CRINMAIL 73:
18th HRC Session
In this issue:
To view this CRINMAIL online, click here.
CRIN's guide to the UN System
We have recently revamped our UN section on the CRIN website to enable readers to navigate the UN system more easily, and to better understand how children's rights can be promoted in the international arena.
Our "United Nations and Children's Rights" page outlines the various mechanisms of the UN, highlighting opportunities available to children's rights advocates in terms of reporting, lobbying, follow-up and submitting complaints.
You can also visit the various pages of our UN section:
Human Rights Council: 18th Session
After an eventful 17th session at the Human Rights Council, which saw the adoption of several important Resolutions, including on a complaints mechanism for children, UN Member States, UN experts and NGOs will meet once again for the third and final regular session of the year, scheduled to take place from 12 - 30 September.
Read the items below for details of how children's rights will be addressed in this session. Furthermore, full details of the session can be found on CRIN's 18th Session page, including:
Special Procedures (what are these?)
Children's rights focused reports
Twelve Special Procedure mandate-holders will present reports during the session and engage in interactive discussions. Children's rights are likely to be included in the discussions, notably in the following:
Children and Armed Conflict
Ms Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, will present her report during the session. The report, yet to be released, will feature on our 18th session page as soon as it is published.
Contemporary Slavery
Ms Gulnara Shahinian, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, focuses on child slavery in the artisanal mining and quarrying sector. In her report, she assesses of the root causes that lead to child slavery, the nature and impact of slavery on children's rights, and strategies to tackle the issue.
In addition to the above reports, Special Rapporteurs will present reports on a range of thematic issues, including: water and sanitation, indigenous people's rights, racism and the death penalty. Country situations due to be discussed include: Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Belarus.
New Mandates / Extensions / Renewals
At the 17th Session, a number of mandate-holders were appointed and the terms of existing ones extended. At the 18th Session, the Council will have to decide whether to renew other Special Procedure mandates due to expire in September and October, including mandates on Sudan, Cambodia and Somalia. View those up for renewal.
Country Visits
Several visits are scheduled for the next couple of months, including:
- Kenya (19 - 28 September 2011)
- Special Rapporteur on internally displaced persons
- Honduras (27 September - 4 October 2011)
- Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders
- Turkey (10 - 14 October 2011)
- Special Rapporteur on independence of judges and lawyers
You can see the full list of country visits, here.
Finally, the Annual Meeting of Special Procedure mandate-holders took place from 27 June - 1 July this year. Discussions focused on the independence of Special Procedures, harmonization of working methods and measures to strengthen the relationship between mandate-holders and civil society. Read the full report.
Universal Periodic Review (what is this?)
Upcoming Reviews
The 12th and final session of the UPR's first cycle will take place from 3 - 14 October 2011.
The following States will be reviewed. Click on the individual countries to read CRIN's child rights extract reports based on the three pre-review reports submitted by the State, UN bodies and NGOs.
Tajikistan Tanzania Antigua and Barbuda
Swaziland Trinidad and Tobago Thailand Ireland
Togo Syria Venezuela Iceland Zimbabwe Lithuania
Uganda Timor-Leste Moldova Haiti
Mid-Term Progress Reports (what are these?)
More and more States are starting to submit mid-term voluntary reports, highlighting the progress made in implementing the set of recommendations issued to them during their review. These progress reports present NGOs with the opportunity to monitor the practical measures being taken by the government in the implementation process.
An example from the United Kingdom's report
Recommendation issued by Indonesia in the UK's UPR:
"Withdraw its reservation against the Convention on the Rights of the Child, concerning the provision that detained children be separated from adults while in detention, as well as the withdrawal of their reservation concerning refugee and asylum seeking children"
In their mid-term report, the UK responded:
"The United Kingdom did not accept the recommendation at the initial review. But we have since implemented it. The UK government announced, in September 2008, that it was removing its final two reservations to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 22 and 37c). These final two reservations were formally removed in November 2008".
CRIN has compiled children's rights extract reports for the reports published to date, including for the United Kingdom and Japan.
End of 1st Cycle - what next?
The first cycle comes to a close in October this year, with the schedule announced for the second cycle starting in June 2012 (read about the recent amendments to the format and implications for NGOs further to the HRC Review).
Despite some criticism levelled at the political nature of the UPR, no State has failed to attend their review. In October, a number of NGOs will attend a conference to assess the first cycle. CRIN will be covering the discussions.
Update on CRIN's UPR Research
Back in November 2010, CRIN published a comprehensive report: "The Status of Children's Rights in the UPR", which assessed the extent to which children's rights were addressed in the first seven sessions (out of 12) of the new review mechanism. Read the conclusions of the study.
We are planning on releasing an updated edition of the report towards the end of the year, detailing the status of children's rights in the first cycle of the UPR. In the meantime, CRIN has produced updated documents on the following:
Rejected Child Rights Recommendations
Why this is important: NGOs then know which child rights issues are in need of further lobbying.
NGOs reporting to the UPR
Why this is important: NGOs can see which coalitions already exist in their country and hence who to join forces with should they choose.
NGO Participation
NGOs can engage with the UN system in a variety of ways and CRIN encourages child rights advocates to use the various reporting mechanisms and complaints procedures to ensure children's rights are kept firmly on the agenda at the UN.
For a guide to the various mechanisms available within the UN system for child rights advocates:
Participation at the Human Rights Council
As highlighted in sections of this CRINMAIL, there are a number of ways to participate:
Participation in the CRC / Other Treaty Bodies
As our CRC CRINMAILs detail, the CRC is the main treaty body focusing solely on children's rights. CRIN also encourages NGOs to use other relevant treaty bodies to further promote children's rights at the international level.
OTHER NEWS
- UN Business and Human Rights Working Group
The candidates for the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, formed after the Human Rights Council endorsed a new set of Guiding Principles, have been announced.
Five of the listed candidates will be appointed members of the new UN Working Group during the 18th Session of the Human Rights Council. Read more about the process.
What you can do
With the disappointment of seeing children's rights excluded from the Guiding Principles, the nomination process has taken on greater importance. Have a look through the list of candidates and lobby your own governments to vote for candidates who will pay the most attention to children's rights in the new UN Working Group.
The NGO Group for the CRC has released the latest version of the Advocacy Toolkit for NGOs interested in getting involved in the campaign for a new Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child establishing a communications procedure.
In June, the UN Human Rights Council adopted the final draft of an Optional Protocol on a communications procedure, the draft will now be passed to the UN General Assembly for adoption in December 2011.
The toolkit includes informaton on activities targeting the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly (July - October 2011) and preparations for the 2012 ratification campaign.
- Street Children: Call for Submissions
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is calling for contributions to the report being compiled on children living and / or working on the street, further to the day of discussions in March this year and the adopted resolution (A/HRC/16/L.13/Rev.1).
Submissions should be sent to the following email address no later than 3 October 2011: [email protected]. For further information, click here.
On 22 August, the Human Rights Council held a Special Session on the human rights situation in Syria (the second so far this year). The session closed with the adoption of a resolution to set up a commission of inquiry into allegations of violations of international human rights law and possible crimes against humanity. Read more about the Special Session.
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