European Convention, art 14 and art 2 of the First protocol]. - and more loud and clear speak to the treaty body committees – all present here today – to give further importance to this issue in their engagement with states and in their examination of state reports and ensuing concluding recommendation. The new Optional Protocol to the Covenant on ESC-Rights is a brilliant new opportunity in this regard, and we must press for its universal ratification as soon as possible. A third point is that these recommendation could perhaps reflect further the well-documented role of esp. the IMF (and World Bank) in hindering the enjoyment of the right to education: when public wage bill caps and other conditionalities are imposed, no new teachers can be hired and adequately trained, which of course affects the education of minorities much harder: they are often those on the outskirts of the system already and they need bi-lingual and other more specialised teachers. In general it is very important that binding budget allocations (as in the case of Brazil and Indonesia etc) are written into national constitutions and national law to become justiciable as well. THANK YOU www.right-to-education.org