Committee on the Rights of the C hild

Forty-sixth session

Summary Record of the First Part (Public)* of the 1256 th Meeting

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Monday, 17 September 2007, at 10 a.m.

Chairperson: Ms. Lee

Contents

Opening of the session

S tatemen t by the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human R ights

Adoption of the agenda

Organizational matters

Submission of reports by States parties

The meeting was called to order at 10 a .m .

O pening of the session

1.The Chairperson declared open the forty-sixth session of the Committee on theRights of the Child.

Statement by the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

2.M r . Salama (Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) said that the brainstorming meeting onenhancing the effectiveness of the treaty bodies, held in Berlin in July 2007, had once again shown that it was necessary to find means of harmonizing the treaty body system, and that the participants had underlined that the inter-committee meetinghad a leading role to play in that regard.

3.The universal periodic review was likely to become the principal innovation in the institutional architecture of the Council; the usefulness of the review and the added value it offered the treaty body system were obvious as it would constitute a further toolwith which to give effect to the recommendations of international monitoring bodies.

4.Cooperation between the treaty bodies and the Human Rights Council, in particular the issue of the universal periodic review mechanism, had been addressed at the Nineteenth Meeting of Chairpersons of the Treaty Bodies.

5.The participants in the Sixth Inter-Committee Meeting had been of the view that the concluding observations of the treaty bodies should be incorporated into the core documents used for the universal periodic review. The Inter-Committee Meeting was to be responsible for coordinating the enhancement and possible harmonization of theworking methods of treaty bodiesand to make recommendations in that regard. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) intended to convene an organizational session of the Inter-Committee Meeting for the first quarter of 2008 to establish the areas in which there was a need for harmonization.

6.By a note verbale addressed to all the permanent missions to the United Nations Office at Geneva, the recommendation was made that States parties should use the harmonized guidelines for thesingle core documentand the specialized reports for each of the treaty bodies. Australia, Timor‑Leste and Turkey had already submitted a single core document. The Committee on the Rights of the Child was urged to draw on the actions of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which had adopted revised guidelines on the specialized report which the States parties were required to submit to it.

7.The aim of the workshops held by the OHCHR at sub-regional and national level to follow up on implementation of the concluding observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child was to facilitate implementation of the Committee’s recommendationsthrough an exchange of knowledge and good practices. The next sub-regional workshop was due to be held in Burkina Faso in November 2007for the countries of West Africa.

8.The OHCHR was also working hard to improve awareness of the outcomes of theStudy on Violence against Children, which had been presented to the General Assembly by Mr. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, and to promote the implementation of the recommendations formulated therein.

9.In December 2007, the international community would consider the progress made towards “A world fit for children” five years on from the special session of the General Assembly on children in 2002.

10.The 10-year strategic review of the study by Ms. Machel on the impact of armed conflict on childrenalso provided an opportunity to reframe action on child victims of armed conflict.

11.Since the Committee’s last session, three countries (Burkina Faso, Jordan andMontenegro)had become party to the Optional Protocolon the involvement of children in armed conflict and one (Vanuatu) had become party to the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

A doption of the agenda ( item  1 of the provisional agenda ) ( CRC /C/46/1)

12. The agenda was adopted .

Organizational matters ( item 2 of the agenda )

13.The Chairpersonindicated that consideration of the second periodic report ofSierra Leonehad had to be postponed at the request of the State party.

S ubmission of reports by States parties ( item 3 of the agenda )

14.M s. Andrijasevic ‑Boko (Secretary of the Committee) said that since its last session the Committee had received 12 reports under the Convention, 4 under the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict and 6 under theOptional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. It had also received written replies from nine States parties in respect of the 12 reports it would consider during the current session.

The discussion covered in the summary record ended at 10 . 30 a.m .

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