The general measures of implementation: opportunities for progress with children’s rights

ABSTRACT

How can the general measures of implementation (GMIs) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child support progress with children’s rights? The GMIs advance understandings of the status of children’s rights and facilitate their implementation over time. This paper explores five GMIs: education, awareness and training; monitoring; budgeting; coordination; and plans of action. Drawing on various international examples, it demonstrates that the emphasis of the GMIs upon processes, mechanisms, and the roles of a range of actors and entities is necessary to address the implementation gap in child rights globally and support progress for children and young people.

KEYWORDS:

• Children’s rights
• Convention on the rights of the child
• general measures of implementation

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the organisers of the UNCRC in Scotland Seminar Series for the opportunity to participate, and to the peer reviewers of this article. I also want to acknowledge previous inspirational collaborations on this topic with the Honourable Landon Pearson and Lisa Wolff.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Conflict of interest

No personal conflict of interest is reported.

The paper has been produced in compliance with ethics requirements.

Notes on contributor

Tara M. Collins is an Associate Professor in the School of Child & Youth Care at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. Her research interests include child and youth participation, protection, monitoring, and rights-based approaches. She has a Ph.D. from the University of London. Her professional experience includes work for universities in Canada and Ireland, the Canadian federal government and Parliament, and a non-governmental organisation.

ORCID

Tara M. Collins http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3774-8971

Notes

1 Cited in Landon Pearson Resource Centre for the Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights, ‘Shaking the Movers – Speaking Truth to Power: Civil and Political Rights of Children’ (Ottawa: Landon Pearson Resource Centre, 2007), http://www.landonpearson.ca/uploads/6/0/1/4/6014680/shaking_the_movers_2007__1_.pdf, 5.

2 UN Treaty Collection, ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child’, https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/MTDSG/Volume%20I/Chapter%20IV/IV-11.en.pdf (accessed November 20, 1989).

3 See UN, ‘Report of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on its 66th, 67th, 68th, 69th, 70th, 71th Sessions’ UN Doc. A/71/41 (New York: UN, 2016), https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=A%2f71%2f41&Lang=en. Tara Collins and Lisa Wolff, ‘Work in Progress: Twenty-Five Years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child – The General Measures of Implementation Across the Globe’, Canadian Journal of Children’s Rights 1, no. 1 (2014): 85–121.

4 Tara Collins, ‘International Child Rights in National Constitutions’, Irish Political Studies 28, no. 4 (2013): 591–619, 598.

5 UN, ‘Report of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on its 66th, 67th, 68th, 69th, 70th, 71th Sessions’, 9.

6 Marta Mauras, ‘Public Policies and Child Rights: Entering the Third Decade of the Convention’, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 633, no. 1 (2011): 52–65, 63.

7 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, General Measures of Implementation, UN Doc. CRC/GC/2003/5, 27 November 2003.

8 UN Committee, ‘General Guidelines Regarding the Form and Contents of Periodic Reports’, UN Doc. CRC/C/58, (1996), para. 1B. The UN Committee has introduced a new reporting procedure; see Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Simplified reporting procedure (1996–2018), https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRC/Pages/ReportingProcedure.aspx.

9 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, 6.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 UNICEF Canada, ‘It’s Time for a National Children’s Commissioner for Canada’, http://www.unicef.ca/sites/default/files/imce_uploads/DISCOVER/OUR%20WORK/ADVOCACY/DOMESTIC/GOVERNANCE/DOCS/Commission%20booklet%20English%20Final.pdf, 5.

13 Kay Tisdall, ‘Conceptualising Children and Young People’s Participation: Examining Vulnerability, Social Accountability and Co-production’, International Journal of Human Rights 21, no. 1 (2017): 59–75, 65.

14 See the Charter of the United Nations, adopted 26 June 1945, entered into force 24 October 1945; and Ian Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law – Fifth Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

15 See the state’s role in for example: UN Committee, General Comment No. 16, On State Obligations Regarding Impact of Business Sector on Children’s Rights, UN Doc. CRC/C/GC/16 (2013).

