Publicada en diciembre del 2008

In the year 2000, the IIHR introduced a significant innovation in the inter-American system designed to lend greater momentum to the right to human rights education (HRE). The stated goal was to set up a system of regular reports on progress made for giving effective exercise to this right through public policies in the 19 States that were signatories of the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Protocol of San Salvador). Altogether, the reports have provided greater insight into this right, which is now better accepted as a legitimate part of the political agenda and is more widely understood as obligatory. For the IIHR, human rights education is not just one more item on the curriculum. Instead and above all, it is a human right that stands at the very core of the development of democracy.

Taken as a whole, the HRE reports were made possible by the development of a system of progress indicators on human rights that the Institute began preparing in 2001. Many stakeholders have explicitly recognized the usefulness of this effort: the OAS, the inter-American human rights system, international organizations, regional organizations such as Mercosur, and national entities, including electoral organizations and ombudsman offices in Central America, and similar institutions in other countries such as Bolivia. Aside from this recognition, the effort itself holds intrinsic value. It also provides a foundation for all the research work stipulated in the Institute’s mandate. The exercise of applying a system of indicators to the development of the right to human rights education for seven consecutive years now stands as a backdrop to the other two missions set forth in the IIHR mandate: outreach and teaching.