Mechanisms of the Rights of the Child Protection (Oleg Starovitov)

Раздел - "Международное право", рубрика - "Права человека"The article analyzes the existing mechanisms of the protection of the rights of the child both at the international and national level. Most of the existing international monitoring bodies and procedures on human rights, operating within the mandate of the U N and its specialized bodies, are applicable in the case of the rights of the child as well. In accordance with their legal nature they are divided into non-treaty monitoring mechanisms set up on the basis of the U N Charter and convention monitoring bodies envisaged by the provisions of the international conventions on human rights. The first group embraces the main U N bodies (the General Assembly, the Security Council and ECOSOC being the lead authorities on the monitoring of the rights of the child protection), functional commissions of the ECOSOC (the Commission on the Rights of the Child and the Commission on the Status of Women) and the subcommissions established by these commissions (the Subcommission on Promoting and Protecting Human Rights) as well as topical and special procedures on investigations of the breaches of human rights and the procedure on investigating the breaches of human rights in separate countries (e. g. a Special Rapporteur on the Rights of the Child to Education, the Working Group on Forced Labour, a Special Rapporteur on Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). The second group is represented by the following agencies: the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on the Elimination of the Discrimination of Women, the Committee against Torture, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Committee on the Rights of the Child. The main difference between these two groups lies in their competence: the competence (mandate) of the convention bodies extends only to the States Parties to the appropriate international convention, whereas the non-treaty monitoring mechanisms are applied in all U N member states irrespective of their being parties to the conventions in question. Special international mechanisms on the protection of the rights of the child include the Committee on the Rights of the Child, a Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and a Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children in Conflict. At the national level a number of countries have recently established the institution of ombudsmen or commissioners on the rights of the child. The first country to introduce the office of an ombudsman on the Rights of the Child was Norway in 1981. N ow such offices are in operation in over 20 countries. Most of these offices are in Western Europe(Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Luxemburg, Spain). Such institutions have also been created in Latin America (Guatemala, Columbia, Costa-Rica, Peru), Israel and N e w Zealand. 1996 witnessed the establishing by the presidential decree of the National Commission on the Rights of the Child in Belarus. The objectives of the Commission are: 1) implementing of the state policy pertaining to children in the Republic; 2) monitoring compliance with the Convention and Belarusian legislation on the rights of the child; 3) coordinating the activities of state bodies and NGOs on protecting the rights and interests of children; 4) developing the children support programmes and submitting them in due form to the President and the government; 5) approving national reports of the children's rights issues which are to be submitted to the U N Commission on the Rights of the Child for consideration; 6) coordinating development and approval of legislation and other normative acts on the issues of protecting the rights and interests of children; 7) running events and activities to support children in distress; 8) informing children, their parents and the public on compliance with the U N Convention on the Rights of the Child, with the law "On the Rights of the Child" and other normative acts; providing for the study of this legislation in educational establishments. At present the necessity of establishing the office of the ombudsman on the rights of the child in Belarus is being discussed. As the article points out, there is a sufficient number of procedures and mechanisms at the international level which pertain, directly of indirectly, to the protection of the rights of children. Despite the fact that there are many such bodies, or precisely due to it, there are certain difficulties in ensuring effective protection of the rights of children. Most of them are hardly ever used for protecting the rights of children, often due to the fact that human rights agencies, individuals and even state bodies find it difficult to distinguish between their many functions and application of the appropriate mechanisms to a specific violation of the right of a particular child (and this concerns the cases when they are aware of the existence of these bodies). Besides, these bodies often duplicate their activities and functions on certain matters and lack coordination in others (which is especially typical of convention control mechanisms). That is why it is desirable to bring children's rights implementation measures into accordance with the existing standards in human rights protection through the incorporation of individual complaints consideration into the Convention on the Rights of the Child structure. It can be done b y developing and approving a Protocol additional to the Convention, which would fix this function for the Committee on the Rights of the Child. This suggestion is argued for by the recent adoption of the protocol additional to the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination against women which allows individuals to submit complaints to the appropriate Committee. The right to individual complaints is fixed in the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child which recognizes that the Committee will accept complaints from individuals, groups of individuals and NGOs claming violations of the rights envisaged b y the Charter (Art. 44(1)). Work is currently underway to develop a protocol additional to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It would be expedient to envision also the establishment of a special non-treaty body which would prevent violations and protect the rights of children irrespective of the state's participation in the international agreement in question. Suggestions are put forward at present about the creation of a non-treaty ombudsman position both within the U N framework and outside it. But there seems to be a more acceptable variant to create within the U N an office of the High Commissioner on the Rights of the Child in analogy with the Office of the U N High Commissioner for Refugees which has shown itself to be very effective. One of the main objectives of such an agency would be early and speedy response to children's rights violations and reporting t h em to the U N bodies before these violations can spread