Chapter 7 Mediating the Right to Education: An Analysis of UNESCO’s Exhibition Album on Human Rights and Its Global Dissemination in 1951

Abstract

The end of the Second World War marked the beginning of a new era. The discovery of war atrocities accelerated a worldwide search for an answer to protect human dignity for all. The United Nations, founded in 1945 to unite the world, appointed a small group of experts to explore the questions: “What are human beings and what are they entitled to?” Based on their findings, the Commission on Human Rights drafted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that was adopted and signed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948. By signing this declaration, the member states of the United Nations also pledged to promote the universal values codified in the document through the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). UNESCO was established in 1945 with the specific task to propagate peace and security, as mandated in its constitution: “Since wars begin in the minds of men and women, it is in the minds of men and women that the defences of peace must be constructed.” UNESCO’s first Director General, Julian S. Huxley, an English biologist, defined the organization’s philosophy as a “scientific world humanism, global in extent and evolutionary in background.” Some of UNESCO’s campaigns focused on informing and educating people about the scope and meaning of the UDHR through books, the press, radio, films, exhibitions, and teaching in schools. It