ABSTRACT
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 2002) is an important ethical framework for political actions. In this declaration, and in the subsequent International Covenants (United Nations, 2002), 2 major classes of human rights are distinguished, one consisting of civil and political rights, and the other consisting of economic, social, and cultural rights. The Universal Declaration itself and the UN Decade for Human Rights Education emphasize the relevance of an adequate knowledge about human rights in the population. Accordingly, this article represents the results of 2 representative studies on human rights in Germany. The major results of these studies are that knowledge about human rights and about human rights documents is quite low. Also, economic, social, and cultural rights are less known, and are evaluated as less important, than civil and political rights. Thus, the idea of the indivisibility of human rights is not realized. Relating to the commitment to human rights, about 1% of the population might be labeled as core activists. However, large interindividual differences concerning the commitment to human rights were observed. These differences can be explained in part by knowledge about human rights and by the importance of human rights. Right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation show only inconsistent results.
Additionally, some relevant differences between East Germans and West Germans were found. East Germans showed greater knowledge about, and somewhat higher appreciation of economic human rights, especially concerning the right to work. Altogether, the results emphasize the importance of a more extensive human rights education.
268Human rights are the foundation of human existence and coexistence. They are universal, indivisible, and interdependent. And they lie at the heart of everything the United Nations aspires to achieve in its global mission of peace and development. (Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General quoted in United Nations, 2002, p. XIII)
