The development of the right to education in international law

The thesis seeks to examine the historical development of the conception of the right to education from the sixteenth century until the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the child (1989). It approaches the subject by combining classical doctrinal research methods with historical research methods and relies on both primary and secondary sources of data to examine research questions.

Although the right to education is one of the most fundamental and recognized rights at the international level, it is unusual that there are little to no secondary sources that comprehensively and consistently examine the drafting history of the right to education in order to better trace its conception and define the nature, scope and content of the right. The thesis aims to cover this gap. Therefore, it studies the evolution of the right to education before the creation of the United Nations, then examines the travaux préparatoires of the normative United Nations and UNESCO instruments.

The thesis argues that the origins of the right to education protection stem from the international treaties concluded in the Ottoman Empire and Europe to protect minorities. It also discloses that the evolution of the right to education reveals key thematic components of the right to education that construct the content of the right. These thematic components include the prohibition of discrimination in education, the aims of education, the levels of education, the right of parents to choose the kind and content of their children’s education, and the right to establish private educational institutions. The drafting history shows that minority protection, religious freedom, resistance against Nazi and Fascist regimes colonialism vs. anti-colonialism, and limited economic resources have affected the content and the scope of these thematic components over time.

The broader historical comprehension of the right to education undertaken by the thesis not only provides a thorough understanding of the different components of the right to education but also presents a dynamic conception of the right while extracting key principles on its nature and scope. Those principles would be instrumental in protecting the right to education in a changing world like our world and in informing the interpretations of the right to education by relevant United Nations treaty bodies and the judiciary at domestic and international levels.