education.org. as of 15 March 2001. This website will also include full texts of the publications and they will also be sent to those who cannot access them on-line. This resource centre is being developed to augment my work as the Special Rapporteur on the right to education of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights, subsequent to the Commission’s decision to create a specific mandate. The particular person’s expertise in a specific field, in my case a long track record of working on economic and social rights, the human rights of women and the rights of the child, seemed to have been decisive. My mandate on the right to education was created by the Commission on Human Rights in its resolution 1998/33 of 17 April 1998 and I was appointed in August 1998. The Commission’s decision to appoint a Special Rapporteur on the right to education originated in a widely shared assessment that economic, social and cultural rights had been neglected, if not marginalized. The text of the resolution whereby my mandate was created, typically for economic and social rights, was inexact on the contours of the mandate1 as a 1 The Commission on Human Rights in its resolution 1998/33 of 17 April 1998 mandated me to (i) Report on the status, throughout the world, of the progressive realization of the right to education, including access to primary education, and the difficulties encountered in the implementation of this right; (ii) Promote assistance to Governments for urgent plans of action to secure the progressive implementation of the principle of compulsory primary education free of charge for all; (iii) Focus on gender, in particular the situation and needs of the girl child, and to promote the elimination of all forms of discrimination in education; (v) Develop regular dialogue with actors such as UNESCO or UNICEF, and with financial institutions, such as the World Bank. 6 Right to Education Primers No. 3 consequence of the need to generate and sustain consensus within the Commission. Advancing human rights is a process and the initial definition of an agenda for the future is narrow and cautious, to be broadened and deepened as work progresses. Much work is needed to redress the previous neglect of the right to education. Much too little can be done within the United Nations, where the right to education is one out of very many issues on the agenda, thus the necessity of providing external academic and professional input in the deliberations and evolving policies of the Commission on Human Rights. My work on the right to education therefore extends far beyond my role as the Special Rapporteur and encompasses research, teaching and training at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute at Lund University. The two are closely linked. Special Rapporteurship is an honorary function, entailing much unpaid work and a great deal of battling to assert and defend the right to education, particularly for all the children who do not know that such a right exists, least of all that they should be enjoying it. The logic of human rights work is that rights are denied and violated hence the essential task is to expose and oppose denials and violations. By no stretch of imagination could one imagine deniers and violators sitting back and applauding. Special Rapporteurs thus continue in their existing jobs so as to remain financially and organizationally independent. Where their professional and academic work can be molded to support their UN work, as my case has fortunately been, much can be done. Working as a Special Rapporteur encompasses three tracks: annual reports provide a summarized overview of relevant developments worldwide, country missions are carried