The Right to Education: A Multi-Faceted Strategy for Litigating Before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Human Rights Brief, A Publication of the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Washington College of Law

Education is a fundamental human right, which “functions as a multiplier, enhancing all rights and freedoms when it is guaranteed while jeopardizing them all when it is violated.” Although international law mandates that states provide free access to education for all, this obligation is rarely fulfilled. While state constitutions and membership in the Organization of American States (OAS) require that states guarantee the right to education, the majority of Afro-descendants and indigenous peoples in the Americas have little or no access to adequate primary, secondary, or tertiary education. Further, facing centuries of entrenched structural discrimination, very few of these peoples enjoy access to higher education.

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