Civil society organisations play a crucial role in advancing the right to education. Yet, while education is widely recognised as a fundamental human right, many organisations face challenges in translating this legal recognition into effective advocacy strategies capable of holding governments and other duty-bearers accountable.
To help bridge this gap, the Right to Education Initiative (RTE) and Education Out Loud co-hosted a webinar on 6 July 2026 to launch the publication How civil society organisations have used human rights law and mechanisms to advance the right to education: 5 case studies (also available in French and Spanish).
Bringing together around 50 participants, among Education Out Loud grantees and civil society speakers from around the world, the webinar provided a unique opportunity to explore how human rights law and accountability mechanisms can be used as practical tools for education advocacy. The event - which was held in three languages (English, French and Spanish) - highlighted concrete examples of civil society organisations successfully leveraging human rights mechanisms to advance the realisation of the right to education in Argentina, Canada, France, Hungary, Nepal, and Spain.
Why this publication matters
Human rights law provides the foundation for rights-based education advocacy. It establishes clear legal obligations for States and offers a range of mechanisms through which right holders can challenge violations and seek accountability. However, these mechanisms often remain underutilised by civil society organisations working in the education sector, mostly because they are unaware of their existence or because they do not know how to navigate the human rights system to harness meaningful and concrete change.
The publication How civil society organisations have used human rights law and mechanisms to advance the right to education: 5 case studies seeks to demystify human rights law and mechanisms by documenting real-life experiences of civil society organisations that have successfully incorporated them into their advocacy work. Through 5 practical case studies, the publication demonstrates how advocacy strategies can be anchored in human rights law and how different accountability mechanisms can be strategically mobilised to advance education rights. Each case study captures not only outcomes but also the strategic choices, challenges, and lessons that shaped the advocacy process, offering other organisations a roadmap they can adapt to their own contexts.
Learning from practical experiences
The launch event brought the publication to life through direct dialogue with the organisations behind the case studies. Speakers had the opportunity to present their experience highlighting:
what right to education issue their organisation sought to address;
what advocacy strategies and human rights accountability mechanisms were used to address this issue;
what impact resulted from the use of these mechanisms, for example school reintegration, new legislation, compensation for affected communities, etc;
what recommendations they could offer to other civil society organisations considering similar approaches.
This webinar allowed participants to move beyond the publication's pages and engage directly with the practitioners who navigated these advocacy journeys, hearing not only what worked, but also the obstacles encountered along the way. Speakers reflected on the importance of building evidence, engaging affected communities, forming strategic partnerships, and combining legal and quasi-legal accountability mechanisms with broader advocacy efforts (policy dialogue, media engagement, etc). Moreover, they highlighted that human rights mechanisms are accessible to all, even those who do not have legal expertise.
True to its purpose of fostering peer learning, the webinar was designed as an interactive space. Education Out Loud grantees were invited to share their own experiences and ask questions to peers who have already engaged with human rights mechanisms in their advocacy efforts.
Meet the Speakers
Delphine Dorsi, executive director of the Right to Education Initiative, and Marianne Olesen, Senior Programme Coordinator for Education Out Loud at Oxfam Denmark, opened the session celebrating the collaboration between the two organisations and highlighting the importance of research that informs and inspires civil society organisations. Marianne Olsen recalled that learning is a key pillar of Education Out Loud, GPE’s flagship program to harness civil society advocacy and accountability, providing an extensive number of practical tools and research reports in their resource repository. Delphine Dorsi described RTE’s journey as an EOL Global Learning Partner and highlighted the importance of looking at barriers to education as human rights issues. Drawing on RTE’s human rights expertise and on its experience supporting civil society organisations globally, she pointed out the role that accountability mechanisms can play in translating commitments into action.
Juliana Lima, program manager at the Right to Education Initiative and one of the authors of the publication, presented the new publication highlighting that the introduction lays out the conceptual foundation for the 5 case studies that followed by addressing the notions of human rights based approach to advocacy and human rights accountability. She recalled that different and complementary forms of accountability mechanisms are available to civil society organisations and that advocacy strategies should consider multiple perspectives and initiatives.
The first three speakers presented how they used national human rights mechanisms to bring change to the implementation of the right to education. Juliana Lima presented the first case study. She shared the experience of the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) using the ombudsperson institution to fight discrimination and segregation of Roma children attending Hungarian kindergartens in the city of Kalozca. She illustrated how strategic engagement with the ombudsperson contributed to the closure of segregated kindergarten classrooms in the municipality and strengthened advocacy efforts to end discrimination of Roma children at national level.
Ram Gaire, from the National Campaign For Education Nepal (NCE Nepal), explained that the coalition has been collaborating with different thematic national human rights commissions to fight for education justice. He pointed out that human rights institutions have a myriad of functions, from investigating violations of the right to education, to monitoring and advising education ministries and parliaments. He highlighted the challenges and lessons learned from their experience, inspiring others to engage with the human rights institutions in their own countries.
