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Statements Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Opening address by Ms. Kyung-wha Kang, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights to the 48th session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child
19 May 2008
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Committee on the Rights of the Child
48th session, Geneva, 19 May 2008, 10 am
Palais Wilson, Ground Floor
Madame Chairperson,
Distinguished members of the Committee,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to open the 48th session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, and to welcome its distinguished members to what will no doubt be a very fruitful session in keeping with longstanding traditions of the Committee. Before turning to your work during this session, allow me to bring to your attention a number of important developments of interest to the Committee that have taken place since your last session in January 2008.
Treaty-body reform
First of all, on 3 May of this year, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities entered into force, after Ecuador became the 20th State to ratify the Convention. On 12 May, I had the honour of attending a special event at UN Headquarters in New York to mark the entry into force of the Convention. Within the next months, the Secretary-General will convene the first Conference of States parties, which will elect the first ten members of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I am certain that the new committee will be able to benefit greatly from your experience of the past two decades, especially as the new Convention contains numerous references to the rights of children with disabilities as well as specific references to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The creation of a new treaty body illustrates once more the need for continuing harmonisation of the treaty body system. In this context, the next Inter-Committee Meeting will seek to highlight areas requiring harmonization. I am certain that this Committee will actively contribute to those discussions.
One of the areas of harmonization is reporting guidelines. Three Committees - the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Migrant Workers Committee – have already adopted treaty-specific targeted reporting guidelines to complement the guidelines on a common core document. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is also well advanced in its drafting of its treaty specific guidelines.
I am encouraged to learn that understand this Committee is also considering the modalities of developing and adopting treaty specific guidelines that will also provide appropriate guidance to States parties integrating information related to the implementation of the Optional Protocols into their periodic reports under the Convention. I wish you much progress in this regard.
Human Rights Council
The Human Rights Council held its 7th session from 3 to 28 March. From 7 to 18 April, the Council’s first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group met. The second meeting of the Working Group met between 5 and 16 May, and is adopting the reports of the second batch of the 16 countries reviewed today.
Thus, over its first two meetings, the UPR working group reviewed the national reports of 32 countries. For each country, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) prepared compilations of UN information and stakeholders’ summaries, which were widely appreciated by Member States, NGOs and other stokholders.
The content of the compilation reports prepared by OHCHR is of particular relevance to the work of treaty bodies. In addition to information included in special procedures reports and relevant information from United Nations agencies, the compilation reports are based on treaty body concluding observations and other treaty body outcomes of relevance to the State concerned. During the reviews, it was encouraging to see many delegations referring to the compilation reports making questions and making recommendations to the country they reviewed.
A number of the countries that have been considered by the UPR Working Group will be before the Committee within the next year – France, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Tunisia and the United Kingdom. In this regard, it will be useful for the Committee to reflect on the implications of the UPR for its work, as well as how it might best use the inputs into and outputs of this process, particularly as this issue is likely to be discussed at the Inter-Committee and Chairpersons’ meetings in June.
I would now like to say a few words about issues that are of interest to the Committee and related to the Committee’s work, including:
Follow-up to the Study on violence against children
OHCHR will continue to raise awareness of the Study, promote implementation of its recommendations through the full range of activities and encourage mainstreaming of the Study’s recommendations into the work of the UN human rights treaty bodies and special procedures. To this end, OHCHR has undertaken initiatives such as briefing of experts and mandate-holders; provision of information to human rights mechanisms; and development of tools, such as checklists, to encourage human rights mechanisms to further highlight issues related to violence against children in their work.
OHCHR will also continue to support implementation of the Study’s recommendations through the activities of its field presences and the development of policy planning and programming tools. Field offices are increasingly assisted in efforts to integrate the recommendations of the Study in activities such as training and capacity building, assistance in the development of national policies and plans, assistance in legal reform, preparation of thematic reports, mapping exercises, awareness raising and education. A paper with guidelines on legal provisions to prohibit all forms of violence against children is being finalized and we hope it will serve as a practical tool to all those working in the area of legal reform, including our own field presences.
In all these ongoing activities, we count on the ongoing commitment of the members of this Committee, as you have been instrumental in initiating and supporting numerous activities in your respective countries or regions.
