A Plan, Not a Promise: ICESCR Article 14 and What Free Education Must Mean in an AI Economy

ICESCR Article 14 — the shortest substantive article in the Covenant — requires states without free compulsory primary education to adopt a binding, time-bound action plan within two years. The United States technically meets the threshold. But the planning standard Article 14 encodes, and the gaps it would expose on review, speak directly to what the U.S. education system lacks as AI displacement…