Right to education

And a case in point here, to illustrate my point, is academic freedom.

The reduction of academic freedom to an individualist, passive, and redistributive human right under the human right to science in the covenant has led to its protection in international human rights law through two other human rights, the freedom of expression for academic expression and the right to education for academic education.

And this has occurred at the price of its grounding in the human right to science itself under Article 15.3 of the Covenant that was deemed too vague.

It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that most countries today are at loss about how to protect three unique features of academic freedom.

The most important documents are, besides the UN General Assembly 1975 declaration, or UNESCO's 1974 and 2007 recommendation and its 1999 and 2005 declaration, the following documents.

UNESCO's 2009 Venice Statement The UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights reports in 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2024.

And lately, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education's 2024 report on academic freedom.

Last but not least, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which I will refer to as the Committee, 2020 General Comment No. 25.