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GENERAL
E/C.12/1999/4
10 May 1999
Original:
ENGLISH
COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL
AND CULTURAL RIGHTS
Twentieth session
Geneva, 26 April-14 May 1999
Agenda item 7
SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES ARISING IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL
COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS:
General Comment 11 (1999)
Plans of action for primary education
(article 14 of the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights)
1.
Article 14 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights requires each State party which has not been able to secure
compulsory primary education, free of charge, to undertake, within two years,
to work out and adopt a detailed plan of action for the progressive
implementation, within a reasonable number of years, to be fixed in the plan,
of the principle of compulsory primary education free of charge for all. In
spite of the obligations undertaken in accordance with article 14, a number of
States parties have neither drafted nor implemented a plan of action for free
and compulsory primary education.
2.
The right to education, recognized in articles 13 and 14 of the
Covenant, as well as in a variety of other international treaties, such as the
Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women, is of vital importance. It has
been variously classified as an economic right, a social right and a cultural
right. It is all of these. It is also, in many ways, a civil right and a
political right, since it is central to the full and effective realization of
those rights as well. In this respect, the right to education epitomizes the
indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights.
GE.99-42276
(E)