Intervention at the UN Forum on Minority Issues, 15-16th December ‘09 Topic: Right to Education By Peter Hyll-Larsen, Right to Education Project, ActionAid International Madame Chair, thank you for giving me the word. I work for the Right to Education project, housed with ActionAid International and in partnership with the Global Campaign for Education and Amnesty International. Through a website (www.right-to-education.org), research and a wide network we try to promote social mobilisation and legal accountability on education rights. The following thoughts are offered in my personal capacity as invited expert to the Forum on Minority Issues. My reflections on Professor Thornburry’s very fine Draft Recommendations will be three-fold, all 3 at a slightly more general level. My first point: A grateful acknowledgement that the recommendations reflect the highly useful framework of the 4 As. Namely: Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability and Adaptability. And this is quite clear if you read through them. However, I would encourage, if possible, to go further and to frame even more systematically and rigorously the issue in the language of these 4 As. As done in for example General Comment 13 from the CESCR. This should go both for these recommendations themselves, and for what action these recommendations recommend: i.e new laws and policies at the national level. The 4 As are simply the best way of cutting the cake. And specifically in the case of education and minority issues,