure.

In 1968, the UNESCO General Conference authorized the Secretariat to study the advisability of preparing an international instrument on education to promote "the ideals of peace, understanding and respect between peoples." The importance of this project was reaffirmed by the General Conference in 1970. In the spring of 1972, the UNESCO Secretariat recommended the adoption of UNESCO standards relating to international education. This report was submitted to the UNESCO Executive Board. It agreed with the Secretariat and initiated the legislative process by placing the following item on the provisional agenda of the forthcoming seventeenth session of the General Conference: "Desirability of adopting an international instrument on education for international understanding, co-operation and peace."

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The General Conference acted on this agenda item on November 17, 1972. It authorized the preparation of a UNESCO recommendation on "education for international understanding, co-operation and peace," subject to the important proviso that the instrument "should also cover education relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms." This stipulation was added because of the great importance that many UNESCO Member States attached to the link between international education and human rights education. The General Conference decided at the same time that the text of a draft recommendation should be submitted to it at its eighteenth session in 1974 and that it should be drawn up by a special committee of experts to be appointed by the Member States.

The "Special Committee of Governmental Experts to Examine the Draft Recommendation Concerning Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Peace and Education Relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms" met in Paris from April 29 through May 8, 1974. Sixty-two UNESCO Member States, including the United States, were represented at this conference.

As required by the UNESCO rules applicable to the drafting of recommendations, the Secretariat had in 1973 circulated to the Member States for their comments a report relating to the subject of the proposed

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