Committee on Rights of Child opens fifty-sixth session

Committee on the Rights of the Child
17 January 2011

The Committee on the Rights of the Child this morning opened its fifty-sixth session, hearing an address by Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Committee also adopted its agenda and programme of work for the session.

Ms. Pillay said that in response to her 2009 call, a series of events had taken place and others were scheduled in the coming months to solicit the views and concrete suggestions of different stakeholders regarding the ways and means to strengthen the treaty body system. In addition to the ongoing process, the Office was also organising a series of consultations which brought together two treaty bodies at the time, with an objective of providing opportunities for members to discuss in advance the topics of the next Inter-Committee meeting. The various consultations would culminate with a compilation of proposals stemming from the exercise which she would present this year.

Ms. Pillay said she was following with great interest the open-ended Working Group on an Optional Protocol tasked with the elaboration of an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that would establish a communication procedure and expressed her hope that the final text would provide approaches best suited to the special needs of child victims of violations. The Committee on the Rights of the Child had faced numerous changes in recent months, Ms. Pillay said, adding that the recruitment of the new Secretary was now almost over, which meant that the full core of the Committee on the Rights of the Child was now nearly completed. The issue of documentation remained thorny and the resource constraints facing translation services and the growth in demand from other mechanisms had led to the situation with which the Committee was all too familiar.

Many children continued to be victims of poverty, of societal or State negligence, or unscrupulous persons seeking to exploit them, said the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The lowering of the age of criminal responsibility in some countries was an issue of concern, as were the impacts of financial and economic crises which in some countries were reversing the progress made towards eradicating child labour. Where children were involved in armed conflict the Secretary-General, had noted that there was near total impunity for grave crimes perpetrated against them in the countries reviewed in his most recent report on this subject to the Security Council. In closing, Ms. Pillay reiterated her full support to this Committee and invited all members to continue to actively engage in the process of strengthening the treaty body system as a whole.

Jean Zermatten, Committee Vice Chairperson, reiterated the deep commitment of Committee members to their work and expressed a deep concern for the logistics support for the work of the Committee, which included difficulties in replacing the Secretary. The people with great deal of experience had left the Committee and this session was starting with major challenges, such as establishing a dialogue with States parties, which the new team needed to face. The work of this Committee on drafting the observing remarks was indeed a heavy workload and Mr. Zermatten said he needed the reassurance from the High Commissioner for Human Rights that the work of the Committee would be adequately supported.

Lothar Friedrich Krappmann, the Committee Rapporteur, said he had served on this Committee for eight years and had observed some changes in its working. The number of members of the Secretariat that had permanently assisted the Committee had become very low. The continuing and permanent support to the Committee had been better in earlier years, Mr. Krappmann said, noting that with proper and stable support this Committee could achieve so much more. The added obligations of the Committee, such as communication procedures or follow up of concluding observations, meant the new and added need for the expert and continuing support.

Ms. Pillay said that she had already noted in her address the lack of Secretarial support that the Committee had experienced. She assured the members that she would watch the situation closely and follow up on the recruitment of the Secretary. With regard to the experienced people who had served this Committee and had left, Ms. Pillay said that the staff had the right to apply to new posts, and that the recruitment procedures were such that would ensure the needed levels of expertise of new members. Ms. Pillay said she would be personally keeping an eye on how the Office was performing in providing the Committee with the necessary support.

When the Committee next reconvenes in public, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 18 January, it will begin its review of reports by States parties and will consider the initial report of Afghanistan (CRC/C/AFG/1).

Statement by the High Commissioner for Human Rights

NAVI PILLAY, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that in response to her 2009 call, a series of events had taken place and others were scheduled in the coming months to solicit the views and concrete suggestions of different stakeholders regarding the ways and means to strengthen the treaty body system. The foundation of the current treaty body strengthening process had been laid out in the Dublin Statement of November 2009, followed by the Marrakech and Poznan Statements in 2010. The consultation phase of the process had continued with a meeting of the Working Group on follow-up in January 2011 in Geneva, which had focused on the follow-up procedures relating to concluding observations, decisions on communications, visits and inquiries, including an assessment of their effectiveness. The Office was also organising a series of consultations which brought together two treaty bodies at the time, with an objective of providing opportunities for members to discuss in advance the topics of the next Inter-Committee meeting. Ms. Pillay said she was encouraged by the commitment expressed by all Chairpersons trying to bring the treaty body strengthening process forward and said that the various consultations would culminate with a compilation of proposals stemming from the exercise which she would present this year.

Ms. Pillay said she was following with great interest the open-ended Working Group on an Optional Protocol tasked with the elaboration of an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that would establish a communication procedure. Among the issues on which consensus had not yet been reached, Ms. Pillay emphasized a collective communications procedure and expressed her hope that agreement could be reached in February and that the final text would provide approaches best suited to the special needs of child victims of violations. Later this year, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights would jointly organise an expert meeting on the legal framework required to stem such violence, Ms. Pillay said.

Ms. Pillay thanked the outgoing members of the Committee and extended her congratulations to the re-elected and newly elected members of the Committee. The Committee on the Rights of the Child had faced numerous changes in recent months and the recruitment of the new Secretary was now almost over, which meant that the full core of the Committee on the Rights of the Child was now nearly completed. The issue of documentation remained thorny and the resource constraints facing translation services and the growth in demand from other mechanisms had led to the situation with which the Committee was all too familiar. For this Committee it was exacerbated by the high number and volume of documents requiring translation.

While the situation of many children had improved thanks in no small part to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, many other children continued to be victims of poverty, of societal or State negligence, or unscrupulous persons seeking to exploit them. Lowering of the age of criminal responsibility in some countries was an issue of concern, as were the impacts of financial and economic crises which in some countries were reversing the progress made towards eradicating child labour. Where children were involved in armed conflict the Secretary-General had noted that there was near total impunity for grave crimes perpetrated against them in the countries reviewed in his most recent report on this subject to the Security Council. In closing, Ms. Pillay reiterated her full support to this Committee and invited all members to continue to actively engage in the process of strengthening the treaty body system as a whole.

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