Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: Summary of discussion on second topic (existing international mechanisms) during the UN Working Group meeting for the complaints mechanism.
Discussion Topic Two – Existing International Mechanisms Ms Najat M’jid Maalla, Special Rapporteur for sexual exploitation, child prostitution and child pornography, introduced the second discussion topic of the working group, that of exploring existing International Mechanisms and what we can learn from these mechanisms in the process of elaborating on a communications procedure for the CRC. She described how her role as Special Rapporteur, which includes country visits and resulting reports to highlight violations to state governments, is highly complementary with the role of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. “The co-operation with the Committee for this role is indispensable” she states and she goes onto to state that “the lodging of communications could be done in conjunction with the Committee”. The Optional Protocol must be governed by the CRC’s founding principles she strongly urges, telling delegates that “the OP will contribute to children being acknowledged as rights holders, as subjects and not mere objects”. The discussion on existing international mechanisms saw Poland first take to the floor, asking for the expert to elaborate further on the possibilities of children (or their representatives) submitting complaints before other treaty bodies. Poland was also keen to ascertain how the communications procedures had impacted the workload of these treaty bodies. Poland expressed its concern on this latter issue, citing the European Court of Human Rights with its backlog of currently more than 100,000 applications. Slovenia then joined the discussion urging the working group to bear in mind the specific needs of children when looking at the various levels of remedy mechanisms. Slovenia also stated the need for “an innovative approach in order to make the communications procedure comprehensive and accessible”, before highlighting the need to seek the views of children. China joined the debate stressing its concern for the duplication of a communications procedure with existing mechanisms under other Conventions. China continued by asking about the complaints procedure for other treaty bodies. “How many complaints have they received to date? We believe the number has been low, so we need to know why this has been the case. How can we guarantee that the new mechanism can avoid the same problem of being established and underused", the representative asked. Canada also raised the issue of duplication with other existing mechanisms. “How would this work and has any thought been given to this” they asked. The Special Rapporteur was then invited to respond to the various questions and comments from the delegations. “The idea of complementarity is extremely important” she said. “This often comes up in my work, for example with the issue of trafficking”. On the issue of the number of complaints submitted, she stated that “this is not the question we should be looking at, but rather whether the complaints mechanisms are accessible. We need to be careful about how we look at this”. The Netherlands intervened on the issue of duplication stating that “There is going to be duplication, but we shouldn’t see this as a problem. They already have these varying options already with the existing treaty conventions.” The delegation went on to state “I would be worried if there were no duplications, what we want is to avoid forum shopping, duplication of work where states are responding about the same issue to various bodies. That is what we need to avoid.” Argentina expressed their agreement with the Special Rapporteur that the main problem would be that of accessibility. They stressed the key issue of expertise in the area of child rights which the Committee would bring to a communications procedure purely for this Convention. They stated that “we must give the Committee this tool”. Ms M’jid Maalla, responded to some of the issues raised by the delegations. With regard to the issue of access, she said it is "not a question of numbers but of how to inform children”. She concluded that “the principle of this procedure is justified in my eyes. We need to work on the substance, the specifics of children as rights holders. Existing mechanisms must be strengthened” The NGOs added to this debate – See Statement The Chair rounded off the session stating that “duplication cannot be avoided but we don’t need to worry about that, we need to avoid duplication of work, that is the only issue here”. He went on to say that other treaties do cover child rights but not the full set of provisions and significantly not with a specialisation”, before concluding by saying that information on the full communications procedure has to be disseminated to all parties involved, including civil society and children themselves.
Further information