16 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, 13.

17 UN Committee, General Comment No. 2 (2002): The role of independent national human rights institutions, UN Doc. CRC/GC/2002/2 (accessed November 15, 2002).

18 M. Santos Pais, ‘The Convention on the Rights of the Child’, in Manual on Human Rights Reporting, UN (ed.) (Geneva: UN, 1997), 393–504, 495.

19 John Keane, ed., Civil Society and the State (London: University of Westminster Press, 1988).

20 N. Vučković Šahović. The Role of Civil Society in Implementing the General Measures of the Convention (Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2010).

21 UN, ‘Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action’, Adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, 25 June 1993, UN Doc. A/CONF.157/2, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/Vienna.aspx

22 UNICEF, Summary Report of the Study on the Impact of the Implementation of the Convention (Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2005); and UNICEF, The General Measures of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: The Process in Europe and Central Asia. (Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2006).

23 This essay updates two measures from an earlier paper and considers three GMIs internationally: Collins and Wolff, ‘Work in Progress’, 2014; UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre and UNICEF-Canada, ‘Not There Yet: Canada’s Implementation of the General Measures’ (Florence: UNICEF-Innocenti Research Centre and UNICEF-Canada, 2009) http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/canada_nty.pdf.

24 Examples include Laura Lundy, Ursula Kilkelly and Bronagh Byrne, ‘Incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Law: A Comparative Review’, International Journal of Children’s Rights 21, no. 3 (2013): 442–63, 461; Karin Arts, ‘Twenty-Five Years of the United Nations Convention’ Netherlands International Law Review LXI (2014): 267–303; Vanessa Sedletzki, Championing Children’s Rights: A global study of independent human rights institutions for children (Florence: Innocenti Publications, 2013) https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/701-championing-childrens-rights-a-global-study-of-independent-human-rights-institutions.html; Munyae Mulinge, ‘Persistent Socio-Economic and Political Dilemmas to the Implementation of the 1989 United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child in Sub-Saharan Africa’, Child Abuse & Neglect 34 (2010) 10–7; Geraldine Van Bueren, The International Law on the Rights of the Child (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1998).

25 UN, Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, UN Doc. A/RES/54/263, adopted 25 May 2000, article 6(2); UN, Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, UN Doc. A/RES/54/263, adopted 25 May 2000, article 9(2).

26 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, 16.

27 Ibid., 15–6.

28 See Bruce Hafen and Jonathan Hafen, ‘Abandoning Children to Their Autonomy: The United Nations Convention’, Harvard International Law Journal 37, no. 2 (1996): 449–91.

29 Collins, ‘International Child Rights in National Constitutions’, 607.

30 Lee Jerome, Lesley Emerson, Laura Lundy and Karen Orr, Teaching and Learning about Child Rights: A Study of Implementation in 26 Countries (Belfast: Queen’s University Belfast & UNICEF, 2015), https://www.unicef.org/crc/files/CHILD_RIGHTS_EDUCATION_STUDY_11May.pdf, 11.

31 Rustamjon Urinboyev, Per Wickenberg and Ulf Leo, ‘Child Rights, Classroom and School Management’ International Journal of Children’s Rights 24 (2016): 522–47, 540.

32 Tara Collins and Christine Gervais, ‘Children’s Rights’, in Current Issues and Controversies in Human Rights (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 168–97.

33 Katherine Covell, Brian Howe and Justin McNeil, ‘If There’s a Dead Rat, Don’t Leave it. Young Children’s Understanding of their Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities’, Cambridge Journal of Education 38, no. 3 (2008): 321–39, 336–7.

34 UNICEF United Kingdom (UK), Getting Started: Become a Rights Respecting School, (n.d.) https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools/getting-started/.

35 UNICEF UK, About the Rights Respecting Schools Award, (n.d.) https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools/the-rrsa/about-the-rrsa/.

36 J. Sebba and C. Robinson, Evaluation of UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting Schools Award (London: UNICEF UK, 2010), 2–4.

