“Europe must move with more determination from rhetoric to enforcement of human rights standards” stated the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, when presenting the last annual report of his mandate.

Scottish teachers are too scared of upsetting parents to teach human rights, worrying new research has found. Student teachers said they feared that “all hell would break loose” if they taught pupils about emotive human rights issues. Meanwhile, students who did want to cover human rights during their teaching practice were actively discouraged by qualified teachers who were concerned that it was “controversial”.

Launched on 18 January 2012, the UNESCO-USA-Brazil project Teaching Respect for All aims to design a curricular framework to fight racism and promote tolerance, which countries can adapt to their respective contexts and needs. The project will also elaborate educational materials for addressing racism and tolerance in education. These tools will build on lessons learned and current good practices in the field. The materials will be disseminated worldwide by UNESCO through education ministries as well as the Organization’s extensive networks, including the UNESCO Associated Schools.

The first edition of the international course “Human Rights for Development” (HR4DEV), takes place from 30 July to 24 August 2012 in Antwerp, Belgium. What are the potential and limits of human rights for development? What is the added value of children’s rights’ approaches to global problems such as poverty, environmental challenges, armed conflict and migration? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in the course, from a critical and interdisciplinary perspective.

The United Nations General Assembly in New York adopted the Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training on 19 December. This landmark document recognises the right of every one of the planet's seven billion people to have access to human rights education, a lifelong process involving all ages, all parts of society, and every kind of education, formal and informal.