Introduction

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted by the UN General Assembly in November 1989. It entered into force in September 1990 and by December 1999 had been ratified by 191 states. Only the United States of America and Somalia have as yet failed to ratify it. As such it has achieved the unprecedented record of becoming a virtually universally accepted human rights treaty within only eight years of its adoption. The CRC establishes an international monitoring mechanism through the creation of the ten-member CRC Committee, elected by states parties. The Committee held its first meeting in 1991, and began its first scrutiny of states parties' reports in 1993. The CRC requires that the Committee meet annually. However, following a request of the Committee in 1994, made in view of the volume of work associated with the number of ratifications, it has since 1995 met three times a year. Each session comprises a three-week period for scrutiny of states parties' reports with an additional week at each session for the pre-sessional working group.

The CRC imposes on states parties an obligation to report to the Committee initially two years after ratification and subsequently every five years. The reporting obligation is contained in article 44, which also requires states parties to make these reports widely available in their own countries. The purpose of the reports is to provide the Committee with sufficient information to allow it to develop a comprehensive understanding of the implementation of the CRC in every state party.