In her progress report, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education notes difficulties in the carrying out of her mandate which originate in inadequate servicing by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and also points out an innovative facet she has introduced, follow-up to her country missions, following the Commission’s emphasis on promoting the right to education.
E/CN.4/2000/6
RTE's background paper for the Global Education Monitoring Report 2017/8: Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments.
The purpose of the paper is to show how a human rights-based approach offers insights and practical solutions to address the accountability deficits found in both education policy decision-making and implementation, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Specifically, the paper argues that a human rights-based approach to accountability can bolster public policy accountability by defining the responsibilities of authorities, ensuring they are answerable for actions regarding those responsibilities, and how they can be subject to forms of enforceable sanctions or remedial action for failures to carry out those responsibilities.
The second half of the paper explores the prevalence of the right to education in national laws and the conditions necessary for the right to education to be successfully adjudicated at the national level. It provides an overview of how countries have incorporated the right to education in their domestic legal orders, as well as a list of countries where the right to education is justiciable. This is complemented by a series of case studies that draw out the requirements for successful adjudication at the national level.
This paper examines court cases from countries around the world to identify the conditions that enable the right to education to be realised through adjudication.