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The United Nations declared the years 1995 to 2004 as the Decade for Human Rights Education. The principles of human rights education promote dignity, tolerance, and peace by educating individuals and groups to respect, defend, and advocate for their rights. These rights are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted in 1948 making human rights a global responsibility. During this decade nations are called upon to promote and implement human rights education in all sectors of their society. In 1992 Amnesty International Norway developed a human rights education program called Teaching for Freedom (TFF). This program was implemented in 26 countries worldwide including all ten administrative regions in Ghana, West Africa. The purposes of the TFF program were to educate the youth and train final year teachers in the principles of human rights. These programs are based on the notion of universal human rights that are sometimes criticized as Western and non-applicable to the African context. Human rights education programs are tasked with not only making these universal principles meaningful and participatory in the lives of the people on the ground, but also implementing culturally legitimate programs in local contexts with few resources. This study attempted to understand how the Teaching for Freedom program accomplished these aims and the barriers that impeded it. Using qualitative analysis and the grounded theory approach, I conducted a case study of one TFF program located in one school in one region of Ghana. This human rights education program operated as a club and was studied within the context of the school and society in which it operated. Grounded theory analysis revealed that the TFF club was a conflicted organization whose operation was greatly shaped by forces within the school that were also present in larger society. I describe the operation of the club in terms of awareness, empowerment, and implementation. Barriers to the operation of the TFF club were identified within these three areas of operation and were closely related to the conflicting cultural forces within the school and Ghanaian society / Ph. D.

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No / The human right to water offers a strong legal tool for empowering millions of people living without safe drinking water around the world by creating legal obligations and standards for universal access to safe drinking water. The human right to sanitation creates legal obligations and standards for progressive improvement of access for the bil lions of people living without a basic level of sanitation services and the millions depending on open defecation. Both rights have evolved through closely linked processes at the international level, with implications for water and sanitation governance processes at the national level. This chapter analyses the co-evolution of the human rights to water and sanitation and the legal foundations of the rights at the international level, while highlighting the relationship between the rights and discussing the unique developments which each right has experienced. The chapter also considers the implementation chal- lenges and justiciability issues that will shape the future development of both rights at the international and national levels.

It is wrong to interfere with the rights of conscience and association of homosexuals in the United States. A large faction in this country intends to amend the Constitution of the United States in such a way that a portion of its fellow citizens, identified as homosexuals, will be excluded from the legal and social benefits conferred upon individuals who choose to be married. The social and moral arguments supporting this legislation are only partial considerations of . the case, and are insufficient in providing the necessary grounds upon which exclusion would. be acceptable. I base this conclusion on the contention that America's founding principles are dedicated to preserving individualism and reform, and that it is necessary to safeguard each · citizen from the cabals of the majority. To support this contention, I have differentiated between a Pluralist-Liberal conception of freedom, which supports the expansion of liberty where it is argued that reform is · necessary, and an Exclusivist-Conservative conception of freedom, which supports the preservation of the fault lines that separate individual freedom and social concerns. I draw from John Rawls1 Political Liberalism, and J. S. Mills' On Liberty, and compare their theories about the proper functions of a free democracy with the writings of America's founding fathers. I ·also give attention to historical cases in which the Exclusivist-Conservative arguments, presented as social concern, were revealed to defend nothing more than status and prejudice. Given the context of a pluralistic democracy, which more strongly accommodates the alternate conception, the use of historical examples is · intended to show, by comparison, the deficiencies of the E-C argument against homosexual rights.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed July 9, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 248-272).

In terms of Section 29 (1) of the Constitution, everyone has the right to basic education. This right is not subject to ‘reasonable legislative and other measures, available resources and progressive realisation.’ The right to basic, compulsory education is widely regarded as a fundamental human right. For example, this right is included in a number of international human rights treaties such as the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, the ‘International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,’ the ‘African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child’, the ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child’, the ‘Dakar Framework for Action: Education for All’, and ‘UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education’. The South African Constitution, however, does not clarify the content and scope of the right to basic education. Consequently, the Constitution has given the state wide discretion to determine the scope, nature and content of this basic right. Apartheid left the South African education system fragmented and unequal. The South African educational system has gone through numerous curricula and institutional changes. The changes in the curriculum were part of the transformation process of the South African education system. In addition, the state has allocated substantial public funds towards basic education. However, the investment in basic education does not commensurate with the quality of teaching and learning in poor and marginalised schools. For example, several rural and farm schools in the Eastern Cape lacked toilet facilities; textbooks and other education support material; furniture; and other essential necessities. Education loses its transformative power when poor and marginalised schools continue to lack these essential services. Consequently, inequality is perpetuated and the poor and marginalised are unable to compete meaningfully in the social, economic and political life of South Africa. The mini dissertation concludes by recommending that the Department of Basic Education should ensure that all schools, especially those in rural communities and farms, have access to textbooks, qualified teachers, clean water and toilet facilities and other essential necessities needed for the delivery of quality basic education.