Agostina Quiroz, from Argentina civil society organisation Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia (ACIJ), discussed lessons learned from engaging in litigation to enforce the rights of children with disabilities. She demonstrated that the court decision had a direct impact on the right to education of children with disabilities, especially in light of private institutions that systematically denied their enrolment in mainstream classes relegating them into ‘special needs schools’. She reflected on key challenges encountered during the litigation process, such as its length and cost, while at the same time encouraging other civil society organisations to seize judicial mechanisms to seek structural change.
The three last speakers focused on their experience using international human rights mechanisms to bring about change at national level. Stéphane Vigneault, from École ensemble, a civil society organisation in Québec, Canada, told that after they submitted an alternative report on school segregation in Québec to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) the issue gained a lot of momentum in the media, putting pressure into government officials and parliamentarians. He highlighted that civil society organisations do not need to have legal expertise to write a report to UN Treaty Bodies, all they need to do is share what they know from the ground with the UN Committees.
Exploring the case of inequalities in higher education in France, Delphine Dorsi explained how the Right to Education Initiative partnered with student unions to submit an alternative report to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) during the review of France’s commitments under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). She highlighted the importance of monitoring the implementation of the Committee’s recommendations to States, as well as the impact that recommendations made at international level can have in the national arena. In this case, the recommendations were used in a report of the Parliament’s Education Commission and certainly influenced the content of a draft law on higher education.
José Luis Rodríguez Candela, a Spanish lawyer, presented the case of Louiza, who had her access to education denied due to ‘irregular documentation’. He explained that he filed a complaint against Spain before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) alleging that the State had violated Louiza’s right to education. Louiza, who has since been reintegrated in school and completed both primary and secondary levels, gave her testimony about how the case ‘changed her life’ and how, inspired by her own story, she has become an advocate for the right to education. She shared that she is now in university pursuing her dreams and that this could not have been possible without the complaint to the CRC.
Together, all the cases presented during the session demonstrated that combining different advocacy strategies and engagement with national and international human rights mechanisms can be effective in making States accountable for their obligations regarding the right to education.
Lessons learned
Participants gained a deeper understanding of how human rights law can serve as a practical advocacy tool, increased familiarity with key human rights accountability mechanisms, and learned from insights from organisations that have successfully used these mechanisms in their advocacy efforts. Here are 10 main takeaways from the session.
A human rights-based approach to advocacy is characterised by legal grounding, focus on states obligations according to the law, and accountability.
Human rights accountability refers to the processes through which duty-bearers, mainly States, are held responsible for complying with their human rights obligations.
Human rights accountability mechanisms strictu sensu refer to vertical, institutionalised, formal accountability procedures such as judicial and quasi-judicial accountability (courts, treaty bodies, special procedures). Social accountability and political accountability are enforced through public pressure, transparency, political dialogue and civic mobilisation.
Social, political, judicial and quasi-judicial accountability are complementary and reinforce each other. Investing in long-term, multiple advocacy strategies increases the chances of success.
Human rights mechanisms can be accessible, strategic, and effective avenues for civil society organisations seeking to advance the right to education, including in countries with restricted civic space where dialogue with the State is difficult or too sensitive.
Many human rights mechanisms are not reserved for legal experts alone: civil society organisations of different sizes and capacities can use these mechanisms to influence decision-makers and advance systemic change, even if they have no prior legal knowledge.
National human rights mechanisms like Ombudsperson and National Human Rights Commissions are usually very accessible to civil society organisations, and it is worth sustaining long term engagement with those institutions.
Litigation can bring about systemic change, but may be a lengthy and costly endeavor that requires legal expertise and representation.
International human rights mechanisms such as UN Treaty Bodies can be effective in pressuring governments to implement the right to education at national level. Civil society organisations do not need legal expertise to engage with UN Treaty Bodies but the UN system is not always easy to navigate, especially if you are reporting for the first time. Civil society organisations working on education issues can partner with local and international human rights organisations if they need help with the reporting or complaint procedure.
Civil society organisations can start by mapping the national human rights institutions in their own countries and verifying the periodic review cycle in the UN Websites : UN Treaty Bodies and Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review
Demystifying human rights law and inspiring civil society organisations
This webinar reflects a broader ambition shared by the Right to Education initiative and Education Out Loud: to ensure that civil society organisations are inspired by their peers to use different avenues to seek accountability by providing them with the knowledge and tools that will help them to navigate the human rights system.
Through the publication and continued peer sharing and learning, RTE and Education Out Loud hope to inspire more organisations to integrate human rights accountability into their advocacy strategies and strengthen efforts to ensure that every person can enjoy their right to education.
Add new comment