UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF LEGAL STUDIES

PANJAB UNIVERSITY, CHANDIGARH

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS

PROJECT TOPIC: COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE

CHILD

Submitted By: Submitted To:

Sandeep Singh Dr.Jasneet Walia
B.A.LLB.(Hons.), 9th Semester
Section- B
Roll no. 81/17
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to Dr.Jasneet Walia, who gave me the
golden opportunity to do this wonderful project on the topic: COMMITTEE ON THE
RIGHTS OF THE CHILD,which also helped me in doing a lot of research and I came to know
about so many new things. I would also like to thank the UILS Library who helped me in my
research and provided me with the concerned books. I would also like to thank my parents for
motivating and helping me.
COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

 INTRODUCTION-

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as

the CRC or UNCRC) is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political,
economic, social, health and cultural rights of children.On November 20th, 1989, the General
assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child as part of
Resolution 44/25.

It came into force on 2nd September 1990, after it was ratified by required number of nations.
Currently,196 countries are party to it, including every member of the United Nations except the
United States. The adoption of the convention put an end to a process lasting almost ten years.  It
was signed and ratified by India 1992.

SALIENT FEATURES OF THE CHILD RIGHT CONVENTION:

1. Every child has the right to life and it is the responsibility of the state to ensure the
survival and development of the child.

2. The birth of the child should be registered immediately after the event and the child has
the right to have a name and acquire a nationality

3. The state should make sure that the child is not separated from the parents unless it is in
the best interest of the child to get separated.

4. The right to education is should be made free and compulsory by the state for all
children up to the primary level and education should aim at the holistic development of
the personality of the child.

5. Every child should be provided from protection by the state from economic exploitations
which hamper the physical, mental, moral and spiritual development.

6. Every child should be protected by the state from sexual exploitations and drug abuses,
 7. The state should ensure that no child below the age of 15 years is involved in armed
conflicts against the nation

8. No child below the age of 18 years should be awarded the capital punishment or life
imprisonment by the state.

All treaties bind the States that have ratified them, under international law, but this does not
necessarily mean that they are implemented and enforced.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child established a Committee on the Rights of the Child to
oversee and report on States’ implementation. Its latest report on the UK was published in May
2016. The Committee can also hear complaints from individual children whose Governments
have ratified the 2011 optional protocol on individual complaints (the UK has not). However, the
Committee’s recommendations are not legally binding.

UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, is specifically named in the Convention as a
source of expert assistance and advice on implementation. Independent National Human Rights
Institutions (NHRIs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and national reporting and
follow-up mechanisms can also have a direct role.

The extent to which the Convention forms part of national law and can be enforced by national
courts varies. Generally speaking the UK Government has preferred to take a sector-by-sector
approach to implementing the Convention. In Wales and Scotland Ministers and public
authorities have some new general duties in relation to children’s rights. But there have been
many calls for the UK to incorporate the Convention directly into domestic law.

 ESTABLISHMENT-

Article 43 providesthat for thepurpose of examining the progress made by State Parties in
achieving the realization of the obligation undertaken in the present Convention, there shall be
established a Committee on the Rights of the child.

When the Convention was ratified in the 80’s, Poland proposed to implement a supervision
mechanism that would require each country to submit some regular reports to the United
Nations’ Economic and Social Council. This proposal was not accepted, but discussions started
on the role of the Committee for the Rights of the Child.
The Convention was thus completed by three articles, which include the creation, the
composition, the functioning, and the role of the Committee.
The elections of the Committee members began when the Convention was ratified on November
20th, 1989. The representatives of each member state of the Convention were called together to
elect the members of the Committee for the Rights of the Child. The Committee was created
and came into force on February 27th, 1991.1

 COMPOSITION AND FUNCTIONING OF THE

COMMITTEE:

The Committee is a group of 18 children’s rights experts from different countries, and meets
three times a year in Geneva.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is in charge of making sure that the Convention is
properly observed by the countries who have signed it. The Committee supervises the
enforcement of the Convention by assisting states in its implementation, by cooperating with
other bodies of the United Nations and with non-government organisations, and by spreading
wide information about the rights of the child.

It has three main roles:

 Overseeing the regular reports on children’s rights from each state, and issuing
recommendations to governments.
 Hearing complaints from individual children who think that their rights have been
breached. Children can take a case to the Committee only if their government has ratified
the ‘individual complaints mechanism’.
 Explaining in more detail what the Convention rights mean, in its ‘General Comments.2

ELECTIONS TO THE COMMITTTEE:

1
Committee on the Rights of the Child: What it is and how it works – Humanium, available at:
http://www.humanium.org (Visited on October 17, 2018).
2
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: a brief guide – Parliament UK, available at:
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk (Last Modified November 29, 2016).
Article 43 further provides that the members of the Committee shall be elected by States Parties
from among their nationals and shall serve in their personal capacity, consideration being given
to equitable geographical distribution, as well as to the principal legal systems.