This thesis focuses on the establishment and operation of the latest regional Human Rights Court: The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. For the development of human rights protection mechanisms within regional organizations the governments of the member states are of special relevance. They pull the strings to either foster and develop a system or to disrupt it. Therefore, following a brief historical introduction, the first chapter gives an overview of the regional African organization, the former Organization of African Unity (OAU) and today's African Union (AU) which was instrumental in the establishment of the African Human Rights System and has now enhanced it by adding a judicial authority. However, it will become clear that is has taken a long time for the OAU to put human rights violations within the borders of its own member states on its agenda: Not until there was increasing international pressure due to never-ending excrescences of violence in the dictatorial regimes in Africa did the OAU carefully attend to this matter in the late 1970s. Its efforts culminated in the adoption of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (the eponymous Banjul Charter) which entered into force in 1981. The body for the protection created by the Charter was the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights which took up its function in 1987. Since the newly established African Court is not supposed to replace the Commission but rather to strengthen it, the Court operates in concert with the Commission. Therefore the old protection system will still be applicable which deems a portrayal of the system in the following chapter necessary. Here, it will be outlined, that the competences of the Commission remain very limited and that its judicial impact on the State parties involved in its protection procedures has been nearly nil up to this very day. Against this background the next chapter focuses on the Protocol to the Banjul-Charter establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. First, the historical-political background and the protocol's juridical formulation process are examined. Here it will be shown that the end of global bipolarity has had a remarkable impact on the political protagonists in Africa with the effect that the increasing demands for a human rights Court within the OAU no longer remained completely unheard. It will also be outlined that the path towards the adoption of the protocol has been long and difficult. After a short survey of the organisational structure of the Court it will become clear that the protocol follows to a large extend its Inter-American counterpart concerning the institutional embodiment. However, a remarkable and, in international comparison, a unique achievement has also been achieved by the institutional regulations by making gender equality has one of the key issues to encompass when it comes to the nomination and election of judges. The following chapters outline the jurisdiction of the Court and the judicial process before the Court. In this connection the admissibility criteria will be highlighted in which two remarkable regulations stand out: First, it will become clear that in contrast to other regional human rights courts individuals and NGOs alike are entitled to file a complaint with the African Court (even though initially with the help of the Commission, since the protocol makes the complaint authority of individuals and NGOs dependent of a special declaration of acceptance of the State Parties concerned). Moreover, also unique compared to international two-tier human rights procedures, the protocol does not include a provision according to which a complainant would be obliged to go through a prior Commission procedure before filing a complaint with the Court. Individual complainants rather have direct access to the Court once a declaration of acceptance has been submitted by a State Party to the protocol. Following short remarks on the competence of the Court to issue provisional measures which, among other things, reveal that these measures have, in contrast to those of the ECtHR, binding effect the procedural termination of a complaint comes into focus. Here, the possible contents of the rulings and the control mechanisms for their implementation are being contemplated in a detailed fashion. This last aspect most probably will have great influence on the fate of the Court since the Commission for its part had to a large extent no success due to the fact that it had no conventional implementation procedures to rely on. Therefore, in the vast majority of cases the findings of the Commission trailed off without any State Party concerned paying any attention to it. The drafters of the protocol establishing the Court obviously have learned this lesson since the protocol provides for a quite remarkable implementation mechanism that may be able to impose political and legal pressure alike on State Parties if the Court deems that they have not properly complied with a Court's ruling. Even sanctions within the African Union against a recusant State come into question from a legal point of view - a quantum leap regarding the legal situation under the Banjul Charter. The last chapter rehearses the main findings of the thesis and concludes with a positive outlook on the future development of the African human rights system.