This book assesses the role of human rights education (HRE) in the peacebuilding field. Today, most governments, international organisations and non-governmental organisations recognise the importance of human rights in peace- and democracy-building activities in post-conflict regions. However, compared with other components of peacebuilding, little attention and funding have been given to the cultivation of human rights knowledge and skills within these populations. Almost nothing has been committed to understanding how HRE is best accomplished in such difficult circumstances. Human Rights Education and Peacebuilding demonstrates the promise of HRE programs to help bring about peace within challenging post-conflict contexts. Each chapter of this book (a) identifies the short and medium term impacts of seven different HRE programs on their respective target groups, and (b) provides an analysis of the peculiar local contextual factors that influenced each program's rationale for human rights education. More specifically, each chapter addresses these critical questions: - How are communities around the world using HRE to help rebuild their lives in the aftermath of an armed conflict? - How does HRE respond local problems and needs? How similar are the human rights impacts in the different projects? - How can we understand the promise and challenges associated with HRE as a component of community peace-building? This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, human rights, education studies and IR in general.

This book assesses the role of human rights education (HRE) in the peacebuilding field. Today, most governments, international organisations and non-governmental organisations recognise the importance of human rights in peace- and democracy-building activities in post-conflict regions. However, compared with other components of peacebuilding, little attention and funding have been given to the cultivation of human rights knowledge and skills within these populations. Almost nothing has been committed to understanding how HRE is best accomplished in such difficult circumstances. Human Rights Education and Peacebuilding demonstrates the promise of HRE programs to help bring about peace within challenging post-conflict contexts. Each chapter of this book (a) identifies the short and medium term impacts of seven different HRE programs on their respective target groups, and (b) provides an analysis of the peculiar local contextual factors that influenced each program's rationale for human rights education. More specifically, each chapter addresses these critical questions: - How are communities around the world using HRE to help rebuild their lives in the aftermath of an armed conflict? - How does HRE respond local problems and needs? How similar are the human rights impacts in the different projects? - How can we understand the promise and challenges associated with HRE as a component of community peace-building? This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, conflict resolution, human rights, education studies and IR in general.

An invaluable resource for readers seeking to understand how traditional religious ideas and values relate to modern ideas of human rights, how Western models of human rights are perceived in non-Western traditions, and what these traditions may have to offer in the realm of human rights. Together, the authors work to reassess both the rich and diverse resources of the major religious traditions and some of the most challenging problems of the contemporary world. The collection's central theme is the way in which the diversity of religious beliefs and practices -- from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism -- relates and can come in conflict with the moral universalism implied by the concept of human rights.