The right to education is enshrined in human rights treaties adopted in the second half of the twentieth century [Right to Education Initiative (RTE) UNESCO, 2019, chapter 2]. The UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education was adopted in 1960, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1966¹ and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.² Since then, the world has evolved, as well as education. As an illustration, the growing use of technology in education in today's world opens a new dimension of education which did not exist when these treaties were adopted (Swiss Commission for UNESCO, 2024). Also, the current recognition of the fundamental importance of early childhood care and education (UNESCO and UNICEF, 2024), which calls for strengthening the existing international legal framework (Tashkent Declaration, 2022, para. 2.v; Boly Barry, 2022, paras. 106, 107; UN Human Rights Council, 2024), shows that this dimension was not reflected as a priority in the treaties adopted at this time. Other new dimensions such as the nexus between climate change and education or the emerging concept of lifelong learning are also absent from these treaties. Taking into account these changes, UNESCO launched, in 2021, an initiative on the evolving right to education, which explores “how international human rights instruments can be reinforced and further developed to address today's needs and challenges” (UNESCO, 2023).

In this context, the work of UN human rights treaty bodies³ can be helpful. As part of the international human rights architecture, one of their roles is to monitor the implementation of UN human rights treaties. Made up of independent experts, they provide observations and recommendations, which serve to inform political and legal action to improve human rights protection and implementation, including the right to education. Among them, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) monitors the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This opinion piece focuses on these two,⁴ which play a key role in monitoring and interpreting the implementation of the right to education (1). When civil society organizations (CSOs) engage with these Committees through different mechanisms, they influence their work and contribute to advance the realization of the right to education both at international and national levels (2). There are growing concerns and challenges in the functioning of these mechanisms, and more broadly in monitoring and reporting on the right to education, and it is timely and essential to address them (3).

Human rights treaties are “living instruments” (Moeckli and White, 2016). The interpretation and application of the human rights they guarantee evolve to reflect the realities of societies in continual transformation. Moeckli and White note that “social change triggers change in the treaty through the medium of interpretative agents,” such as “the organs created by the treaty.” The CRC affirms that “the Convention, like all human rights instruments, must be regarded as a living instrument, whose interpretation develops over time” (Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2007, para. 20), which “is crucial to ensuring its relevance and utility to child right-holders” (Nolan, 2022). Each treaty body, including the CRC and the CESCR, publishes its interpretation of the provisions of its respective human rights treaty in the form of “general comments.”⁵ The “concluding observations,” they issue for each State when monitoring periodically their implementation of a respective treaty, can also be a source of interpretation (Mechlem, 2009; Fredman, 2022; Nyitray, 2024). Regarding the right to education, the CESCR published two General Comments in 1999: General Comment No. 11: Plans of Action for Primary Education (Article 14) and General Comment No. 13: The Right to Education (Article 13). In 2001, the CRC published General Comment No. 1: The aims of education (Article 29.1). As these general comments were adopted a quarter of a century ago, it is worth looking at more recent ones, which include references to the right to education, for more recent interpretation. For instance, the General Comment No. 7 of the CRC on “Implementing child rights in early childhood,” adopted in 2005, for a specific interpretation of the right to early childhood care and education or its General Comment No. 26 on children's rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change, adopted in 2023 (Nolan, 2023). In the latter, the Committee notes that “since the adoption of the Convention, growing acceptance has emerged of the wide-ranging interconnections between children's rights and environmental protection,” stressing that “unprecedented environmental crises and the resulting challenges for the realization of children's rights require a dynamic interpretation of the Convention” (Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2023, para. 9).

In addition, through their concluding observations, both the CRC and the CESCR have provided interpretations regarding the application of specific dimensions of the right to education. For instance, in the context of the growing privatization of education, Jacqueline Mowbray argues that international human rights law contains a right to public education (Mowbray, 2021) on the basis, inter alia, of the interpretation of the UN treaties bodies. She refers to “the concluding observations of the treaty bodies (…),” which require states to “prioritize the provision of quality, free primary education at public schools over the provision of education at private schools” (Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2016a, para. 58.b) and, in particular, to prioritize the allocation of resources to public schools (Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2015a, para. 74.c; Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2015b, para. 68.b; Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2016b, para. 18). She also notes that the “interpretation of the relevant legal provisions (that they require states to develop and maintain a public education system) is supported by recent treaty body practice (…).” So, for example, the CESCR noted in its concluding observations in relation to Kenya that it was “concerned that inadequacies in the public schooling system have led to the proliferation of so-called ‘low-cost private schools”' (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 2016, para. 57) and recommended “that the State party take all the measures necessary to strengthen its public education sector” (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 2016, para. 58). Similarly, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has required states to “prioritize the provision of quality, free primary education at public schools over the provision of education at private schools” (Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2016a para. 58.b).

The interpretations of the right to education made by UN human rights treaty bodies, particularly by the CRC and CESCR contribute to its evolution across the years, addressing new dimensions and challenges (Skelton and Mezmur, 2019).

