Culture of Human Rights

The establishment and development of a culture of human rights is a slow process of maturation that necessitates the acquisition of habits of respect for both established law and the more abstract rights of others. Throughout the region of the former Yugoslavia, attempts must be made to accelerate this process through education, the establishment ofnew modes of behavior and the rediscovery of long-forgotten norms of relations between individuals. Targeted sectors of the society should include educational bodies, national media, religious authorities, and the legal profession.

In order to highlight the elements of each culture that most need to change and to what degree, it must be known how the public within each state views human rights and how/if these views are in transition. The Center therefore proposes a research project, to last one and a half years, in order to collect a regional team of academics from different disciplines who can contribute to the topic on the basis of their own knowledge and research. At the end of this period, the results will be published in a manageable form to allow educators, journalists, legal professionals, and others to better devote their resources to problematic areas where little progress appears to be made. Educators, for example, could devote more time to covering the aspects of human rights that appear to be the least understood, while journalists could use this information to raise questions in the public sphere for debate and consequently increase interest a previously misunderstood branch of the culture of human rights. In providing a handy resource to the branches of society that can most manipulate the formation of a human rights culture, the Center hopes to foster the develop of a positive widespread understanding of human rights throughout the region. Indeed, with a region-wide research project, strategies that have found success in one region may be applied to other regions where a human rights culture has not made steady gains. Such adoption of pre-tested strategies will encourage interaction between the societies of the region and may, in itself, foster a culture of human rights.

The research analysis would elaborate the variety of issues. Among them there would be:

- The use of the language of "Culture of Human Rights" in the Human Rights Bodies of United Nations, in particular by the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights
- The culture of human rights as a well established concept in other regions, like in particular South Africa (accordingly, the different historical and political context, the different value systems and patterns of behavior would be taken into account)
- The relationship to the field of "civic culture" (regarding to the activities of the Council of Europe)
- The particular nature of the state in SEE and its attitude towards the people with special attention drawn to the tradition of a very bureaucratic state, where the administration is the major power centre
- A traditional preference for group rights over individual rights stemming from authoritarian rule and the lack of rule of law over a longer period
- Preparing a list of deficits in the major framework conditions of a proper culture of human rights (starting from the ignorance on existing rights and the lack of capacity to make use of them, the indifference to the rights of others, the experience of discrimination and the reasons for an inclination to discriminate)
- The fact that human rights violations have been committed in the name of culture and ethnicity or religion- The question whether multi-culturalism should be part of a culture of human rights
- The possibilities of education and the need for new educational paradigms(with regard to the improvement of the existing situation)
- A comparison of human rights in the books and the reports of human rights organizations and international agencies on human rights violations in the region (with regard to the methodology)
- The culture of "implementation of human rights" and how to measure it
- How to make human rights part of daily life and to empower people to enjoy their human rights as well as to respect the human rights of others

Methodology

A team of 5-7 contributors from different countries in the region representing also different disciplines should prepare outlines to be discussed at a regional workshop which should clarify the final research design and structure of the publication.

After elaboration of the papers a final meeting would be organized to discuss the results.

A project coordinator will oversee the distribution of tasks and make sure that all important aspects are covered. A project coordinator will be in charge of editing the publication.

Each author will write in his/her language or in English.

The profile of researches: sociology, political sciences, law, anthropology, history, human rights experts.

Project team

Serbia

-Mirjana Todorovic, Professor of Sociology, University of Belgrade School of Law
- Prof. Nenad Popovic, University of Niš School of Philosophy
- Miodrag Jovanovic,assistant professor, University of Belgrade School of Law

Macedonia

- Dr. Mirjana Najcevska Sts. Cyril and Metodius University Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research, Skoplje

Bosnia and Hercegovina

- Dubravka Vojinovic,Asistant of International Public Law and Social Labor Law, University of Mostar, East Mostar

Project period

November 2001 - September 2002