Preventing Human Rights Violations ‘From the Inside’: Enhancing the Role of Human Rights Education in Security Sector Reform DANIELLE CELERMAJER AND KIRAN GREWAL* Abstract Drawing on a current project working on the prevention of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment with the security sectors of two post-conflict developing societies – Nepal and Sri Lanka – this article explores the trends in human rights education and the theoretical, contextual and practical challenges arising from interventions, and proposes some preliminary thoughts on ways forward. We argue that while there is an assumption that training can contribute to enhancing adherence by security personnel to human rights princi- ples in general and those concerning torture in particular, little attention has been paid to theorizing precisely how such training brings about attitudinal and behaviour- al change. Moreover, the standardized approach to developing and exporting such training packages raises significant questions regarding how context is understood and incorporated. Finally, the difficulties associated with effectively evaluating the impact of training on practice have resulted in the reproduction of strategies with little actual knowledge of what is working. Accordingly, in the development of train- ing interventions more attention is required to both the theories of change and the lived reality of those whose views and behaviours we seek to change. Keywords: security sector reform; theories of change; torture prevention; training Introduction The development of an institutionalized system designed to protect and promote human rights has involved two parallel trends in practice. On the one hand we have seen a proliferation of legal mechanisms in the form of inter- national instruments, judicial or quasi-judicial bodies and pressure for domestic implementation and enforcement. On the other, there has been an increased emphasis on education as a means of empowering victims of rights violations, building a ‘human rights respecting community’ and preventing abuses. In par- ticular, training/education interventions have been identified as providing an important interface for engaging potential or actual perpetrators. * Danielle Celermajer (Danielle.celermajer@sydney.edu.au) is an Associate Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney and director of the European Union (EU)-funded project on the root causes of torture and torture prevention in Nepal and Sri Lanka. Kiran Grewal (Kiran.grewal@sydney.edu.au) is research manager of the project and a qualified lawyer with expertise in international criminal law, sexual violence and women’s rights. Journal of Human Rights Practice Vol. 5 | Number 2 | 2013 | pp. 243 –266 DOI:10.1093/jhuman/hut012 # The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhrp/article/5/2/243/2190843 by guest on 13 June 2022