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Progress of the Abidjan Principles since February 2023

Progress of the Abidjan Principles since February 2023
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Abidjan Principles

November 2023 Newsletter


Dear colleagues,


Below is an overview of some key Abidjan Principles developments over the past nine months.


In February 2024 we will celebrate 5 years of the Abidjan Principles. Stay tuned for updates and for planned events!

For more information, follow the developments on the Abidjan Principles website, and on Twitter via the hashtag #AbidjanPrinciples.

March

The importance and relevance of the Abidjan Principles have been recognized again in a UN statement on academic freedom. The Joint Statement on Academic Freedom was presented at the 52nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on behalf of a group of 74 countries and specifically references the Abidjan Principles.


May

Several experts involved in the Abidjan Principles’ drafting process have provided the reasonings and justifications behind the Principles in order to strengthen their application. The first pieces of these legal commentaries were published by the Oxford Human Rights Hub in May.


June-July

The first report by Farida Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, entitled 'Securing the right to education: advances and critical challenges', references the Abidjan Principles and reiterates the call of the former UN Special Rapporteur, Koumbou Boly Barry, for states to utilise them to regulate private actors and ensure minimum educational standards.


Human Rights Council Resolution A/HRC/53/L.10 on the right to education referenced the Abidjan Principles.

April

A webinar titled 'Unpacking General Comment 7 on State obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the context of private provision of social services: Towards effective implementation' referenced the Abidjan Principles. The event was organised by the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), The African Coalition for Corporate Accountability (ACCA), Centre for Human Rights and the Global Initiative for Economic Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR).

[Webinar] State Obligations under the AFCHR in the context of private provision of social services

June

The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) and the Right to Education Initiative (RTE) participated in a side event titled ‘Human Rights Obligations to Provide Public Education - Strengthening the Right to Education for All: Introducing the Abidjan Principles’ Commentary’ at the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council on 30th June. The event introduced the expert commentaries on the Abidjan Principles and fostered a discussion of their continued relevance for realising the right to free, quality and inclusive public education for all. More information can be found here.


June

On 29th June the first International Symposium on the Right to Education (SIDE in its French acronyms) took place. SIDE2023 was co-organised by eduCoop, GI-ESCR, the Francophone research network on the privatisation of education (REFPE), RTE, the Swiss Society for Education Research (SSRE), and the University of Geneva. The Abidjan Principles were referenced in the presentations and discussions, particularly during the presentation of the research on the impacts of the privatisation and commercialisation of education conducted by the Ivorian human rights organisation, MIDH. SIDE videos can be found here.


February

New open-access guide and toolkit titled Planning to fulfil the right to education: methodological guidelines and toolkit prepared by IIEP-UNESCO (Juana Barragán Díaz and Amélie A. Gagnon). The Guidelines and Toolkit intend to offer practical guidance to ensure that the right to education is at the heart of and aligned with States’ educational planning. They are built on the markers provided by the Abidjan Principles, which themselves constitute a comprehensive summary of existing international agreements on the RTE, and are designed to facilitate a comparison between these markers and educational planning documents.


New briefing paper titled Inequalities in education from a global perspective. Theoretical approaches, dimensions and policy discussions by Margarita Langthaler and Julia Malik. The paper was funded by the Austrian Development Corporation and examines the debate on inequality with a focus on a North-South perspective. It includes a section titled ‘The public vs. private debate’ in which it refers to the Principles.


March

Joint Submission to the Working Group on the issue of Human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises: Development Finance Institutions and Human Rights. This joint CSO submission highlights concerns about Development Finance Institutions’ (DFIs) respect for human rights, particularlythe right to education. It seeks to respond to question 8 of the questionnaire which addressesthe specific human rights risks posed by DFI-related financing practices to the groups in the mostvulnerable situations.


