Committee on the Rights of the Child

The Committee on the Rights of the Child is the body that monitors how well States are meeting their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. When a country ratifies the Convention, it assumes a legal obligation to implement the rights recognized in the treaty. But signing up is only the first step, because recognition of rights on paper is not sufficient to guarantee that they will be enjoyed in practice. So the country incurs an additional obligation to submit regular reports to the Committee on how the rights are being implemented. This system of human rights monitoring is common to all UN human rights treaties.

To meet their reporting obligation, States must report initially two years after joining and then every five years. In addition to the government report, the Committee receives information on a country’s human rights situation from other sources, including non-governmental organizations,UN agencies, other intergovernmental organizations, academic institutions and the press. In the light of all the information available, the Committee examines the report together with government representatives. Based on this dialogue, the Committee publishes its concerns and recommendations, referred to as “concluding observations”.

The Committee also publishes its interpretation of the content of human rights provisions, known as General Comments, and General Recommendations on thematic issues or its methods of work. It also holds public discussions, or Days of General Discussion, on particular issues such as "Violence against children".

The membership of the Committee currently consists of 18 independent experts: