A/HRC/41/37 adopted in Abidjan, following a three-year extensive participatory consultation and drafting process. This involved hundreds of stakeholders, including States, parents and civil society, teachers, the private sector and high-level experts from various backgrounds, including human rights lawyers, education specialists and practitioners, and affected communities from various geographic regions.39 The Special Rapporteur engaged with the process to develop the Abidjan Principles from their inception to their adoption. At the date of finalizing the present report, 54 experts from around the world had signed the Abidjan Principles, of whom the majority were women and were from the Global South. 35. The outcome is the result of rigorous legal analysis that draws from legal literature and is informed by the reality reported by academic researchers, practitioners and communities. The Abidjan Principles are based on international standards, as interpreted by courts and human rights mechanisms. They constitute a significant new tool that States and other stakeholders should use for implementing the right to education. Consisting of 97 guiding principles, they are organized according to 10 overarching principles, which are annexed to the present report.40 All the guiding principles are important and should be read together. 36. The Special Rapporteur sets out below how the Abidjan Principles apply to four topics that are particularly relevant in the current context and for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4. A. Obligation of States to fund and provide public education 37. The question as to whether States have an obligation to provide public education has long been debated. Guiding principle 29 states that: “States must respect, protect and fulfil the right to free, quality, public education.” 38. That position reaffirms the interpretation provided by human rights mechanisms in recent decades. For instance, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recommended that Kenya “take all the measures necessary to strengthen its public education sector” (E/C.12/KEN/CO/2-5, para. 58). National courts and regional human rights courts have regularly taken a similar position.41 That reflects what appears to be the consensus at the international level. As mentioned above, the Human Rights Council has consistently passed resolutions recognizing the significant importance of investment in public education, to the maximum of available resources. The public dimension is also central to the reaffirmation by States in the Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4 that “education is a public good”. 39. That position is supported by the wording of relevant legal provisions that assume, and therefore require, that States provide public education. For example, the freedom of parents to choose for their children schools other than those established by the public authorities makes clear that there must also be public education, namely “schools established by the public authorities”. If there were no such schools, then the choice of parents would not be a choice, but a necessity. 42 40. The Special Rapporteur further notes that public education is, as a practice, the main form of delivery of education in a large majority of States and often constitutionally protected.43 Public education has historically been the main way through which developed 39 40 41 42 43 10 On the process leading to the adoption of the Abidjan Principles, see www.abidjanprinciples.org/en/background/overview. See www.abidjanprinciples.org/en/principles/overview. See for example, in the United States, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) 347 U.S. 483 at 493 (1954); European Court of Human Rights, Kjeldsen, Busk Madsen and Pedersen v. Denmark (application Nos. 5095/71, 5920/72, 5926/72), judgment of 7 December 1976, para. 52; and Folgerø and others v. Norway (application No. 15472/02), judgment of 29 June 2007, para. 84. Jacqueline Mowbray, “Is there a right to public education?”, forthcoming and available from www.abidjanprinciples.org/en/background/overview. The Law Library of Congress, “Constitutional right to an education in selected countries” (2016).