Fernando M. Reimers et a].

In the twentieth century, the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis caused, at
the end of World War II, two important developments in the quest for cos—
mopolitanism. The Nuremberg trials of the perpetrators of the Holocaust
brought forth the notion that there are ethical obligations to humanity that
transcend national law; this notion was the foundation of the idea of crimes
against humanity. These views on shared obligations and the human rights
that people have above their rights and duties to nation—states and national
legal canons formed the foundation of the creation of the United Nations
and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The United Nations, the global architecture built after World War II to ad—
vance peace and security, is a clear cosmopolitan expression that recognizes
that the advancement of human rights and peace is an undertaking that
calls for cooperation across the boundaries of nation—states. The Sustainable
Development Goals, which were adopted at the seventieth general assembly
of the United Nations, in September 2015, are the most recent expression
of that cosmopolitan aspiration.

As an institution of the Enlightenment, public education is, at its core, an
institution created to advance the cosmopolitan idea of humanity as one and
human rights as a shared responsibility (Reimers, 2015a, 2015b).

The long—standing cosmopolitan character of education is reflected in the
way that ideas about the purposes of education and about the curriculum
and pedagogies used to achieve those purposes have generally traveled across
national boundaries. The expansion of public education in particular de—
pended on multiple forms of exchanges between educators across national
boundaries and on extensive borrowing and transfers of educational ap—
proaches and practices from one cultural context to another. In the early
years of the French Republic, for instance, Marc Antoine Jullien proposed
that the systematic comparative study and diffusion of educational inno—
vation was a way to advance public education. In the early years of the
American experience, John Quincy Adams extensively documented the

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