Chapter 5 Human Rights Education Section 1. Overview Human rights education plays a pivotal role in promoting and protecting human rights. In order to call for and recommend states' obligation for human rights education to ensure universal human rights, the United Nations General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the United Nations' Decade for Human Rights Education (1995-2004) in 1994. Furthermore, the international community is increasingly expressing voices that human rights education is making very important contributions to the protection of human rights and is drawing up a draft plan for the second phase of the World Program for Human Rights Education in accordance with the resolution of the Human Rights Council. Human rights education is at the same time action-oriented education with the purpose of ensuring such human rights and preventing violations of human rights. Therefore, the right to human rights education itself is one of the human rights.1) The need for human rights education is being raised more frequently in major social agenda raised in our daily lives, which urges us to pay more attention to complex social, political and cultural effects of human rights education. The core characteristic permeating these demands is that human rights acts as a minimum universal standard, serving as criteria for reasonably adapting to the diverse changes in society.2) 1) United Nations, Quote from ｢Human Rights: The New Promise｣ "Learning about human rights itself is a right. Imposed ignorance is a human rights violation. Education is a cornerstone of human rights and freedom." 2) A Study on the Five-Year Basic Plan on the Development of Human Rights Education, a report commissioned by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, Sungkonghoe University, Human Rights and Peace Center, p.6 Chapter 5. Human Rights Education 111