Exploring Humanitarian Law (EHL)
The materials expose students to IHL by exploring ethical and humanitarian issues arising from armed conflict. By studying the behaviour of actual persons and the dilemmas they experience, young people develop a fresh perspective and begin to understand the need for rules during war and the complexity of their application. They also acquire an understanding of different perspectives and an interest in local and international events, opening the door to active participation in the life of their community.
EHL is not explicitly concerned with peace, tolerance, mutual understanding, prevention of violence or conflict resolution. It emphasizes the positive changes in attitude stemming from ideas related to respect for life and human dignity, civic responsibility, and solidarity. Thus, EHL can be incorporated into a wide range of different subject areas that fall under the broad heading of citizenship education. Its teaching methods reinforce many important academic and life skills, such as communication, team-work, disagreeing respectfully, reasoning, research, problem-solving and critical thinking.
"We have a choice today. We can either sit back, watch the devastation wrought by war and try to make our children look the other way; or we can choose to tell our children that what they see – or what they are themselves experiencing – is not acceptable, that this is not how it is supposed to be, and that they can behave differently, in ways inspired by deep-rooted respect for human dignity, both in peacetime and in the midst of armed conflict."
EHL resource packs are available in 19 languages. A methodology guide in English spells out the teaching methods underpinning EHL.
This section of the Exploring Humanitarian Law (EHL) Virtual Campus introduces teachers to the major pedagogical concepts and teaching methods of the EHL curriculum. It is divided into three main parts: an orientation section on teaching EHL; a section describing the teaching methods and tips for using them; and a series of teacher-training workshops that take you, step by step, through a training process to prepare you to teach EHL.
Watch the teacher-training video on exploring humanitarian law.