Right to Education under European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950

Abstract

Right to education is one of the most important human rights and has been widely so acknowledged in several international and regional documents related to human rights. These documents have defined the right in an elaborate manner placing a lot of emphasis on compulsory elementary education and thereby making it obligatory on the states to provide the same and also guarantee equality of accessibility of education at higher levels. The European Convention on Human Rights 1950 has guaranteed the right to education in Article 2 of Protocol 1.Unlike the International Covenant on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966 or the other regional documents, the European Convention on Human Rights 1950 has not defined the right to education in an elaborate manner, in the document. Thus, the burden of making the right to education more resourceful fell largely upon the shoulders of the enforcement mechanism, they being European Court and European Commission of Human Rights, both constituted by the Convention. This article makes an analysis of the right to education as interpreted by these two authorities.