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Menu: What is it / Why such a mechanism / How would this be done? / What is happening at the moment? / Challenges and objections: Q & A / Supporters / what can you do / links & further reading / petition / Lobby your government
A group of agencies are campaigning for the United Nations to establish a communications/complaints mechanism to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Such a procedure would provide a mechanism that would ensure the availability of legal remedies for children at the international level.
What is it?
A complaints or communications procedure allows individuals, groups or their representatives who claim that their rights have been violated by a State that is a party to a convention or covenant to bring a complaint before the relevant committee, provided that the State has recognised the competence of the committee to receive such complaints.
Why such a mechanism?
The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the only international human rights treaty with a mandatory reporting procedure which does not have, in addition, an existing or draft communications procedure. This is a serious matter of discrimination against children. [See existing complaints mechanisms]
While children and their representatives can use the mechanisms established under other international instruments to pursue many of their rights, those instruments do not cover, separately or together, the full range and detail of rights in the CRC.
Furthermore, communications or complaints made on behalf of children to the other bodies will not be considered by a Committee with special expertise on children’s rights. Similar persuasive arguments were made for the adoption of the communications’ mechanisms under CEDAW and under the new Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
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How would this be done?
The most likely method to establish a communications mechanism would be through the development of a new Optional Protocol (OP) to the CRC. This would require:
- Building momentum for the Human Rights Council (HRC) to establish a UN Working Group with the mandate to consider elaborating such an instrument
- Lobbying the working group to influence the drafting procedure
- Lobbying members of the General Assembly to ratify the protocol to bring it into force
- Undertaking more campaigning to bring about widespread ratification
What is happening at the moment?
Latest News:
- 19 June 2008: Go-ahead for ICESCR signals green light for CRC
- 10 June 2008: CRC Committee Endorses Campaign
- 6 March 2008: NGO Side Event at the Human Rights Council
Representatives of the group met with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in September 2007 to seek its support for the drafting and adoption of an Optional Protocol. There was an enthusiastic response from many members and it was agreed that a more detailed paper would be prepared for the Committee's next session in January 2008, setting out possible provisions for the Protocol, answering in more detail the challenges to ensuring a mechanism that is child-sensitive and effective and analysing the experiences of the other treaty bodies and regional mechanisms.
German initiative underway
The German NGO Kindernothilfe started at the beginning of 2000 lobbying for a new Optional Protocol. Meanwhile three Human Rights and Child Rights Networks in Germany are supporting the initiative: German Forum Human Rights (48 organisations), German National Coalition for the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (102 organisations), ECPAT Germany (31 organisations). A working-group within the German Forum Human Rights, chaired by Kindernothilfe, is coordinating further lobby activities.
African Initiative underway
A group of organisations in Kenya, chaired by The Cradle, recently set up the Complaints Procedure Working Group to campaign for a communications procedure for the UNCRC. Find out more here: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=15331.
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Challenges and objections: Questions and Answers
Answering arguments put forward against a communications procedure for the CRC
“It would duplicate existing mechanisms”:
Given the universality and inter-dependence of human rights there is of course overlap among the various instruments. However the CRC provides distinctive and in some cases additional rights for children and its Committee has special expertise on children. None of the other relevant mechanisms have been designed with the special status of children in mind. Provisions in the Protocol would avoid duplication.
“It would be preferable to establish a joint procedure for considering communications/complaints under all the major international instruments”
This proposal, made in the context of proposals for a single standing treaty body, has never had the support of the Committee nor of the wider children’s rights community because of the dangerous risk of a loss of focus on children’s rights. It would undermine the purpose and power for children of the CRC. And if there is, in time, some centralising of response to communications, children’s position will be relatively weak if there is no procedure linked to the CRC.
“It would not be effective, its decisions would be non-binding”
This is a defeatist argument against all the other established procedures. While some States have not complied with some decisions on individual communications (just as some States ignore Concluding Observations), there are very positive examples of changes in law and practice following decisions. Communications procedures are complementary to the reporting process; they reinforce each other.
“It is better for the Committee to focus on persuading States to improve national remedies for breaches of children’s rights”
This is not an alternative; of course States need to develop effective remedies for breaches of all children’s rights. Children and their representatives also need to be able to appeal beyond the State when rights are breached and national remedies do not exist; having international remedies available in fact encourages the development of national remedies.
“The CRC covers economic, social and cultural rights, which are not justiciable like civil and political rights”
In its General Comment No. 5 on general measures of implementation, the Committee emphasises, echoing other Treaty Bodies, “that economic, social and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights, must be regarded as justiciable”. Regional complaints mechanisms already consider economic, social and cultural rights and an OP to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is currently being drafted.
“The Committee does not have the capacity to deal with communications on top of its very demanding reporting process”
The Committee and the Secretariat have risen to the challenge of the massive workload of reporting under the CRC and the two existing Optional Protocols, removing the backlog through the temporary two-chamber system, supported by additional resources. Similarly, with appropriate specialisation and additional resources, it could - like other Committees - process communications.
“The Committee would be swamped with complaints, undermining its credibility”
Other procedures have not been swamped. All have reasonable gate-keeping devices which could be incorporated.
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Who is supporting the campaign?
A core group of agencies is supporting the establishment of a communications procedure for the CRC, including: World Vision International, Save the Children UK, Save the Children Sweden, Save the Children Norway, the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, CRIN, Kindernothilfe, the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), SOS-Kinderdorf International and the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children (ENOC) and Plan International.
What can you do?
If you would like to support this campaign or would like further information, contact CRIN on: info@crin.org
Lobby: Download the lobbying pack
- Children as Strong as Nations , Kindernothilfe
Existing complaint/communication procedures for international Instruments
Four of the human rights treaty bodies can, under certain circumstances, consider individual complaints or communications from individuals:
- Human Rights Committee, under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR): states must have ratified the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR.
- Committee to Eliminate Racial Discrimination, under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination: states must have made the necessary declaration under article 14 of the Convention.
- Committee against Torture, under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment: states must have made the necessary declaration under article 22 of the Convention.
- Committee to End Discrimination against Women, under the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women: states must have ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention.
Detailed information on these procedures, which states have accepted them and on how to use them is available at: http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/complaints.htm
Three newer Conventions include individual complaints/communications procedures which will come into force once they have been accepted by a sufficient number of states:
- Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: not yet in force (September 2007);
- International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance: not yet in force (September 2007).
- In addition, drafting has started on an Optional Protocol to provide a communications procedure for the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
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