37 UNICEF Canada, Rights Respecting Schools, (n.d.) https://rightsrespectingschools.ca/

38 Bertha Badu-Agyei, ‘Child Right Education Campaigns begin in Schools’, NewsGhana, June 6, 2016, https://www.newsghana.com.gh/child-right-education-campaigns-begin-in-schools/.

39 Jerome et al., Teaching and Learning about Child Rights, 8.

40 Ibid.

41 Tara Collins, ‘A Brief Background to Children’s Rights’, CYC-Online 227 (2018): 27.

42 For example, survey responses revealed lack of teaching about rights, see Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children (CCRC), Right in Principle, Right in Practice: Implementation of the Convention (Ottawa: CCRC, 2011), 26.

43 Tisdall, ‘Conceptualising Children and Young People’s Participation’, 65.

44 Jerome et al., Teaching and Learning about Child Rights, 9.

45 Ibid., 51.

46 Collins, ‘International Child Rights in National Constitutions’, 605–6.

47 Gerison Lansdown, ‘The Child’s Voice Moving Forward: 10 Challenges to Overcome’, (presented at Summer School on the International Rights of the Child, Moncton, Canada, July 18, 2014).

48 International Institute for Child Rights and Development, ‘Child Rights Education for Professionals (CRED-PRO)’, http://www.iicrd.org/projects/child-rights-education-professionals-cred-pro, 2016.

49 Ibid.

50 International School Psychology Association & CRED-PRO, Child Rights for School Psychologists and Other School-Based Mental Health Professionals Curriculum (New Orleans, LA: School Psychology Program, Tulane University, 2010).

51 Gerison Lansdown, Shane Jimerson, Reza Shahroozi, ‘Children’s Rights and School Psychology: Children’s Right to Participation’, Journal of School Psychology 52 (2014): 3–12, 9.

52 EveryChild, ‘Child Rights Public Awareness Campaign’, http://www.everychild.ca/campaign_info (2010).

53 See https://www.scyofbc.org/resources/; Nina Purewal, ‘Letter of President’, Annual Report 2015–2016 (2017) https://www.scyofbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Annual-Report-2015-2016.pdf, 2.

54 See: Leiden Law School, ‘25 Years Convention on the Rights of the Child’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN85nHVcSUE.

55 UN, Optional Protocols; Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure, UN Doc. A/RES/66/138 (accessed December 19, 2011).

56 Tara Collins, ‘The Monitoring of the Rights of the Child: A Child Rights-Based Approach’ (PhD diss., University of London, 2007), Chapter 1; Tara Collins, ‘The Significance of Different Approaches to Monitoring’, International Journal of Human Rights 12, no. 2 (2008): 159–87, 159.

57 Collins, ‘The Significance of Different Approaches’, 161.

58 Thomas Hammarberg, ‘The Work of the Expert Committee on the Rights of the Child’, (unpublished paper, New York: UNICEF March 24, 1993).

59 For example, see UNICEF, Global Compact and Save the Children, How Business Affects Us: Children and Young People Share their Perspectives (UNICEF, The Global Compact and Save the Children, 2012).

60 Collins, ‘The Monitoring of the Rights of the Child’, 2007.

61 As examples, see: South Korea, Statistics Korea, 2017 Statistics on the Youth http://kostat.go.kr/portal/eng/pressReleases/1/index.board?bmode=read&aSeq=361664; and Australian Bureau of Statistics, 4907.0 – Information Paper: Improving Statistics on Children and Youth – An Information Development Plan, 2006, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Latestproducts/F69AD2800AA450E3CA2572BB001B0295?opendocument; in Collins and Wolff, ‘Work in Progress’, 103.

62 Collins, ‘The Monitoring of the Rights of the Child.’

63 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, 2003.

64 For example, see Arts, ‘Twenty-Five Years of the United Nations Convention’, 299.

65 For example, see Collins, ‘The Monitoring of the Rights of the Child’, Chapter 4.

66 Collins, ‘The Monitoring of the Rights of the Child’, Chapter 2; for example, Philip Veerman, ‘An African and International Perspective on Children’s Rights Interview with Benyam Mezmur’, The International Journal of Children’s Rights 25, no. 3–4 (2017): 672–97.

