A/HRC/41/24
Humanitarian Law emphasize the importance for States of including an accurate account of
past violations in educational material at all levels. 12 In 2008, the Argentine Ministry of
Education created the “Education and memory” programme to consolidate an education
policy that promotes the teaching of recent history through development of curricula and
the production of materials.
53.
Teaching about a recent history of violence also contributes to the fulfilment of the
right to truth as an individual and a collective right. Truth commissions have in many
instances played a critical role in establishing a factual and comprehensive record of past
violations and have helped inform the review of educational materials. In Peru, the report of
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission established in 2001 to investigate human rights
violations during the period of internal armed conflict between May 1980 and November
2000 was used to develop and inform education material in secondary schools. In Canada,
recommendations in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, released
in 2015, led to the inclusion of the history of church-run residential schools for Aboriginal
people in the school curricula.
54.
Despite positive examples showing the values of including teaching on past atrocity
crimes in education, many States remain reluctant to do so. I urge States to review their
educational curricula with a view to ensuring that a factual and comprehensive account of
past atrocity crimes, including the dynamics and processes that lead to their commission,
are included. Such initiatives can be stand-alone or form part of broader topics such as
human rights education and global citizenship education.
C.
Remembrance and memorialization
55.
Memorialization and remembrance of past atrocity crimes also contribute to
prevention by educating society and reminding us of our collective duty of “never again”.
Principle 3 of the updated set of principles for the protection and promotion of human rights
through action to combat impunity states:
A people’s knowledge of the history of its oppression is part of its heritage and, as
such, must be ensured by appropriate measures in fulfilment of the State’s duty to
preserve archives and other evidence concerning violations of human rights and
humanitarian law and to facilitate knowledge of those violations. Such measures
shall be aimed at preserving the collective memory from extinction and, in
particular, at guarding against the development of revisionist and negationist
arguments.
Symbolic measures intended to provide moral reparation help to fulfil the State’s duty to
preserve memory. International human rights courts have ordered States to undertake
specific measures such as issuing public apologies concerning violations committed,
erecting monuments recalling massacres, publishing judgments in newspapers of national
circulation and naming streets or parks after victims. In compliance with a 2006 ruling of
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Peru has named the main street of Pucapaccana
Lambrasniyocc the Avenida Bernabé Baldeón-García in memory of the president of a
community who was tortured and killed by members of the armed forces in September
1990. Shared memories of the past can encourage social cohesion, helping to build
resilience against atrocity crimes. In particular, sites of memory provide spaces where those
affected by violence can honour and remember victims.
56.
States have taken various measures to raise awareness about past violations. In
Cambodia, the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum is the memorial site of security prison 21, a
secret facility used by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise in 1975 to its fall in 1979, for
the detention, interrogation, torture and extermination of those deemed “political enemies”
of the regime. In Chile, the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, created in 2010,
disseminates information about systematic human rights violations that occurred during the
military-civic dictatorship between 1973 and 1990 and contextualizes these violations with
12
12
Principle 22 (h).
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