A/HRC/23/35 judicial mechanisms 39 have been referred to the corresponding judicial instances for enforcement. 40. Human rights treaty bodies play a very important role regarding enforcement of the right to education and its justiciability. The dialogue they maintain with the States parties with respect to the progress realized in its implementation includes the constitutional and national laws and situations where the right is not protected in national legal system. For instance, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) requires States to provide information as to the extent to which these rights are considered to be justiciable. 40 41. Communications on cases of violations of an individual’s right to education are another important avenue of quasi-judicial procedures for the enforcement of the right to education. 42. UNESCO’s Committee on Conventions and Recommendations (CR), which is a subsidiary organ of the Executive Board, considers the communications received by the Organization concerning cases and questions of alleged violations of human rights within UNESCO’s fields of competence. 41 As such, CR examines all such communications received by the Organization. As a result, the right to education has been enforced in a number of cases in which it was violated. From 1978 to 2009, CR resolved 10 cases enabling victims to benefit from changes in certain education laws which were discriminatory towards ethnic or religious minorities, and 14 cases where victims were able to resume their education. 42 43. Finally, the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which entered into force on 5 May 2013, entitles individuals and groups of individuals to lodge complaints against States which have ratified the Optional Protocol concerning the alleged violations of the rights recognized in the Covenant, including the right to education. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which would examine such complaints, may also initiate an inquiry where it receives reliable information of grave or system atic violations of rights. However, States must expressly declare to be bound by this procedure when ratifying. There is also an inter-State communication procedure for States to allege other States which are not meeting their covenant obligations. The Joint Expert Group UNESCO (CR)/Economic and Social Council (CESCR) on the 39 40 41 42 12 For example, when a claim involving educational infrastructure and filed in 1997 by the representatives of the Yakye Axa Indigenous Community – a nomad tribe – was rejected by the Supreme Court of Paraguay in 1999, the American Commission of Human Rights examined the case, based on a complaint filed with the Commission in January 2000 by two NGOs, alleging a breach of art. 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights, and the Commission referred it to the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights In its decision, the Court held that the state had not complied with its obligation to ensure that the circumstances of special vulnerability of the Yakye Axa Community did not affect the development and the future of the children of the indigenous community. It ordered creation of a fund for projects concerning, inter alia, education, and the state was required to supply educational material to the members of the community. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Yakye Axa vs. Paraguay, 2005, Available at http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_125_ing.doc. General comment 3 “The nature of States parties obligations” (art. 2, par.1): CESCR Fifth session (1990) para. 6. See 104 EX/Decision 3.3, adopted by UNESCO’s Executive Board in 1978, UNESCO, Paris. “Conventions and Recommendations,” UNESCO Paris, 2010, para. 26.