67 Didier Reynaert, Maria Bouverne-De Bie and Stijn Vandevelde, ‘A Review of Children’s Rights Literature Since the Adoption of the United Nations Convention’, Childhood 16, no. 4 (2009): 518–34, 528.

68 Samantha Punch, Ian McIntosh and Ruth Emond, ‘You Have a Right to be Nourished and Fed, but do I have a Right to Make Sure You Eat your Food?’ The International Journal of Human Rights 16, no. 8 (2012): 1250–62, 1260.

69 UN, Paris Principles Relating to the Status of National Institutions, UN Doc. GA/RES/48/134, 1993.

70 UN OHCHR, ‘Paris Principles: 20 Years Guiding the Work of National Human Rights Institutions’, 2013 http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/ParisPrinciples20yearsguidingtheworkofNHRI.aspx.

71 European Network of Ombudspersons for Children, ‘Home Page’, http://enoc.eu/.

72 See for example Tara Collins, ‘The Relationship between Children’s Rights and Business’, International Journal of Human Rights 18, no. 6 (2014): 582–633.

73 Tara Collins, ‘Child Participation in Monitoring the Convention on the Rights of the Child’, in International Perspectives and Empirical Findings on Child Participation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 405–37.

74 Ibid.

75 See further Tara M. Collins, ‘Improving Research of Children Using a Rights-Based Approach’, Frontiers in Psychology 3, Article 293 (2012), 1–4.

76 See for example, Michael Bamberger, Jim Rugh and Linda Malbry, Real World Evaluation. 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2012), 192.

77 Angie Mapara-Osachoff, ‘Response to Shaking the Movers: Exploitation VIII and Sexual Exploitation IX’, (presented to the Child Rights Academic Network, Ottawa, January 2016).

78 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, 11–2.

79 Ziba Vaghri, Adem Arkadas, Sami Kruse and Clyde Hertzman, ‘CRC General Comment 7 Indicators Framework’, Journal of Human Rights 10, no. 2 (2011): 178–88.

80 Gerison Lansdown and Claire O’Kane, ‘A Toolkit for Monitoring and Evaluating Children’s Participation’ (London: Save the Children UK, 2014), http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/toolkit-monitoring-and-evaluating-childrens-participation; Council of Europe, ‘Child Participation Assessment Tool: Indicators for Measuring Progress in Promoting the Right of Children and Young People’ (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2016) https://rm.coe.int/16806482d9.

81 GlobalChild, GlobalChild Program, https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/globalchild/.

82 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, 12.

83 Jonathan Carter, Conrad Barberton and Nidhi Parekh, ‘Analyzing Child Protection Finances: Note on the Types of Public Finance Analyses’ (working paper, New Delhi: UNICEF India, 2018), 8.

84 Ibid., 1, 4–5.

85 Ibid, 1, 3–5.

86 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, 12.

87 Mauras, ‘Public Policies and Child Rights’, 60.

88 UN Committee, General Comment No. 19 on Public Budgeting, UN Doc. CRC/C/GC/19 (accessed July 20, 2016).

89 UNICEF, ‘Summary Report of the Study’ 2005.

90 Carter, Barberton and Parekh, ‘Analyzing Child Protection Finances’, 1.

91 Collins and Wolff, ‘Canada’s Next Steps for Children’s Rights?’ in Children Matter – Exploring Child and Youth Human Rights Issues, ed. E. Murray (Calgary: Mount Royal University, 2012) 14–40.

92 Ibid., 13–4.

93 UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre and UNICEF Canada, ‘Not There Yet’, 24. For further discussion of CRIAs, see article by Lisa Payne, this edition.