 The members of the Committee shall be elected by secret ballot from a list of persons
nominated by States Parties. Each State Party may nominate one person from among its
own nationals.
 The initial election to the Committee shall be held no later than six months after the date
of the entry into force of the present Convention and thereafter every second year. At
least four months before the date of each election, the Secretary-General of the United
Nations shall address a letter to States Parties inviting them to submit their nominations
within two months. The Secretary-General shall subsequently prepare a list in
alphabetical order of all persons thus nominated, indicating States Parties which have
nominated them, and shall submit it to the States Parties to the present Convention.
 The elections shall be held at meetings of States Parties convened by the Secretary-
General at United Nations Headquarters. At those meetings, for which two thirds of
States Parties shall constitute a quorum, the persons elected to the Committee shall be
those who obtain the largest number of votes and an absolute majority of the votes of the
representatives of States Parties present and voting.
 The members of the Committee shall be elected for a term of four years. They shall be
eligible for re-election if renominated. The term of five of the members elected at the
first election shall expire at the end of two years; immediately after the first election, the
names of these five members shall be chosen by lot by the Chairman of the meeting.
If a member of the Committee dies or resigns or declares that for any other cause he or she can
no longer perform the duties of the Committee, the State Party which nominated the member
shall appoint another expert from among its nationals to serve for the remainder of the term,
subject to the approval of the Committee. The Committee shall establish its own rules of
procedure. The Committee shall elect its officers for a period of two years.

 MEETINGS OF THE COMMITTEE:

  The meetings of the Committee shall normally be held at United Nations Headquarters or
at any other convenient place as determined by the Committee. The Committee shall
normally meet annually.
 The duration of the meetings of the Committee shall be determined, and reviewed, if
necessary, by a meeting of the States Parties to the present Convention, subject to the
approval of the General Assembly.3

 COUNTRY REPORTS:

Under Article 44 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, State parties have undertaken to
submit to the Committee, through the Secretary-General of the United Nations, reports on the
measures they have adopted which give effect to the rights recognized herein and on the progress
made on the enjoyment of those rights:

(a) Within two years of entry into force of the convention for the State Party concerned;
(b) Thereafter every five years the Committee shall submit to the General Assembly, through
the Economic and Social Council, every two years, reports on its activities. Further, State
Parties shall make their reports widely available on to the public in their own countries.4

 OUTLINE OF THE PROCESS:

The usual process is as follows:

 The State draws up its implementation report. Children can also submit information to
the Committee, and the Committee has published its working methods for child
participation in the reporting process.

 The Committee has a preliminary discussions (‘pre-sessions’) on the situation of

children in the State concerned with UNICEF, other international organisations, child
protection NGOs, and children who ask for a meeting.
 The Committee draws up a list of issues on which it needs more information from the
State.
 The State responds to the list of issues, and other organisations can comment or make
additional submissions.
 The Committee holds public meetings (‘country sessions’) with representatives of the
State concerned about the situation of children’s rights there.

3
Article 43 of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989.
4
Supra note 3.
  The Committee agrees (in a closed meeting) on written ‘concluding observations’. These
include suggestions and recommendations on the law and policy changes the State
should make before its next report. They can only mention issues discussed during the
country sessions.
 The State is then expected to implement the recommendations before its next report.


 COMPLAINTS MECHANISM:

A third optional protocol was added to the Convention in 2011 and entered into force in April
2014, enabling children to complain directly to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
The UK has not ratified this optional protocol.

The third protocol sets out two new procedures:

 A ‘communications procedure’ that enables individual children, groups of children or

children’s representatives to bring complaints about violations of Convention rights to
the Committee, if they have not been fully resolved in national courts. The Committee
transmits its views on the communication to the parties, along with any
recommendations

 A confidential ‘inquiry procedure’ for allegations of grave and systematic violations of

child rights. The Committee transmits the findings of the inquiry, along with any
comments and recommendations, to the State concerned.

If the Committee finds that a violation has occurred, it will make concrete recommendations to
the State concerned, such as rehabilitation, financial compensation or requests to prosecute the
perpetrator(s). The recommendations are not legally binding, but States that ratify the protocol
commit to following them.5

5
Convention on the Rights of the Child – OHCHR, available at: http://www.ohchr.org (Visited on October 18,
2018).