On
24 January 2013, the Civil Society Organizations (CSO) Coalition on
the Right to Peace organized a meeting in preparation for
the first session of the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) on the Right to Peace
to be held from 18-21 February 2013. Established by the Human Rights
Council in July 2012 through resolution 20/15, the OEWG has been charged with
“progressively negotiating a draft UN declaration on the right to peace on the
basis of the draft submitted by the Advisory Committee, and without prejudging
relevant past, present and future views and proposals.”
The
meeting was moderated by Mr. Ricardo
Espinosa, Chief, Non-governmental Liaison Unit, while the panel was
composed by H.E. Christian Guillermet, Deputy Permanent Representative of Costa
Rica to the United Nations in Geneva and Chair of the OEWG; and Prof. Carlos
Villán Durán, President of the Spanish Society for International Human Rights
Law. The Secretariat of the Working Group on the Right to Peace at the OHCHR
also attended the meeting as an observer.
During
the Panel Discussion, several NGOs took the floor delivering statements about
the relationship between the right to peace and their field of expertise. Maria
D’Onofrio spoke on behalf of IIMA about the connections between the right to
education and the right to peace.
Stressing
the key role played by peace education in today’ society, she highlighted that “peace,
human rights and education are closely linked to each other. In fact, we cannot
live in peace in a society where human rights are not respected by the State
and by citizens themselves. Nevertheless, citizens should be educated about
peace, they should learn to accept diverse groups coexisting within society,
and they should be given the knowledge and competences needed to choose
non-violent conflict resolution and use a ‘language of peace’. Maria underlined
that education is indeed the pre-condition of all human rights, including the
right to peace.
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