ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the key instruments relevant to human rights education (HRE) in primary schooling at the global and European levels, and discusses the extent to which their obligations have been accepted by the UK. It focuses on the requirements of these instruments and relevant academic commentary to provide a reasonable interpretation of the international responsibility to educate about, through and for human rights. Perhaps of greatest significance from a legal perspective regarding HRE in formal primary education is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. While the often aspirational HRE provisions within international instruments perhaps indicate a framework with designs beyond its means, the regional documents by contrast do not utilise their weightier enforcement machinery for the purpose of furthering HRE. HRE in soft law instruments at the international level has steadily proliferated with the adoption of a growing number of comprehensive and sustained initiatives.