Civil society organizations play an important role in monitoring and reporting on the enjoyment and implementation of the right to education, including to UN human rights treaty bodies. Having specific expertise and working on the ground close to rights holders, they can provide alternative views and insights into education issues that States may not be aware of, or bring additional information. Their important work can provide useful inputs in the development of laws and policies. Civil society can also contribute to holding States accountable for implementation gaps and/or violations of the right to education. When reporting or litigating, they can also contribute to the development of a jurisprudence and therefore to widening the interpretation of the provisions related to the right to education. In this regard, their participation in the reporting process of the UN human rights treaty bodies, through the submission of alternative reports and the conversations with the UN experts can contribute to advance the realization and development of the right to education. The issues raises by CSOs about a particular State are often reflected in the concluding observations adopted by the UN treaty bodies, sometimes taking into account the wording used by the CSOs.

In 2015, a group of CSOs submitted a report to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, about the right to higher education in France, arguing that the structural, territorial, and socio-economic inequalities as well as the higher education financing policy, both hindered equality and non-discrimination in access to higher education (Right to Education Initiative (RTE), 2023). In its concluding observations about France (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 2023, paras. 56, 57), the CESCR dedicated a full section on higher education drawing on the argument made in the CSOs' report. While expressing concerns “about the steady decline in the budget per student allocated by the State,” the committee recommends that France “review the allocation of the higher education budget with a view to the gradual introduction of free higher education.” In their report, the CSOs, referring to articles 13 and 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, had recalled that “any ‘deliberately regressive measures' in higher education, such as budget cuts, would require the most careful consideration” “stressing that the State must demonstrate that such regressive measures are fully justified.” In its concluding observations, when expressing concerns about the decline in the budget, the Committee specifies that this “is contrary to the obligation to progressively achieve the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant (arts. 13 and 14).” These conclusions were mentioned in a report prepared by a member of the French Parliament for budgetary opinion on the “Higher Education and Student Life” section of the draft finance bill for 2024 (Davi, 2023, p. 55). In 2024, a draft law related to access to higher education introduced free public higher education, following the recommendations made by the Committee (Davi et al., 2024, article 9).

The role of civil society organizations is also particularly relevant in the context of emerging issues, such as the increased privatization and commercialization of education that have transformed education systems in most regions of the world and raised legal questions regarding the application of the right to education in this new context. Indeed, the international treaties adopted in the second half of the 20th century have general provisions that did not cover the application of the right to education in such specific context. From 2015, civil society organizations started monitoring the impacts of this phenomenon on the right to education and reported to UN Treaties bodies [Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR)/Sciences Po Law School Clinic, 2014a; Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) and Ghana Education Campaign Coalition, 2014b; Right to Education Initiative (RTE) others, 2015; Association of Women Head of Families (AFCF), the Coalition of Mauritanian Education Organizations (COMEDUC) and the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), 2018; Right to Education Initiative (RTE) others, 2020], mainly to the CRC and CESCR. They brought this new issue to the attention of the UN experts, who looked into it, questioned States about it and adopted concluding observations on this topic. In a few years, CSOs submitted reports from various countries and regions leading to a development of a jurisprudence on this issue (Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 2023), useful to guide the interpretation of the right to education in such a particular context. Their concluding observations were notably used for the development of the Abidjan Principles on the human rights obligations of States to provide public education and to regulate private involvement in education.⁶

Despite the importance of monitoring and reporting on the right to education, both to advance the realization of the right to education and contribute to its evolution, as described above, there are particular challenges remain for the monitoring of the right to education within the UN systems and for civil society organizations to collect data and use these mechanisms.

The current financial crisis the UN is facing (UN, 2025) impacts the effective functioning of UN human rights treaty bodies (Skelton, 2025), with sessions cancelled⁷ and participation limited to in-person attendance only.⁸ This limits both the work of the UN Treaty bodies and the engagement of civil society organizations with the UN experts.⁹ With delays in the States' review process, issues are pending to be examined and the development of the jurisprudence by the UN Committees is slowing down.

At the same time, civil society organizations are facing challenges in monitoring the right to education, including difficulties in accessing data, due to lack of transparency (Réseau de Recherche Francophone sur la Privatisation de l'Education, 2024), administrative requirements, and insecurity issues such as life risk in conflict affected countries [Right to Education Initiative (RTE), 2025] or threat when working on a sensitive topic (Gavrielatos, 2016). Cost and lack of expertise to understand how to use human rights law and mechanisms can also limit CSO in monitoring and the right to education.

UN treaty bodies, in particular the CRC and CESCR, play an important role in advancing the full realization of the right to education. Their general comments and concluding observations provide guidance to States for the development of law and policies. They are particularly useful to guide the implementation of dimensions of the right to education not explicit in the treaties, such as the right to early childhood care and education or of new dimensions, such as the use of technologies in education. Their interpretations, across time, of the provisions on the right to education contained in human rights treaties, contribute to the evolution of the scope of this right. They should be used as a reference for the development of any new legally binding instrument on the right to education.

When civil society organizations contribute to the work of the UN treaty bodies, they influence the development of their interpretation and so the evolution of the right to education.

At this challenging and pivotal time for both the implementation of the right to education and its evolution, it is essential to protect and strengthen the effective functioning of the UN human rights treaties bodies and to support the work of civil society organizations in monitoring and reporting, notably by provided adequate funding. Such investment is needed for the full realization of the right to education.