Publicada en el 2002

Every effort should be made to prevent violence and to end all forms of discrimination and social exclusion. All appropriate actions must be taken to promote the exercise of freedom and democracy and to ensure inclusion. Education in human rights is the first task of the inter-American system and of the region’s democracies in order to achieve these goals. The IIHR was created precisely with this objective: to educate about and for human rights and democracy, working as a means of leverage in support of the mechanisms of promotion, control and administration of the system (the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights) and to assist civil society and governments in this task.

The Institute understands that human rights education constitutes a part of the right to education and at the same time is a right in itself. As such, it implies an obligation on the part of the State and every authority to assure the teaching and learning of the values, rights and responsibilities of citizens, from childhood to adulthood. This right is programmatic, but this does not mean that citizens cannot demand it, because its compliance entails the obligation to adopt the necessary measures to ensure that it will continue to be valid over time.