94 Ibid., 24.

95 Carter, Barberton and Parekh, ‘Analyzing Child Protection Finances’, 9.

96 I. Ortiz, J. Chai, M. Cummins, G. Vergara, Prioritizing Expenditures for a Recovery for All: A Rapid Review of Public Expenditures in 126 Developing Countries. UNICEF: 2010 https://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/Prioritizing_Expenditures_for_a_Recovery_for_All_October_11_final.pdf, 25–6, cited in Collins and Wolff, ‘Work in Progress’, 98.

97 Ibid.

98 P. Cassiem and S. Streak, Budgeting for Child Socio-Economic Rights: Government Obligations and the Child’s Right to Social Security and Education (Cape Town: IDASA, 2001), cited in Collins and Wolff, ‘Work in Progress’, 100.

99 Save the Children UK. (2004). Where’s the Money Going? Monitoring Government and Donor Budgets (London: Save the Children Fund, 2004), cited in Collins and Wolff, ‘Work in Progress’, 101.

100 Chelsea Marshall, Laura Lundy, and Karen Orr, ‘Child-Participatory Budgeting: A Review of Global Practice’ (Belfast: Queen’s University Belfast/Plan International/Government of Sweden, 2016) https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/node/10303/pdf/child-participatory-budgeting-report-with_sweden_logo_id_5010.pdf, 41.

101 UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre and UNICEF-Canada, ‘Not There Yet’, 24.

102 Nevena Vučković Šahović, ‘The Role of Civil Society in Implementing the General Measures of the Convention’, (Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2010), 31.

103 Carter, Barberton and Parekh, ‘Analyzing Child Protection Finances’, 7.

104 The author attended when Canada’s reported to the UN Committee in Geneva at its 61 Session (17 September 2012–05 October 2012).

105 CCRC, ‘Children’s Rights: Making Canada Work Better’, http://rightsofchildren.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Childrens-Rights-Can-Make-Canada-Work-Better-for-Young-People.pdf

106 UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre and UNICEF-Canada, ‘Not There Yet’, 62–3.

107 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, 8.

108 UN, ‘Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action’, paras. 68–9.

109 UN OHCHR, ‘National Plans of Action’, 1996–2018, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/PlansActions/Pages/PlansofActionIndex.aspx.

110 UN World Summit for Children, ‘Plan of Action for Implementing the World Declaration’, 1990, https://www.unicef.org/wsc/plan.htm#Action, para. 34(i).

111 UN General Assembly, ‘Special Session on Children: A World Fit for Children’, UN Doc. A/RES/S-27/2, https://www.unicef.org/specialsession/docs_new/documents/A-RES-S27-2E.pdf, 2002, 23.

112 Child Rights Information Network, ‘National Plans of Action’, https://www.crin.org/en/library/publications/national-plans-action, 2018.

113 This was highlighted by UNICEF, ‘Summary Report of the Study’, 17.

114 As examples, see UN Committee, ‘Concluding Observations on the Fifth Periodic Report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’, UN Doc. CRC/C/GBR/CO/5, 12 July 2016, 2; UN Committee, ‘Concluding Observations – Canada’, UN Doc. CRC/C/CAN/CO/3-4, 5 October 2012, 3; UN Committee, ‘Concluding Observations on the Combined Fifth and Sixth Periodic Reports of Sri Lanka’, UN Doc. CRC/C/LKA/CO/5-6, 2.

115 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, 8–9.

116 Lundy, Kilkelly and Byrne, ‘Incorporation of the United Nations Convention’, 442.

117 Arts, ‘Twenty-Five Years of the United Nations Convention’, 295–6.

118 UN Committee, General Comment No. 5, 7.

119 Ibid., 29.

120 Ibid.

121 Ibid.

122 Ibid.

123 Collins, ‘International Child Rights in National Constitutions’.

124 Mauras, ‘Public Policies and Child Rights’, 55–6.

125 Ibid., 59.

126 Veerman, ‘An African and International Perspective’, 692–3.

127 Mauras, ‘Public Policies and Child Rights’, 63.

128 Cited in Landon Pearson Resource Centre, ‘Shaking the Movers’, 11; UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre and UNICEF-Canada, ‘Not There Yet’, 57.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute seminar series.