This brings me now to the question of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence against Children (SRSG). As you are aware, the Office has been closely involved in discussions concerning the establishment of the post. We understand from the Secretary-General’s Office that consultations are now ongoing to identify candidates. OHCHR stands ready to fully cooperate and support the SRSG with a view to ensuring that his/her work is informed and guided by a child-rights approach and perspective. Your contribution to this end is obviously crucial. OHCHR shall do its utmost to facilitate coordination and cooperation between this Committee and the Office of the SRSG.
Another issue of interest to the Committee is the
Draft UN Guidelines for the Protection and alternative care of children without Parental Care
The Committee was behind the drive to create these Guidelines and was also very much involved in their drafting. These Guidelines have now found a place on the agenda of the 8th Session of the Human Rights Council, which will be discussing the draft in the morning of 6 June. We will keep you informed about the outcome of these discussions.
Now I would like to say a few words about the
Current session of the Committee
Let me begin by noting the good news of new ratifications to the Optional Protocols. Since your last session, two States (Albania and Greece) have become party to the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and one State (Peoples’ Republic of China) has become party to the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict. This brings the total number of State parties to the protocols to 126 and 120 respectively.
During the next three weeks, the Committee will, as always, have a heavy agenda, as you consider 10 reports, five submitted under the Convention and 5 under the two Optional Protocols.
There will also be continued discussion on the draft general comment on article 12 relating to children’s participation, the draft general comment on indigenous children and their rights, working methods and treaty-body reform, as well as numerous other issues related to child rights.
As usual, the Committee will be having meetings with other entities of the UN system, as well as non-governmental organizations. I understand that one such meeting, one of particular importance, took place between the Committee and UNICEF just last week. This meeting, with the presence of one UNICEF Regional Director and five Deputy Regional Directors, as well as a number of other high-level staff from UNICEF, was an excellent opportunity for the Committee and UNICEF to examine how to enhance collaboration in the field of child rights. I am sure that the meeting has already begun to bear fruit and will lead to future strengthened dialogue and collaboration between the two main actors in the field of child rights.
With this, may I wish you a very successful and productive session.
***
48th session, Geneva, 19 May 2008, 10 am
Palais Wilson, Ground Floor
Madame Chairperson,
Distinguished members of the Committee,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to open the 48th session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, and to welcome its distinguished members to what will no doubt be a very fruitful session in keeping with longstanding traditions of the Committee. Before turning to your work during this session, allow me to bring to your attention a number of important developments of interest to the Committee that have taken place since your last session in January 2008.
Treaty-body reform
First of all, on 3 May of this year, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities entered into force, after Ecuador became the 20th State to ratify the Convention. On 12 May, I had the honour of attending a special event at UN Headquarters in New York to mark the entry into force of the Convention. Within the next months, the Secretary-General will convene the first Conference of States parties, which will elect the first ten members of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I am certain that the new committee will be able to benefit greatly from your experience of the past two decades, especially as the new Convention contains numerous references to the rights of children with disabilities as well as specific references to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The creation of a new treaty body illustrates once more the need for continuing harmonisation of the treaty body system. In this context, the next Inter-Committee Meeting will seek to highlight areas requiring harmonization. I am certain that this Committee will actively contribute to those discussions.
One of the areas of harmonization is reporting guidelines. Three Committees - the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Migrant Workers Committee – have already adopted treaty-specific targeted reporting guidelines to complement the guidelines on a common core document. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is also well advanced in its drafting of its treaty specific guidelines.
I am encouraged to learn that understand this Committee is also considering the modalities of developing and adopting treaty specific guidelines that will also provide appropriate guidance to States parties integrating information related to the implementation of the Optional Protocols into their periodic reports under the Convention. I wish you much progress in this regard.
Human Rights Council
The Human Rights Council held its 7th session from 3 to 28 March. From 7 to 18 April, the Council’s first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group met. The second meeting of the Working Group met between 5 and 16 May, and is adopting the reports of the second batch of the 16 countries reviewed today.
Thus, over its first two meetings, the UPR working group reviewed the national reports of 32 countries. For each country, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) prepared compilations of UN information and stakeholders’ summaries, which were widely appreciated by Member States, NGOs and other stokholders.
