NEW PUBLICATION: Bringing the Right to Education into the 21st Century

I’m really excited to announce the next article in our data analytics project that examines the Concluding Observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. For more on the background of this project, click here.

Jonathan Todres & Charlotte Alexander, “Bringing the Right to Education into the 21st Century,” Berkeley Journal of International Law, vol. 42 (forthcoming Winter 2024).

Click here for access to the full pre-publication draft.

Abstract

Education is not only foundational to children’s development, it also helps children realize the full range of their rights. Yet the international law mandate on the right to education has changed little since 1948. This static state has left the right to education unfulfilled for millions of children. This article argues that it is time to update the legal mandate on education, and in particular with respect to pre-primary and secondary education. The article starts by explicating the limitations in the current mandate on the right to education, and then evaluates whether so-called “soft law,” or non-binding measures, have helped fill the gap in existing treaty law on education rights. As a case study, the article uses a combination of manual review and computational text analytics to examine discussions of education in the Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child from 1993-2020. These reports issued by the Committee evaluate states parties’ progress in meeting their children’s rights treaty obligations and, as such, are a primary vehicle for advancing the implementation of human rights. Finding that non-binding measures are insufficient in practice, the article concludes that the international community needs to agree to an updated legal mandate on education that ensures all children have access to an equitable start and can complete secondary education and develop to their full potential.

NEW PUBLICATION: Evaluating the Implementation of Human Rights Law: A Data Analytics Research Agenda

Excited to report that our first article in our data analytics and children’s rights project is now in print!

Charlotte Alexander & Jonathan Todres, “Evaluating the Implementation of Human Rights Law: A Data Analytics Research Agenda,” University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, 43(1): 1-77 (2021).

See below for a link to the full article.

Abstract:

Human rights law relies on national-level implementation and enforcement to give it full meaning. The United Nations’ reporting process, a built-in component of all major human rights treaties, enables monitoring and evaluation of countries’ progress toward human rights goals. However, the operation and effectiveness of this process have been largely under-studied. This Article lays the foundations for a data analytics research agenda that can help assess the reporting process and inform human rights law implementation. As a first step, we use a relatively new set of computational tools to evaluate the Concluding Observations issued by a human rights treaty body, the Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Concluding Observations provide both an appraisal of states’ practices and a set of recommendations that act as an agenda for the state going forward. Using text and data analytics tools, we mined the text of Concluding Observations issued by the Committee on the Rights of the Child over a twenty-seven year period to identify the topics addressed in each report and parsed the language of these reports to determine the tenor and tone of the Committee’s discussion. We then mapped our findings by state and year, to form a detailed descriptive picture of what the Committee has said, and how the Committee has delivered its message(s), across both geography and time. In doing so, we hope to show how these data analytics tools can contribute to a deeper understanding of the Committee’s work and, more broadly, of the effectiveness of the reporting process in securing and protecting human rights.

Click here to access the full article.