A/CONF.189/PC.2/22 page 19 “States parties undertake to adopt immediate and effective measures, particularly in the fields of teaching, education …, with a view to combating prejudices which lead to racial discrimination and to promoting understanding, tolerance and friendship among nations and racial or ethnical groups …” (author’s emphasis).67 (b) International Covenant on Economic, Social And Cultural Rights, 16 December 1966 62. While reproducing the same wording, article 13, paragraph 1, of the Covenant adds new elements to the obligations relating to the content of education: education must also aim at “the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity”, and its objective must also be to “enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society”; as well as to racial and ethnic groups, this provision extends to religious groups. 63. In paragraphs 4 and 5 of its General Comment No. 13, already mentioned, the Committee adds little of importance regarding the content of an education consonant with the objectives set out in article 13, paragraph 1, of the Covenant and confines itself to stating that the article is innovative in relation to article 26 of the Universal Declaration of 1948. The Committee goes on to say that a “contemporary interpretation” of article 13 of the Covenant must be established in the light of “other international instruments” which “have further elaborated the objectives to which education should be directed” and which have received “widespread endorsement … from all regions of the world”. The Committee specifically cites the World Declaration on Education for All, adopted at Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990 (art. 1), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (art. 29, para. 1), the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action of the World Conference on Human Rights (Part I, para. 33, and Part II, para. 80)68 and the Plan of Action for the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education (para. 2). 64. The method is, to say the least, curious and seems thoroughly questionable. The rationale of a General Comment is to draw on acquired experience in order to shed useful light, which an ordinary reading is insufficient to provide, on a major provision or on problems of interpretation and application. There can be no doubt that the content and objectives of education constitute an essential aspect of article 13 of the Covenant and are an irreplaceable instrument for combating discrimination and intolerance. The right to education (equal access, free and compulsory schooling, etc.) loses all point if that education is in one way or another conducive to racial discrimination and religious intolerance. In this regard it would not appear that a mere reminder of the principles of the Covenant and reference to the international instruments, however relevant, are sufficient. As must nevertheless be recognized, it was only relatively recently that the question of the right to education became a subject of particular attention on the part of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights or other competent United Nations bodies.69 The weakness of the standards must no doubt be explained, as in any branch of law, by their relative newness and the recency of the attention paid to them.