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Summary: The Committee on the Rights of the Child
opened its 39th session in Geneva today by
adopting its agenda and programme of work,
electing its bureau and hearing an address by
the Deputy High Commissioner for Human
Rights.
COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD OPENS THIRTY-NINTH SESSION
Hears Address by Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights; Begins
Considering Report of Saint Lucia
17 May 2005
The Committee on the Rights of the Child opened its thirty-ninth session in
Geneva today by adopting its agenda and programme of work, electing its
bureau and hearing an address by the Deputy High Commissioner for
Human Rights. The Committee also began its consideration of the initial
report of Saint Lucia on how that country has been implementing the
provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
After having adopted its agenda and programme of work for the session,
the 18-member Committee, at the opening of the meeting, swore in four
new members and elected its bureau. The new members are David Brent
Parfit (Canada), Awich Pollar (Uganda), Kamal Siddiqui (Bangladesh) and
Jean Zermatten (Switzerland). Committee Expert Jacob Egbert Doek (the
Netherlands) was re-elected as Chairperson. The elected Vice
Chairpersons are Joyce Alouch (Kenya), Moushira Khattab (Egypt),
Yanghee Lee (China) and Norberto Liwski (Argentina). Nevena Vuckovic-
Sahovic (Serbia and Montenegro) was elected as Rapporteur.
Statement by Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights
MEHR KAHN WILIAMS, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human
Rights, while referring to the report of the Secretary-General "In Larger
Freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all", noted
that in the report the Secretary-General stressed that the international
community must advance the causes of security, development and human
rights together, otherwise none would succeed. He set out proposals to
reform the three central pillars of the United Nations human rights system –
the treaty bodies, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
and the Commission on Human Rights. The Secretary-General also
reaffirmed the ideas put forward in his report of 2002, "Strengthening the
United Nations: an agenda for further change", in which the modernisation
of the treaty system was identified as a key element in the United Nations
goal of promoting and protecting human rights. In his new report, the
Secretary-General requested that the "harmonised guidelines on reporting
to all treaty bodies should be finalised and implemented so that these
bodies can function as a unified system". Draft guidelines on the expanded
core document would be considered next month by the fourth inter-
Committee meeting and the seventh Committee of Chairpersons from 20 to
24 June 2005. The Secretary-General had also requested the High
Commissioner to submit a plan of action by 20 May with concrete
recommendations as to how the Office may become more effective for the
promotion and protection of human rights. In that regard, considerable
efforts were under way.
The Deputy High Commissioner also drew attention to the recommendation
by the Secretary-General to replace the Commission on Human Rights with
a smaller standing Human Rights Council. This proposal was discussed
during the sixty-first session of the Commission on Human Rights and
would be considered during the High-level Summit in New York in
September. Regarding child rights, the Commission discussed the request
of the Committee on the Rights of the Child to draft United Nations
guidelines for the protection of alternative care of children without parental
care and recognised the need for such guidelines.
Following the successful Committee on the Rights of the Child sub-regional
workshop in Bangkok last year, the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights decided to organise similar follow-up workshops this year in
Qatar from 19 to 21 June and in Argentina from 28 to 30 November, she
said. Another activity of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights in this area was the one related to the project, funded by the
European Union, which sought to raise awareness of the human rights
treaty body system among non-governmental organisations, national
human rights institutions and the media. One national workshop was just
organised in Sri Lanka where representatives of the Government and the
civil society examined treaty bodies systems focusing on the concluding
observations on Sri Lanka.
Last week, Ms. Khan Williams added, the Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights convened in Geneva the fourth in a series of workshops
on the implementation of treaty body recommendations, which included
participants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mauritius, Thailand, Uganda and
Zambia. These countries were going to be reviewed soon by the
Committee. Moreover, the United Nations Study on Violence Against
Children was now entering a crucial phase with the nine regional
consultations that were organised worldwide. The first one took place in
Trinidad and Tobago in March this year and was attended by the
Chairperson of the Committee and another member. Paolo Sergio Paulo
Sergio Pinheiro, the Independent Expert on the Study, would report to the
General Assembly at its next session in the fall and submit his final report
to the Commission on Human Rights during the spring of 2006, she added.
When the Committee reconvenes in public at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 18
May, it will begin its consideration of the second periodic report of the
Philippines (CRC/C/65/Add.31).
CRC05015E