The Abidjan Principles formed the basis of a submission by 10 CSOs to the CESCR pre sessional working group regarding international development cooperation in education, specifically focusing on the UK's position that international development cooperation can support non-state providers, including low cost private schools. In early April, CESCR acknowledged the concerns raised, and asked the UK to provide more information on a series of topics. One of the questions it has asked the UK directly relates to the question included in the brief.


Marie-France Lange’s chapter titled The evolution and forms of education privatisation within francophone countries from the Realizing the Abidjan Principles on the Right to Education Human Rights, Public Education, and the Role of Private Actors in Education is now available on the open access archive HAL.


April

The International Commission of Jurists produced a briefing paper titled, ‘Lesotho's Inclusive Education Policy and the continued exclusion of children with disabilities’ (written by Mulesa Lumina and Timothy Fish Hodgson) which refers to the Abidjan Principles.


May

The book Contrasting School Culture and Education: Mapping the Public–Private Binary refers to the Abidjan Principles (sample available via Google Books).


July

The chapter ‘Markets in Education and School Segregation: Paths of Problematization and Reform’ by Adrián Zancajo, Clara Fontdevila, and Antoni Verger in Educational Markets and Segregation: Global Trends and Singular Experiences From Belgium and Chile includes the Abidjan Principles as an example.


The Right to Education Initiative’s background paper to the 2023 GEM Report on technology references the Abidjan Principles, while exploring technology in eduction in light of human rights.


September

Orchestration of Corporate Social Responsibility in Company Law – Reframing Human Security through Education. This paper aims to argue the fundamental significance of education in addressing notable gaps in the constitutive, performance, and evaluation criteria for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and endeavours to showcase the complementarity between education, human security, sustainable human development, and the pursuit of CSR as an ideal normative paradigm.


New research paper entitled Geograph(ies) of Globalized Education Privatization(s): An Introduction, by Kevin Mary, Nora Nafaa, and David Giband, explores the privatisation of education on a global level, and argues that it is no longer limited to a social phenomenon marked by elitism and the search for an educational social endogamy. Instead, the authors argue, it now refers to ‘to a complex process with multiple dimensions that also affects the management and organization of schooling within national and local spaces, as well as the provision of a whole range of educational and extra-educational services by a myriad of actors.’

February

International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Kenya: This blog by ICJ describes the findings of a consultation, organised by ICJ, the East African Centre for Human Rights (EACHRights) and the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), with members of the Mathare Community Education Taskforce (Taskforce). As part of consultation, members of the Mathare Community Education Taskforce engaged with the Abidjan Principles.


September

International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Nepal): The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), in partnership with the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights National Network (ESCR), Justice & Rights Institute Nepal (JuRI-Nepal), the Public Interest Litigation Lawyers Group (Nepalgunj), with support from the Privatisation in Education and Human Rights Consortium, has launched a mentorship program geared towards training young lawyers on international law and standards applicable to private actor involvement in education. The 22 lawyers who will benefit from the program are from Bagmati and Lumbini Province. To kick off the program, workshops were held on 23 September in Kathmandu and 28 September in Nepalgunj. The main objectives of the mentorship program are to train young lawyers on how to utilize strategic litigation for claiming the right to education; expand their knowledge of international law (including Abidjan Principles) and share good practices on the right to education in other parts of the world.

The East African Centre for Human Rights (EACHRights), Kenya has launched a project which aims to include raising awareness and knowledge of the Abidjan Principles. In the coming months, officials from the Ministry of Education and CSOs will participate in training regarding a rights-based approach to education. An emphasis during the training will be on the General Comment 7 of the ACHPR placing State with the responsibility to ensure quality inclusive public education for all.


The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) took part in the Equity and Inclusion gallery exhibition during the 6th Annual Convening of the Regional Education Learning Initiative Kenya (RELI-Kenya). GI-ESCR’s officer highlighted the need to re-evalaute education policies to guarantee that they align with human rights principles, particularly Guiding Principle 2 of the Abidjan Principles. Further details can be found here.