This Guide will inspire and help judges and lawyers working at national level to litigate cases involving economic, social and cultural rights.
In particular, it aims at giving examples from a large variety of countries and jurisdictions of how courts and other bodies have dealt with the adjudication of these rights.
The Guide also addresses issues that legal practitioners are faced with at the different phases of litigation, from initiating a case and evidence building to the provision of remedies and the enforcement of judicial decisions.
Please note, that this Guide is an updated version of Courts and the Legal Enforcement of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Comparative Experiences of Justiciability.
In addition to the electronic version of the Guide in a book format, the ICJ has also launched a searchable online version that is accessible on the ESCR page.
This publication includes an overview of key right to education decisions made by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and the UN Human Rights Committee. They are judgments that have taken place in these courts from 1988 to 2014 and deal with the fulfilment of the right to education for various groups, such as people with disabilities, migrants, persons deprived of liberty and Indigenous Peoples.
The Summaries of Jurisprudence series has been published since 2010. This recent publication is available for download via the following websites (in both Spanish and English):
CEJIL: http://cejil.org/publicaciones/sumarios-de-jurisprudencia-derecho-a-la-educacion
CLADE: http://www.campanaderechoeducacion.org/v2/en/publications/clade/studies.html
General Comment 11, adopted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, provides interpretation and clarification of Article 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The following articles relevant to the justiciability of the right to education can be found in this INTERIGHTS Bulletin:
- Diokno, MSI (2007) Short-changing the Right to Education in the Philippines,
- Ribeiro, RM (2007) Securing the Right to Education in Brazil: A Brief Overview of the Role of the Courts
- Courtis, C (2007) The Right to Education in the Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
- Cojocariu, C (2007) Racial Discrimination against Roma Children in Schools: Recent Developments from Courts in Bulgaria and Hungary
The following article is relevant to the right to education of minorities:
- de Varennes, F (2007) Language Rights in Education
South Africa is in the unique position of having the right to education guaranteed in the Constitution. The law has been used to advance this right by translating what is on paper into a reality for thousands of learners across the country. The LRC and partners have been at the forefront of civil society efforts in achieving this. We wanted to share our successes.
In October 2013, the Legal Resources Centre was proud to launch Ready to Learn? A Legal Resource for Realising the Right to Education at the Open Society Foundations in New York (find the press release here). The book was designed for legal practitioners and shares the LRC’s legal efforts to contribute to realising the right to education in South Africa. Ready to Learn?
Fighting to Learn… A Legal Resource for Realising the Right to Education is the follow on from Ready to Learn? Using the same format as the first publication,Fighting to Learn… gives an update on many of the cases represented in Ready to Learn? and provides a more general reflection on the role of education in the development agenda.
In Fighting to Learn…, practitioners of law in other jurisdictions can access a summary and court papers relating to the provision of classroom furniture, access to learner-support material and the payment and appointment of teachers. It also gives follow-up materials for the “mud schools” matter and norms and standards for education.
It demonstrates how the Constitutional right to education was integral to our fight for a quality education that is accessible to all. It also demonstrates the creativity of LRC lawyers in their work, from using class actions, which is new in South Africa, to our increasing use of innovative remedies, such as using external administrators to implement court judgments.
This guide is part of the series of Guides on the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms published by the European Court of Human Rights to inform legal practitioners about the fundamental judgments delivered by the Strasbourg Court. This particular guide analyses and sums up the case-law under Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 as at June 2015 or when subsequently updated.
Part of a law which allowed the Colombian government to charge for primary education was deemed unconstitutional after a pair of Colombian lawyers, collaborating with the law faculty at New York’s Cornell University and a coalition of civil society organisations, brought a direct challenge against its discriminatory provisions.
An animated video created by ESCR-Net to promote the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The video, which is three minutes long, is about a twelve-year-old girl named Lucy who has to fight for her right to education when her school is closed due to a lack of public funds. Ultimately, Lucy proves that access to justice is key to the full enjoyment of human rights.
This 'Right to Education Info Packet' on Tanzania aims at informing about the right to education, its legal, political, and social considerations, and some examples of its potential uses in litigation.
Laws are not only regulations the government enforces upon the people; they are regulations the people are to enforce upon the government. Laws just do not magically change things; they are tools to be used in court to hold others accountable so as to bring about change. Thus, it is the objective of this publication not to fill your head with heaps of information about a right that you cannot achieve but to enlighten you on tools that exist and how you may use them to attain your rights.
The 'Info Packet' provides guidance to litigate issues related to free primary education, expulsion of pregnant students, corporal punishment and education financing.
The Guide identifies equality and non-discrimination strategies that NGOs, lawyers and activists may employ in seeking to advance economic and social rights (ESRs) before courts. It is also accompanied by an online Compendium of useful cases in which equality and non-discrimination concepts and approaches have been employed to advance ESRs.
The Guide is split into three parts. Having introduced the rights framework, the Guide identifies conceptual and practical reasons why equality and non-discrimination arguments should be employed when challenging violations of ESRs. It then presents clear and practical guidance on how to use equality and non-discrimination strategies in courtrooms around the world.