The United Nations Human Rights Council will hear next week from international legal experts, including the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Prof Klaus D Beiter, on whether a new protocol should guarantee children free early childhood care and secondary education.

“This process is about identifying whether existing international law adequately secures children’s right to education,” Prof Beiter says.

The first session of the intergovernmental working group will run from 1 to 3 September 2025 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Its mandate is to explore and draft an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The session will feature keynote addresses by Farida Shaheed, UN special rapporteur on the right to education, and Prof Beiter from the NWU’s Faculty of Law. Both will sit on an expert panel titled “Protecting the right to education: gaps and strengths in the international legal framework: pathways for strengthening accountability in protecting children’s right to education”.

During the session, Prof Beiter will meet with representatives of Namibia and Germany and engage with Child Rights Connect, a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation on whose Right to Education Committee he serves. He will consult with human rights groups and colleagues, including Human Rights Watch’s deputy director Bede Sheppard.

Prof Beiter will also participate in bilateral discussions aimed at aligning advocacy strategies around the proposed protocol.

“Child Rights Connect has consistently advanced the idea of a protocol,” he says.

A legal scholar with degrees from South Africa and a doctorate from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Prof Beiter has taught and researched in public international law, socio-economic rights, intellectual property and academic freedom. He is currently editing a global handbook on the right to education and preparing a monograph on academic freedom as an international human right. His research frequently examines how international law frameworks affect education access in developing countries.

Prof Beiter thanked the UN Human Rights Council and the NWU for supporting his participation.

 Prof Klaus D Beite