The content of the compilation reports prepared by OHCHR is of particular relevance to the work of treaty bodies. In addition to information included in special procedures reports and relevant information from United Nations agencies, the compilation reports are based on treaty body concluding observations and other treaty body outcomes of relevance to the State concerned. During the reviews, it was encouraging to see many delegations referring to the compilation reports making questions and making recommendations to the country they reviewed.
A number of the countries that have been considered by the UPR Working Group will be before the Committee within the next year – France, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Tunisia and the United Kingdom. In this regard, it will be useful for the Committee to reflect on the implications of the UPR for its work, as well as how it might best use the inputs into and outputs of this process, particularly as this issue is likely to be discussed at the Inter-Committee and Chairpersons’ meetings in June.
I would now like to say a few words about issues that are of interest to the Committee and related to the Committee’s work, including:
Follow-up to the Study on violence against children
OHCHR will continue to raise awareness of the Study, promote implementation of its recommendations through the full range of activities and encourage mainstreaming of the Study’s recommendations into the work of the UN human rights treaty bodies and special procedures. To this end, OHCHR has undertaken initiatives such as briefing of experts and mandate-holders; provision of information to human rights mechanisms; and development of tools, such as checklists, to encourage human rights mechanisms to further highlight issues related to violence against children in their work.
OHCHR will also continue to support implementation of the Study’s recommendations through the activities of its field presences and the development of policy planning and programming tools. Field offices are increasingly assisted in efforts to integrate the recommendations of the Study in activities such as training and capacity building, assistance in the development of national policies and plans, assistance in legal reform, preparation of thematic reports, mapping exercises, awareness raising and education. A paper with guidelines on legal provisions to prohibit all forms of violence against children is being finalized and we hope it will serve as a practical tool to all those working in the area of legal reform, including our own field presences.
In all these ongoing activities, we count on the ongoing commitment of the members of this Committee, as you have been instrumental in initiating and supporting numerous activities in your respective countries or regions.
This brings me now to the question of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence against Children (SRSG). As you are aware, the Office has been closely involved in discussions concerning the establishment of the post. We understand from the Secretary-General’s Office that consultations are now ongoing to identify candidates. OHCHR stands ready to fully cooperate and support the SRSG with a view to ensuring that his/her work is informed and guided by a child-rights approach and perspective. Your contribution to this end is obviously crucial. OHCHR shall do its utmost to facilitate coordination and cooperation between this Committee and the Office of the SRSG.
Another issue of interest to the Committee is the
Draft UN Guidelines for the Protection and alternative care of children without Parental Care
The Committee was behind the drive to create these Guidelines and was also very much involved in their drafting. These Guidelines have now found a place on the agenda of the 8th Session of the Human Rights Council, which will be discussing the draft in the morning of 6 June. We will keep you informed about the outcome of these discussions.
Now I would like to say a few words about the
Current session of the Committee
Let me begin by noting the good news of new ratifications to the Optional Protocols. Since your last session, two States (Albania and Greece) have become party to the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and one State (Peoples’ Republic of China) has become party to the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict. This brings the total number of State parties to the protocols to 126 and 120 respectively.
During the next three weeks, the Committee will, as always, have a heavy agenda, as you consider 10 reports, five submitted under the Convention and 5 under the two Optional Protocols.
There will also be continued discussion on the draft general comment on article 12 relating to children’s participation, the draft general comment on indigenous children and their rights, working methods and treaty-body reform, as well as numerous other issues related to child rights.
As usual, the Committee will be having meetings with other entities of the UN system, as well as non-governmental organizations. I understand that one such meeting, one of particular importance, took place between the Committee and UNICEF just last week. This meeting, with the presence of one UNICEF Regional Director and five Deputy Regional Directors, as well as a number of other high-level staff from UNICEF, was an excellent opportunity for the Committee and UNICEF to examine how to enhance collaboration in the field of child rights. I am sure that the meeting has already begun to bear fruit and will lead to future strengthened dialogue and collaboration between the two main actors in the field of child rights.
With this, may I wish you a very successful and productive session.
***