Detailed ratifications / reservations charts :
On the tables This overview of international commitments to the right to education lists United Nations Treaties, regional treaties, treaties developed under the auspices of the International Labour Organisation (which outline important rights of teachers, minimum age and child labour regulations, and indigenous and tribal peoples' conventions). The country pages also contain national constitutional guarantees. The information is collected into a number of tables with an option for "printer friendly format -  " for ease of reference. Ratification of a particular treaty is represented by a tick (a check  ) and non-ratification (or in some cases mere signature which does not fully legally bind the country to the provisions of the treaty) by a cross  . The symbol  is used to indicate that the treaty has been ratified with a reservation relevant to the right to education. The full text of the reservation can be accessed by moving the mouse over the symbol, or as a footnote when printing the table. Reservations and declarations are entered by countries on acceding to, or ratifying international treaties in order to limit their obligations under international law, an understanding of their content is thus central to a picture of states commitments on the right to education.On the content of the treaties The obligation upon each government to secure free and compulsory primary education for all children was first laid down - partially - in the European Convention concluded within the Council of Europe in 1950, which was supplemented two years later by the guarantee of civil and political dimensions of the right to education. The European Social Charter, the revision of which in 1996 included a far-reaching guarantee of the right to education, added the previously missing economic and social dimensions, and the Council of Europe is no longer the single exception to the uniform guarantee of free and compulsory primary education. The 1962 UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education is the oldest global treaty guaranteeing free and compulsory education. It was followed by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Within the Organization of American States (OAS), as with the Council of Europe, the American Convention on Human Rights had included only civil and political rights. In 1988 this was supplemented by the Protocol of San Salvador on economic, social and cultural rights. The Organization of African Unity created its own human rights treaties and organs, starting in 1981 with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, which merged collective and individual as well as civil/political and economic/social/cultural rights. The Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child was adopted in 1990 coming into force ten years later, with the committee envisaged by the Charter expected in the year 2001. There is no regional human rights organization in Asia nor is there a regional human rights treaty. The Convention on the Rights of the Child partially remedies this as it includes the most far-reaching guarantee of the right to education, encompassing its orientation and content as well as specific provisions for minority and indigenous children and children with disabilities, and has been ratified by almost all countries of the world. These treaties map out the international legal framework securing free and compulsory education for all children, the fundamental requirement of the right to education. Selected treaties adopted under the International Labour Organisation are contained in a separate table. These include treaties of importance in securing the rights of teachers, and others on indigenous and tribal peoples' rights, minimum age of employment and child labour, as these issues are inextricably linked to the right to education. On states' commitments More than thirty countries have apparently undertaken to comply with all the existing human rights obligations related to the right to education since they have ratified all pertinent treaties without any reservations. One may assume that human rights safeguards from ratified international treaties are reflected in domestic constitutions but this assumption is belied by facts. Those states that have ratified all international treaties which guarantee free and compulsory primary education to all children, without any reservations, do not necessarily repeat this commitment in their constitutions. The country pages note the existence of constitutional guarantees of free, compulsory and all encompassing education or their absence, complete or partial, for each country. There are at least 44 countries where there is no explicit constitutional guarantee of the right to education while there is such a guarantee in a large majority of countries, 142. There is also a range of countries in which the right to education in its key dimensions is being progressively realized. On enforcement Mere ratification of a human rights treaty may be of little value to the population where the rights guaranteed therein cannot be accessed and enjoyed. Within the United Nations, there are three treaties which have optional individual complaints mechanisms: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Whether or not a state has accepted the relevant complaints procedure for these treaties is covered in the UN treaties table in the columns "Art 14", for CERD, and the two columns OP (Optional Protocol recognising the competence of the relevant committee to accept individual complaints under the treaties). Within regional organizations, two distinct procedures exist within the Inter-American human rights system, one before the Commission and another before the Court. The Council of Europe has recently altered its similar pattern and the European Court of Human Rights is now the only forum for violations of human rights guaranteed by the European Convention. The European Committee of Social Rights has recently started processing collective complaints of violations of social rights. For African countries (which includes the entire geographical region, i.e. Africa north and south of the Sahara), access to the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights follows from ratification of the Charter, which also does not allow reservations; access to international remedies is thereby automatically broadened. There is also a Protocol, Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, which is not yet in force. The entry into force of the Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child entails setting up a committee which will also receive complaints. Only 15 states have accepted individual access to all international procedures thereby permitting individuals full access to international remedies. 52 states deny access to any of the existing international procedures. Most countries maintain a position somewhere between, allowing access to some but not all existing procedures. |
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