Committee on Rights of Child opens fifty-fifth session

Committee on the Rights of the Child

13 September 2010

The Committee on the Rights of the Child this morning opened it fifty-fifth session, hearing an address by Ibrahim Salama, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and adopting its agenda and programme of work for the session.

Ibrahim Salama, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, bringing to the Committee’s attention important new developments that have taken place since the last session, said in March 2010 the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 13/3. That resolution extended the mandate of the open-ended Working Group on an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child until the seventeenth session of the Council and mandated the Working Group to elaborate an Optional Protocol to provide a communications procedure.

Mr. Salama went on to say that the eleventh Inter-Committee Meeting and the twenty-second Meeting of Chairpersons of treaty bodies were held in June and July. The difficulties in ensuring the availability of processed and translated documents were discussed at length during the meeting. This was a concern shared by the Secretariat and the Office for the High Commissioner was very aware of the on-going difficulties faced by treaty bodies in receiving timely translations of their documents. In this regard, the Office welcomed the emphasis the Inter-Committee Meeting placed on the need for all treaty bodies to enforce the page limitations set in the harmonized and treaty-specific guidelines.

Mr. Salama also referred to the twenty-second meeting of the Chairpersons of the human rights treaty bodies which was held in Brussels from 1 to 2 July 2010. That was the first annual meeting of Chairpersons organized outside Geneva and aimed to bring treaty bodies closer to the implementation level, to non-governmental organizations and regional mechanisms, and to raise awareness in Europe about the work of treaty bodies. The Chairpersons engaged with high-level representatives from various European Union institutions, and bilateral meetings were organized with the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights and the Secretariat of the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union.

Mr. Salama welcomed the collaboration the Committee was developing with the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. He was also pleased that the High Commissioner’s repeated call to reflect on how to strengthen the treaty body system had led to a number of initiatives. Upcoming was a meeting to which all treaty body Chairpersons were invited and the Office intended to organize a series of consultations involving the eight treaty bodies having a reporting structure.

Mr. Salama informed the Committee that the Chairpersons of the treaty bodies had, for the first time ever, issued a joint statement on the occasion of the Millennium Development Goals Summit which would be held this September. In the statement, which would be made available to the Committee, the Chairpersons urged Member States to be guided by human rights in finalizing the summit outcome document and in establishing national action plans, among other things.

Turning to the work ahead, Mr. Salama said this Committee session would again be a busy one with 18 reports from 10 States parties scheduled for consideration during the session and 9 lists of issues set for adoption during the pre-sessional Group.

This September session was the last of three sessions in double chambers as a temporary special measure to deal with the backlog of reports. During this session the Committee would be discussing three different general comments and adopt new harmonized treaty-specific reporting guidelines, revised rules of procedure and an elements paper on the draft optional protocol on a communications procedure to be submitted to the second session of the open-ended Working Group in December.

Mr. Salama went on to say that the Office and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children would organize an expert consultation on child sensitive counseling and complaint and reporting mechanisms at the end of September, and the Office hoped that a representative of the Committee would be able to participate.

The Committee Secretary announced that seven reports had been received since the last session, five under the Convention and two under the Optional Protocols, bringing the total number of reports received by the Committee to 610. The number of ratifications of the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict was 136 and the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography was ratified by 139 State parties.

Yanghee Lee, Committee Chairperson, said meetings had been scheduled with many partners, including United Nations agencies. It would not be possible to hold a day of general discussion this year, but possible themes for 2011 would be discussed during this session. Ms. Lee also thanked Ms. Maja Andrijasevic-Boko for her work as Committee Secretary and welcomed the acting interim Committee Secretary Susan Mathews.

When the Committee reconvenes in public, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 14 September, it will begin its review of reports by State parties in two parallel chambers. In Chamber A, Guatemala will present its combined third and fourth periodic reports (CRC/C/GTM/3-4). In Chamber B, Angola will introduce its combined second through fourth periodic reports (CRC/C/AGO/2-4).

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For use of the information media; not an official record