A treaty is a promise between governments
- Claim
- A treaty is a promise your government made to other governments, and the promise is to change things at home.
- Instrument
- Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, article 26; CRC, article 4; ICESCR, article 2(1).
- Quote
- "Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it" (VCLT, art. 26). "States Parties shall undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures" (CRC, art. 4).
- What it means for you
- The promise is not a speech. It is a promise to pass laws, run schools differently and spend money, and it is owed to every other state that joined. On the economic and social rights, the ICESCR sets the level of effort by what the state has, "to the maximum of its available resources" (ICESCR, art. 2(1)), and it lets the full result arrive over time: the aim is "achieving progressively the full realization of the rights" (ICESCR, art. 2(1)). A state with less is asked for less. No state is asked for nothing.
- Where it often fails
- The promise is made between governments, so it is usually enforced between governments. Whether you personally can rely on the treaty in a court at home depends on your country's own law, and in many countries you cannot do it directly.
- What you can ask for
- Ask whether a national law carries the treaty into your country's rules, and what it is called. Ask your school for the written policy that is supposed to put it into practice.
Signing and being bound are two different days
- Claim
- A signature is an intention. Ratification, or accession, is what binds.
- Instrument
- CRC, articles 46, 47 and 48; CRPD, article 43, headed "Consent to be bound"; VCLT, article 18.
- Quote
- "The present Convention shall be open for signature by all States." "The present Convention is subject to ratification." "The present Convention shall remain open for accession by any State." (CRC, arts. 46 to 48).
- What it means for you
- Three separate steps. Signing says a state means to join. Ratifying is the later act that binds it, after whatever its own parliament requires. Acceding is joining in one step, without ever having signed, and the UN status page marks it with a small "a" beside the date. A state that has signed and not ratified is not bound: that is the site's word for it, and it is not the same as refusing or ignoring. A signature is not nothing either. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties says a state that has signed is "obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose" (VCLT, art. 18) of the treaty until it makes clear it will not join. Not every state has joined the Vienna Convention itself: 119 parties, UN status as at 21-10-2026.
- Where it often fails
- News reports say a country "signed the Convention" when it ratified, and say a country "rejected" it when the truth is a signature sitting unratified for decades. Both errors end the same way: somebody claims a right their state never became bound to, and is told they are wrong.
- What you can ask for
- Before you quote a treaty in a letter, check the UN page for your state and see which column your country's date sits in. If the card says "Signed only", say so plainly in the letter and ask what is stopping ratification.
The four promises on your card
- Convention on the Rights of the Child. Your rights at school, your health, your voice, discipline with dignity. It covers every human being under 18, unless your country's law says adulthood arrives sooner. If you are 18 or older, this one has stopped covering you. 196 parties, UN status as at 21-10-2026.
- Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (its full name starts with "International"). Education, health and work, for "everyone", with no age line at all. 174 parties, UN status as at 21-10-2026.
- Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The inclusive-education treaty: article 24 says states shall ensure "an inclusive education system at all levels". 194 parties, UN status as at 21-10-2026.
- CRC complaints protocol (OP3). Not a new right: a route. Only against a state that is a party to it can a young person take a case to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and normally only after the courts and complaints at home have been used up. The protocol's own exception is where those are "unreasonably prolonged or unlikely to bring effective relief" (OP3-CRC, art. 7(e)). 54 parties, UN status as at 21-10-2026.
- Claim
- The card lists four instruments. They cover different people and do different jobs, and being bound by one says nothing about the others.
- Instrument
- CRC, articles 1, 12, 24 and 28; ICESCR, articles 6, 12 and 13(1); CRPD, article 24(1); OP3-CRC, articles 5(1) and 7(e).
- Quote
- "a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years" (CRC, art. 1). "recognize the right of everyone to education" (ICESCR, art. 13(1)). "States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to education." (CRPD, art. 24(1)). "Communications may be submitted by or on behalf of an individual" (OP3-CRC, art. 5(1)).
