Committee on the Rights of the Child Opens Ninety-Fourth Session

The Committee on the Rights of the Child this morning opened its ninety-fourth session, which is being held in Geneva from 4 to 22 September, during which the Committee will review reports on the efforts of Albania, Andorra, Dominican Republic, Kyrgyzstan, Liechtenstein and Togo to uphold the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In an opening statement, Andrea Ori, Chief of the Groups in Focus Section, Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Representative of the Secretary-General, commended the Committee for its general comment 26 on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change, which was released last month. The general comment was a timely and necessary tool for ensuring that all children could exercise their right to live in a clean healthy and sustainable environment.

Mr. Ori said that another important milestone concerning children’s rights was the publication in July 2023 of the Guidance Note of the Secretary-General on Child Rights Mainstreaming. The Guidance Note acknowledged the lack of a coherent approach in the United Nations system on integrating child rights in its work, both in policy and in practice. It set out specific recommendations on how to strengthen a child rights-based approach in all United Nations actions across all pillars, and in all entities and at all levels. Mr. Ori closed by wishing the Committee a productive and successful session.

Ann Marie Skelton, Committee Chairperson, said that during the session, in addition to reviewing State party reports under the Convention and its Optional Protocols, the Committee would consider any communication and information it had received in relation to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure. Ms. Skelton reported that the Committee would hold, on Monday, 18 September 2023, a formal launch of its general comment 26 on children’s rights and the environment at the Palais des Nations with the participation of children, representatives of States, civil society organizations, national human rights institutions and other relevant stakeholders.

Before adopting the session’s agenda, the Committee also heard statements from representatives of Child Rights Connect, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Children's Fund, and the Secretary of the Committee.

Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found here, and webcasts of the public meetings can be found here. The programme of work of the Committee’s ninety-fourth session and other documents related to the session can be found here.

The Committee will next meet in public at 3 p.m. this afternoon to consider the combined fifth to sixth periodic report of Albania (CRC/C/ALB/5-6).

Statements

ANDREA ORI, Chief of the Groups in Focus Section, Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Representative of the Secretary-General, commended the Committee for its general comment 26 on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change, which was finally released last month. Children in every part of the world were suffering from the negative effects of environmental degradation and climate change, and they were calling for urgent and decisive measures to tackle global environmental harm. The general comment was a timely and necessary tool for ensuring that all children could exercise their right to live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. There was an unprecedented level of child participation in the development process for this general comment: more than 16,000 contributions from children from 121 countries through two rounds of children’s consultations supported by a diverse and dedicated Children’s Advisory Team.

In the general comment, the Committee highlighted that the motivation and momentum for the general comment came from the efforts of children themselves to draw attention to environmental crises. The Committee called on decision-makers to recognise the status and contributions of child human rights defenders to human rights and environmental protection and to proactively and meaningfully involve them in all environmental decision-making processes. Mr. Ori said he was looking forward to hearing more of these children’s views and stories at the Committee’s event on 18 September to launch the general comment.

Another important milestone concerning children’s rights was the publication in July 2023 of the Guidance Note of the Secretary-General on Child Rights Mainstreaming. The Guidance Note acknowledged the lack of a coherent approach in the United Nations system on integrating child rights in its work, both in policy and in practice. It set out specific recommendations on how to strengthen a child rights-based approach in all United Nations actions across all pillars, and in all entities and at all levels. The recommendations stemmed from a set of eight principles grounded in the Convention. The coordination of its implementation would be done by the United Nations Children's Fund and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and both entities were currently developing a roadmap for the next steps.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights continued to actively promote efforts to strengthen the treaty body system. The conclusions adopted by the Chairs of the treaty bodies at their thirty-fifth annual meeting had the potential to significantly improve the work of the treaty body system. The Chairs focused their discussions on the harmonisation of working methods and agreed, among other things, to establish a coordination mechanism for genuine and sustainable alignment of the Committees’ working methods and substantive coordination on common intersectional issues.

The Chairs also considered the options for the rolling out of the eight-year predictable review calendar in practice, including intermittent follow-up reviews. The Chairs confirmed that any of the options for the introduction of an eight-year predictable schedule of reviews and the further digitalisation of their work could be implemented only if the necessary human, technical and financial resources were provided by Member States. The Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights had expressed their firm commitment to continuing to support the treaty body strengthening process.

The High Commissioner would convene an informal briefing with Member States on 1 November 2023 in Geneva to solicit their views and preferences on the options and guiding questions in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Working Paper. In a subsequent process, the High Commissioner intended to reach out to Member States in spring 2024 in New York. These steps would hopefully lead to an emerging consensus among Member States. The discussions both in Geneva and in New York would facilitate the development of the next biennial General Assembly resolution on the human rights treaty body system in December 2024.

