Minimum Core and the Right to Education
Minimum core is a concept introduced by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“Committee”) with the aim of ensuring “the satisfaction of, at the very least, minimum essential levels of each of the rights is incumbent upon every Sta...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/476741515589301383/Minimum-core-and-the-right-to-education http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29142 |
| Summary: | Minimum core is a concept introduced by
the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(“Committee”) with the aim of ensuring “the satisfaction of,
at the very least, minimum essential levels of each of the
rights is incumbent upon every State party.” The minimum
core concept aims to set a quantitative and qualitative
floor of socio-economic and cultural rights that must be
immediately realized by the state as a matter of top
priority. The promise of the minimum core approach is “to
give the notion of progressive realization a clearer
direction and to evaluate the steps states have taken
towards the progressive realization of particular rights”.
Yet, the Committee itself has been inconsistent in defining
the content and scope of the “minimum core” concept for
different rights. Although the original definition—focused
on minimum essential levels—seems narrowly constructed, in
more recent General Comments, the Committee has given the
“minimum core” a far more expansive interpretation.Further
complicating the query is the fact thatstates rarely use
“minimum core” terminology in State Reports to the
Committee. Where national courts have referred to the
“minimum core” concept—a rare reference—their interpretation
has not always been consistent with that of the Committee.
In academic literature, too, disagreements remain about the
content, scope and even utility of the “minimum core”
concept. Without taking a position on which interpretation
of the “minimum core” is normatively desirable, this paper
aims to provide a descriptive account of how different
actors define the content and scope of “minimum core” of the
right to education.The paper begins by providing a summary
of academic engagement with the concept of “minimum core”,
highlighting different features of the concept that have
been identified in the literature. In Part two, the paper
examines how the concept of “minimum core” is featured in
the international legal framework. In Part three, the paper
considers whether, and if so how, the concept of “minimum
core” features in national laws and jurisprudence by
sampling a few states. In Part four, the paper discusses the
use of indicators and other quantitative measures in
relation to the content of “minimum core”. The paper
concludes by suggesting how development banks might use the
concept of “minimum core” to guide their work. |
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