- What it means for you
- Line by line, each with the party count printed on the UN's own page and the date the UN stamped there:
- Where it often fails
- The four get treated as one. A country can be bound by the CRC and not be in the complaints protocol at all, and most are not: 196 against 54 on the same day. Read the four lines separately, because each one was a separate decision.
- What you can ask for
- Name the right treaty and article for your age and your situation when you write to a school or an ombudsperson. Chapter 7, What you can do, walks the complaint route. Chapter 3, Disability and mental health at school, is where the CRPD line matters most.
Bound, and still failing you
- Claim
- "Bound" describes a promise and a review process. It does not describe your school.
- Instrument
- CRC, articles 43(1), 44(1), 44(6) and 45(d); ICESCR, article 16(1).
- Quote
- "For the purpose of examining the progress made by States Parties" (CRC, art. 43(1)). "reports on the measures they have adopted which give effect to the rights" (CRC, art. 44(1)). "the progress made in achieving the observance of the rights recognized herein" (ICESCR, art. 16(1)).
- What it means for you
- What the CRC actually builds is a committee, a report and a conversation every few years. It asks for a first report within two years and then one every five. For most states that is the whole machine, because most are not in the complaints protocol. Nothing in it switches a bad school into a good one, and nobody arrives to inspect your classroom because the card says Bound.
- Where it often fails
- Reports arrive years late, or not at all. What a committee says back is a recommendation, not an order, and a government can thank it and change nothing. A student reads "Bound" and concludes the treaty is being kept, which is the one thing the word does not tell you.
- What you can ask for
- Your country's reports are meant to be public where you live: states promised to "make their reports widely available to the public in their own countries" (CRC, art. 44(6)). Ask a teacher or a librarian to help you find the most recent one and what the Committee said back, then quote your own government's words to your own school.
Why some cards say "not bound"
- Claim
- "Not bound" is this site's reading of one UN list for one treaty on one date. It is never a finding that you have no rights.
- Instrument
- The UN status page itself: a "Signature" column, and a second column whose heading lists the ways of becoming bound. That second heading is worded differently on each of the four pages, so read it rather than look for one phrase: the CRC page says "Ratification, Acceptance(A), Accession(a), Succession(d)", the Covenant "Ratification, Accession(a), Succession(d)", the disability convention "Formal confirmation(c), Accession(a), Ratification", and the complaints protocol "Accession(a), Ratification". What matters is the same on all four: a date in the first column alone is a signature, and a date in the second is what binds. Also VCLT, article 2(1)(d); CRPD, article 46(2).
- Quote
- A reservation is a statement by which a state "purports to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions" (VCLT, art. 2(1)(d)). "Reservations may be withdrawn at any time." (CRPD, art. 46(2)).
- What it means for you
- A card can show that a treaty does not bind in three different situations, and they are not the same thing. The state never joined: the card says "Not bound". Or it signed and has not ratified: the card says "Signed only", with the signature date and the words "not yet bound" on the line beneath. Or the row is a place the UN does not list as a participant at all, which is what happens to territories, and the card says "Not bound" there too. Read that last one with care. A treaty can reach a territory through the state responsible for it, and the UN pages for the CRC and the Covenant list some such cases under "Territorial Application". The card does not show that. Whichever it is, your national law may give you more than the treaty would. Not bound by a treaty is not the same as having nothing.
- Where it often fails
- Two gaps live in this line. The card does not show reservations, so a country can read "Bound" while having excluded part of the treaty when it joined. The UN page does show them, in its own sections headed "Declarations and Reservations" and "Objections"; this site does not summarise any country's reservations, because they are written one by one and a summary of one is usually wrong. And a card is one site's reading of the UN list, taken automatically from those pages on the date stamped on the card. If the card and the UN page disagree, the UN page is right.
- What you can ask for
- Open the UN page for the treaty and find your state in the table: one line tells you the dates and whether there is a footnote hanging off them. If it does not match the card, use the "Correct this" link at the bottom of the page and say what you saw.