Mr. Ori said an imbalance persisted between existing resources and the needs of treaty bodies’ work. Not only was the work increasing in quantitative terms, but also in its substantive scope. The staffing shortage significantly impacted the Committee’s work and also had a detrimental effect on the work-life balance of each staff member in the Branch. It was essential that all stakeholders joined hands in making the limitations of the system visible, particularly to Member States who created it to deliver in the interest of the people that they served.

The High Commissioner’s report on the rights of the child and inclusive social protection would be presented to the Human Rights Council at its upcoming fifty-fourth session. A report on child rights mainstreaming would also be presented to the Council at the same time.

Social protection, together with the right to development and sustainable development, was the topic for the month of September in the context of events marking the 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These were key to eradicating poverty, reducing socio-economic inequalities and ensuring no child was left behind. These were human rights which impacted hugely on children. Mr. Ori closed by expressing his best wishes to the Committee for a successful and productive session.

ALEX CONTE, Child Rights Connect, said it was time for the child rights movement to take bold action to give space to children, to include them in adult-centred discussions around civic space, to accelerate the universal acceptance of their civil and political rights, and to empower them to seek remedies and reparation when their rights as defenders were violated. Children had great expectations of the Committee in this regard. The Committee’s general comment 26 was a major achievement, providing long-overdue authoritative guidance on how children’s rights were impacted by the environmental crisis, and what States needed to do to uphold these rights. Mr. Conte welcomed the strong recommendations to States to protect environmental child human rights defenders and their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, as well as their access to justice and remedies. The General Comment acted as an affirmative response to children’s call on the United Nations system to act on environmental issues to protect their rights.

IMMA GUERRAS, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, congratulated the Committee on the issuance of general comment 26. The Guidance Note of the Secretary-General on Child Rights Mainstreaming was a major accomplishment. The importance of the Committee’s work was highlighted in all recommendations made within the Guidance Note for United Nations entities. A report on child rights mainstreaming would be presented to the Human Rights Council in its upcoming session. The High Commissioner’s report on the rights of the child and inclusive social protection and its child-friendly version would also be presented at the upcoming Council session. These reports would inform the next annual day of discussions at the Council on the rights of the child, to be held next March. The Council would also be holding a panel this September on youth engagement, climate change and global environment decision-making.

In cooperation with partners, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights would establish a youth rights academy to start in 2024. As part of its Human Rights 75 initiative, the Office was engaging with young people to ensure they were directly involved and sharing their visions for human rights.

ANNE GRANDJEAN, United Nations Children's Fund, congratulated the Committee on the release of general comment 26. She said the United Nations Children's Fund had just released the report “Free and Safe to Protest: policing assemblies involving children.” The report articulated child rights in the context of policing assemblies and covered the specific importance for children of exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly as part of their overall development, and the challenges they faced in doing so. The Fund had also launched a podcast series on child rights and hate speech to raise awareness of the impact of hate speech on the full spectrum of children's rights, featuring episodes with Mikiko Otani, the former Chair of the Committee. The podcast series was available on the Fund’s website.

The Fund had continued to monitor discussions at the Human Rights Council and actively participated in the June session, which traditionally included a gender focus. It would do the same at the forty-fifth session of the Council that was starting next week. In the margins of the Council’s session, together with the Universal Rights Group, the Fund would be organising a policy dialogue with selected Ambassadors to seek common ground around the most contentious child rights issues at the Council. It welcomed that some Committee members would join that discussion.

ALLEGRA FRANCHETTI, Secretary of the Committee, said that eight reports had been received since the last session, bringing the total number of reports to 73. The total number of ratifications of the Convention remained at 196. Seven reports had been received under the Convention, three under the normal reporting procedure and four under the simplified reporting procedure. Sixty-five periodic reports were overdue. Angola, Bolivia and China had newly opted out of the simplified reporting procedure. No States had ratified any Optional Protocols since the last session; the total number of ratifications remained at 173 for the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflict; 178 for the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; and 50 for the Optional Protocol to the Convention on a communications procedure. One new report had been received under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflict from Zimbabwe; 38 initial reports were overdue under that Optional Protocol. Fifty initial reports were overdue under the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

ANN MARIE SKELTON, Committee Chairperson, said that during the session, the Committee would assess the periodic reports under the Convention of Albania, Andorra, Dominican Republic and Kyrgyzstan; the periodic report of Liechtenstein under the Convention and its initial report under the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; and the periodic report of Togo under the Convention and its initial report under the Optional Protocol on children involved in armed conflict.

The Committee would also continue its discussion on how its cooperation with various relevant bodies could be further strengthened to enhance the promotion and protection of the rights of the child. Further, it would continue its discussion concerning the organization of its future work and the procedure to be followed in the consideration of reports of States parties and their follow-up. The Committee would also consider any communication and information it had received in relation to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on communications procedure. The Committee would hold, on Monday, 18 September 2023, a formal launch of its general comment 26 at the Palais des Nations in conference room 17, with the participation of children, representatives of States, civil society organizations, national human rights institutions and other relevant stakeholders.

The Committee then adopted its provisional agenda.