COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

Forty-eighth session

SUMMARY RECORD OF THE SECOND PART (PUBLIC)*

OF THE 1342nd MEETING**

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva,on Friday, 6 June 2008, at 10 a.m.

Chairperson: Ms. LEE

CONTENTS

ADOPTION OF THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ITS FORTY-EIGHTH SESSION

CLOSURE OF THE SESSION

* No summary record was prepared for the first part (closed) of the meeting.

** No summary records were prepared for the 1336th to 1341st meetings.

This record is subject to correction.

Corrections should be submitted in one of the working languages. They should be set forth in a memorandum and also incorporated in a copy of the record. They should be sent within one week of the date of this document to the Editing Unit, room E.4108, Palais des Nations, Geneva.

Any corrections to the record of the public meetings of the Committee at this session will be consolidated in a single corrigendum, to be issued shortly after the end of the session.

GE.08-42419 (EXT)

The second part (public) of the meeting was called to order at 12.35 p.m.

ADOPTION OF THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ITS FORTY-EIGHTH SESSION (CRC/C/48/3)

1.The CHAIRPERSON said that the Committee had considered 10 reports at its forty-eighth session, including five periodic reports under article 44 of the Convention, from Georgia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Sierra Leone and Eritrea, three initial reports under article 8 of the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, from the United States of America, the Republic of Korea and the Philippines, and two initial reports under article 12 of the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, from the United States of America and the Republic of Korea.

2.On Friday 16 May 2008 the Committee had held its first pre-session meeting, which had taken the form of a workshop attended by the directors and deputy directors of the regional offices of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Following that meeting the Committee had decided to hold similar workshops every year in order to follow up on the observations and recommendations made in that context from year to year.

3.The Committee had considered at its forty-eighth session its draft general comment No. 11, on child participation (art. 12 of the Convention), and had decided to defer its adoption to the forty-ninth session. It had also discussed its draft general comment on the rights of indigenous children and other draft general comments to be taken up at future dates.

4.Since the Committee had once again accumulated a considerable backlog in the consideration of reports, it had decided to request the General Assembly at its sixty-third session to authorize it to work in two chambers from October 2009. Being aware that its request had significant budgetary implications, the Committee had arranged to attach to the request a statement of programme budget implications.

5.The Committee had taken due note of the ongoing discussions in the community of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) concerning the possible drafting of an optional protocol to the Convention on the submission of individual complaints and inquiries to the Committee. Having discussed that question several times, the Committee had decided to welcome the initiative and encourage the States parties to give it serious consideration. The Committee would continue its discussion of the question at its forty-ninth session.

6.Mr. KRAPPMANN (Rapporteur) said that the Committee had had a short meeting with the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Mr. Muñoz, and that some of its members had participated in a side-event of the Human Rights Council at which the Special Rapporteur had given a briefing on his report on the right to education in emergency situations (A/HRC/8/10). The meeting with the Special Rapporteur had been particularly important since the Committee had decided to devote its day of general discussion in 2008 to the latter topic.

7.One member of the Committee had taken part in a meeting of the Human Rights Council on promotion of the draft United Nations guidelines for the protection and alternative care of children without parental care, a document produced on the initiative and with the unqualified support of the Committee, which would be submitted to the General Assembly for adoption in the autumn of 2008.

8.The Committee had held its third meeting with the working group on the development of indicators for measuring the realization of children’s rights in the early years of childhood on the basis of the Committee’s general comment No. 7, which dealt with that question. The Committee had made a number of suggestions and had supported the draft pilot study which UNICEF had undertaken to fund. It would help the working group to refine the indicators.

9.The Committee was also involved in the work on indicators entrusted to a working group of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Committee would propose to the working group that it should include a number of indicators focussed specifically on the realization of the rights of the child. It was also going to cooperate in that field with UNICEF, the World Health Organization and other organizations.

10.Several members of the Committee had taken an active part in a side-event of the Human Rights Council, organized by the NGO Defence for Children International, on the Committee’s general comment No. 10, on children’s rights in juvenile justice.

11.Lastly, the Committee had met with students from the University of London and the African Studies programme of the University of Bayreuth, Germany; the Committee had explained to them its monitoring responsibilities with respect to the application of the Convention.

12.The CHAIRPERSON said that, according to the provisional programme of work of the forty-ninth session, the general discussion on the right to education in emergency situations would take place on 19 September 2008.

13.If there were no questions or objections, she would take it that the Committee wished to adopt the report on its forty-eighth session (CRC/C/48/3).

14.It was so decided.

CLOSURE OF THE SESSION

15.The CHAIRPERSON thanked everyone who had contributed to the success of the Committee’s forty-eighth session.

The meeting rose at 12.50 p.m.

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