© Università degli Studi di Padova - Credits: HCE Web agency
Building the first edition of a national Yearbook on human rights has been a highly demanding task, both in substance and method.
It has involved reporting on a reality which touches the very foundations of the legal system and civil co-existence: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights tells us, indeed, that "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world".
Our task here has also been to lay out a blueprint for future editions. We have not built over a void, though.
Nowadays, thanks above all to international organisations, both governmental and non-governmental, we can call upon a "glocal" information and monitoring network to give us data both on human rights violations around the globe and guarantee mechanisms available at various levels. In this context of industrious civic and political engagement, however, Italy has not had available a yearly publication capable of reporting on its institutional position on human rights issues in a systematic, comprehensive way, with special attention toward the Country's many international obligations, and toward the complex system of interweaving relations tying it to supra-national monitoring bodies.
With this Yearbook we aim to fill this gap. It is the fruit of research conducted within the Centro interdipartimentale sui diritti della persona e dei popoli dell'Università di Padova (Interdepartmental Centre on Human Rights and the Rights of Peoples of the University of Padua). The research and editing team includes Andrea Cofelice, Paola Degani, Pietro de Perini, Paolo De Stefani, Marco Mascia, Director of the Centre, and myself, as coordinator. We have worked in awareness that the complexity of the universe under our observation would necessitate clear choices in content and method. The research and editing group, together with the entire Human Rights Centre, assumes full responsibility for those choices. We have not recurred to a language of denunciation, but rather, of information at the service of institutional truth and respect for the canons of scientific reporting.
This work was made possible thanks to tangible support from the Region of Veneto, which also deserves distinction as the first Region in Italy—and, perhaps, in the world—to endorse a regional law containing a provision formally recognising peace as a fundamental right of the human person and of peoples: the so-called "peace human rights norm". The law's text, which refers both to the Italian Constitution and international law principles, was passed in 1988 and renewed in 1999.
The Padua Human Rights Centre can boast leadership in its own right. Founded in 1982, it is the first structure of its kind created in Italy within the university system: one of the first in Europe and, indeed, the world. In 1997 the Centre promoted the creation of the European Master in Human Rights and Democratisation, an academic structure which today works in partnership with 41 prestigious European universities. The Centre also produces the review "Pace diritti umani-Peace human rights", published by Marsilio, and it manages both the Region of Veneto Archive bearing the same motto and the Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence on Intercultural Dialogue, Human Rights and Multi-level Governance. The Human Rights Centre itself continues in its commitment to carry out programmes in collaboration with the Council of Europe, UNESCO, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the European Commission.
Solidly sustained by its fruitful academic experience, the Centre shares responsibility with the UNESCO Chair on Human Rights, Democracy and Peace at the University of Padua in offering this Yearbook to public institutions operating at various levels, as well as to civil society groups in Italy, beginning with schools and volunteer associations, and of course to international organisations.
The 2011 Yearbook was born on the 150th anniversary of Italian Unity. We hope that Italy will forge ahead on the road to a law-based civilisation marked by respect for the supreme value of human dignity, and by the rights inhering in it. We must remember that Italy is the homeland of Cesare Beccaria, Norberto Bobbio, Giuseppe Capograssi and the most worthy Antonio Rosmini, who wrote: "the person is the human right subsistent". We must also remember that Italy hosted the signing of international treaties which are both destinations and starting-points for constructing a peaceful and just international order as proclaimed by article 28 of the Universal Declaration: opus iustitiae pax. They include the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, called "Convention of Rome"; the 1961 European Social Charter, called the "Turin Charter", on the 100th anniversary of Italian Unification; the 1998 Statute of the International Criminal Court, or "Rome Statute". Nor must we forget that in 1993 Italy played a fundamental role in proposing, before the United Nations Security Council, the creation of an International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
These are stones in a mosaic of exemplary identity, if only we can see them: key elements in the total picture of a full-dimension humanistic identity, as the image of the ideal city appearing on the cover of the Yearbook intends to signify and evoke.
Padua, 13 June 2011
ANTONIO PAPISCA
Professor Emeritus of the University of Padua
UNESCO Chair in Human Rights, Democracy and Peace at the same University
6/2/2012
University of Padova
Human Rights Centre
"Antonio Papisca"
Complesso Universitario
Via Beato Pellegrino, 28
35137 Padova
Tel 049 827 1813 / 1817
E-mail
centro.dirittiumani@unipd.it
Certified e-mail (PEC)
centro.dirittiumani@pec.unipd.it
University of Padova
Human Rights Centre
"Antonio Papisca"
Complesso Universitario
Via Beato Pellegrino, 28
35137 Padova
Tel 049 827 1813 / 1817
E-mail
centro.dirittiumani@unipd.it
Certified e-mail (PEC)
centro.dirittiumani@pec.unipd.it
© Università degli Studi di Padova - Credits: HCE Web agency