Claiming Human Rights

Preface of the two Presidents of the
National Commissions for UNESCO
of Germany and France

“I would rather instantly die
than support any measure that prevents the individual
from enforcing his fundamental rights before an independent judiciary.”
René Cassin

The founders of UNESCO have been convinced that information and communication foster peace between human beings. The mission of the Organization in the area of education should be for everyone to acquire values and norms such that human rights are exercised.

The French and the German National Commissions for UNESCO have jointly created this Internet-based manual that provides information in a manner as simplified as possible on international procedures available in cases of human rights violations in Africa. They have done so taking into account that the “digital divide” applies in its most pronounced fashion to the African continent; they have based their joint approach on works such as Klaus Hüfner’s manual www.unesco.de/c_humanrights explaining the conventional procedures of the United Nations. This project has been initiated by Michel Doucin, former Human Rights Ambassador of France.

The elaborate contents of www.claiminghumanrights.org have been put together to present the entirety of procedures available for people living on the African continent. This website offers a variety of access possibilities to the information contained within; it will be regularly updated and enlarged. This website is accompanied by a publication that serves as complementary tool reaching out to a public which is still far from using modern information technologies.

The celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in our countries offer a renewed opportunity to make known to as many people as possible the existence of international procedures to be used by any endangered human being.

Our ambition is to promote the idea of universality which is under attack today. We hope that this website will be a relevant tool and will also encourage all those world-wide who are fighting for the effective implementation of their  human rights and fundamental freedoms.

We are particularly satisfied about the fruitful cooperation between our two National Commissions and thank those who through their work and their support have made this project possible.

Walter Hirche
President of the German Commission for UNESCO

Jean Favier
President of the French Commission for UNESCO