Acknowledging Shamefulness: Making a Case for the State’s Obligation to Teach a History of Past Violations

Do States have an obligation under international law to teach a history of human rights violations? The important role of history education as a measure to prevent future violence and avert atrocity has been recognized in various reports by the United Nations. These reports have stressed the importance of including past violations, their causes, and consequences in education curriculums so as to avoid repetition. The theory of change at the basis of this project is that teaching a history of violations makes recurrence of violence less likely. This article will examine three distinct areas through the perspective of history teaching. The first area is cultural rights under international human rights law. Human rights law obligates the states to protect the right of a community to its cultural heritage. For communities that have endured and survived gross and systematic violations of human rights, these experiences often form a crucial part of their history and identity. Related to the history and identity of communities is the state obligation to ensure that educational materials provide an accurate portrayal of indigenous and minority groups. The second area is transitional justice and the implementation of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of past large-scale abuses. In contexts of postconflict and post authoritarianism, there has been a widespread institutional commitment to teach histories of past violations. Such commitments have led to legislative initiatives to promote the teaching of recent history through development of new curricula. States have also established truth commissions to fulfill a society’s collective right to know the truth. The final report of these commissions have been used to reform history textbooks. The analysis of transitional justice processes will shed light on the practice of states to incorporate a past of violations in school curricula. The third area is the state obligation to promote an education that respects human rights. History teaching becomes a form of human rights education when it seeks to foster human rights values through the understanding of history. States have committed through norms and resolutions by the United Nations and UNESCO to teach about the Holocaust, and other instances of genocide and mass atrocity. Building upon these three areas of study, the research will show the need to advance the legal recognition and regulation of the state obligation to teach about a history of human rights violations.