ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the search for a theoretical framework of human rights and learning, which can help to navigate the different ways of understanding and doing human rights education. It discusses four mental orientations: technical, interpretative, critical and counter-hegemonic, each of which is composed of different assumptions about whose knowledge counts, the exercise of power and how social change happens. A conception of human rights as facts is based upon two fundamental arguments: first is that people are all born with human rights; and the second is the universal acceptance of the principles outlined in the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. An argument, proposed by Costas Douzinas, is that human rights have become 'ingrained in the new world order', and a lens through which people can understand and speak about the world and their aspirations. This 'colonialism of rights' ensures that the ideas are absorbed into the social nexus and insured against challenge.
