Publicada en el 2004

In accordance with its original mandate, since its creation in 1980 the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIHR) has focused on human rights education (HRE). Promotion, technical assistance, research and dissemination activities have also been carried out, closely related to this main objective. Through regional, subregional and national courses, seminars and workshops targeted at diverse or specialized audiences, the Institute has gained enormous pedagogical experience and both its own publications and its bibliographic and documentary collections are geared to educational services.

During the 1980s, this educational effort, by the IIHR and a large group of organizations throughout the Western Hemisphere, placed special emphasis on training staff of civil society organizations and public institutions involved in human rights and democracy work, to protect the citizenry from violations during the period of the dictatorships and to develop institutions for the advancement and protection of human rights once democracy had been restored. In this way, the political dimension of HRE was gradually forged and strengthened in the region.