Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: Chair's proposal on contentious issues flies in the face of children's rights, says Committee on the Rights of the Child; summary from the Second Meeting of the Working Group on an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to provide a communications procedure that took place in Geneva from February 10 to February 16, 2011. To address the provisions of the treaty that have proved the most difficult to negotiate, the Chairperson brought discussions to a head at the end of Tuesday's session by presenting a take-it-or-leave-it package proposal. He noted that it was always very difficult to propose changes to the Protocol without losing support, but felt that it was important to present States with a final compromise option in the interest of having a draft Optional Protocol ready for submission to the Human Rights Council in June. With this in mind, he proposed the following changes: Article 6: Retain the “opt-out” option for States to decline to apply the communications procedure to the existing Optional Protocols. Article 7: Delete the entire article on collective communications. Article 10: Delete the requirement that applicants demonstrate that they have suffered a “clear disadvantage”. Article 13: Include language requiring the Committee to consider the reasonableness of steps taken by State parties where violations of economic, social and cultural rights are alleged. Article 16: Retain the “opt out” option for the inquiry procedure. Article 24: Replace the text with language from the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that reservations incompatible with the object and purpose of the Protocol are prohibited, in effect allowing for reservations. Before the day closed, the Committee on the Rights of the Child took the floor to express deep disappointment at the Chair's proposal. “We must remember that we are engaged in this process to protect the best interests of the child; the CRC is an instrument that recognises children as holders of rights,” Chair of the Committee Yanghee Lee began. Noting the two decade long journey towards creating an effective and accessible mechanism for children, she gave an impassioned speech urging States to reject the package: “We would like to make a plea to you not to lower the bar any lower than you should, not to lower the threshold below what is guaranteed, what is already established in other instruments for children. The children should not be marginalised...and have a lesser instrument than anyone else.”