The Convention on the Rights of the Child: Repertoires of NGO Participation

摘要

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is often presented as the treaty that allows most strongly for non-governmental organisation (NGO) participation. Moreover, NGOs were actively involved in the drafting of the CRC itself, as well as of its three Optional Protocols (OPs). The CRC therefore makes a good case study of the role NGOs can play in the drafting and monitoring of human rights treaties, and may prove useful in current debates on United Nations treaty body reform more generally. In order to assess NGO participation and impact, the concepts of repertoires of NGO participation and frame alignment are used. It is tentatively concluded that 60–70% of NGO concerns tend to be taken up in the CRC Committee's Concluding Observations. While these findings may seem to confirm that NGOs do have substantial impact on the reporting process, they need to be interpreted with utmost caution especially because we do not possess insight into whether and to what extent the Committee would have taken up these issues at any rate.