birth, or other status, such as age, ethnicity, disability, marital, refugee or migrant status, resulting in compounded disadvantage.249 The Special Rapporteur has highlighted the incidence of intersectional discrimination in girls’ right to education.250 International bodies have stressed recently the importance of acknowledging that intersectional discrimination must be recognised and addressed at the national level through intersectional strategies.251 An intersectional approach takes into account the historical, social and political context and recognises the unique experience of the individual based on the intersection of all relevant grounds.252 Obligation of immediacy The right to equality and non-discrimination constitutes a central component of the right to education. As mentioned under term of reference (ii), the guarantee that the right to education will be exercised without discrimination is an obligation of immediacy. The CESCR has affirmed that the prohibition against discrimination in education is subject to neither progressive realisation nor the availability of resources. It applies fully and immediately to all aspects of education.253 Formal and substantive equality Discrimination and inequality can stem from both law and from practice. Guarantees of nondiscrimination and equality in international human rights treaties mandate both formal (de jure) and substantive (de facto) equality. Formal equality assumes that equality is achieved if a law or policy treats different groups, such as men and women, in a neutral manner. Substantive equality is concerned, in addition, with the effects of laws, policies and practices and with ensuring that they do not maintain, but rather alleviate, the inherent disadvantage that particular groups experience.254 249 CESCR General Comment No. 16: The equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights E/C.12/2005/4 11 August 2005 at para 5. 250 See generally Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education Girls’ right to education E/CN.4/2006/45 8 February 2006, in particular at paras 80 – 87. 251 See, for example, CERD General Comment No. 25: Gender Related Dimensions of Racial Discrimination A/55/18 annex V 20 March 2000. 252 Ontario Human Rights Commission “An Intersectional Approach to Discrimination: Addressing Multiple Grounds in Human Rights Claims” (Discussion Paper 2001) at 3. 253 CESCR General Comment No. 13: The right to education E/C.12/1999/10 8 December 1999 at para 31. See also Limburg Principles at paras 22 and 23. 98