1 _______________________________________________________________________ A Complaints Procedure for the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Commentary on the Second Draft 7 February 2011 Malcolm Langford * and Sevda Clark ** _______________________________________________________________________ Introduction The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the only core international human rights treaty to lack a complaints mechanism. Since July 2009, the UN Human Rights Council has moved with considerable speed in developing a protocol to allow allegations of concrete violations of rights under the treaty to be heard by the quasi-judicial Committee on the Rights of the Child. In August 2010, the Chair of the Council‟s Working Group issued a draft protocol 1 which was discussed by States and others in December 2010. In January 2011 a revised draft was issued. 2 This commentary analyses this second draft of the text 3 in light of existing international law and the need to ensure a balance between making the procedure effective for children and maintaining the normative legitimacy of the international human rights system. We argue that there are some welcome and ground-breaking developments in the draft but that some provisions need to be amended to protect the rights of both children and the interests of States. * Director, Socio-Economic Rights Programme, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo. ** Coordinator, Socio-Economic Rights Programme, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo. 1 Proposal for a draft optional protocol prepared by the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Open-ended Working Group on an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to provide a communications procedure, Human Rights Council Working Group on an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Second session, 1 September 2010, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/WG.7/2/2. 2 Revised proposal for a draft optional protocol prepared by the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Open-ended Working Group on an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to provide a communications procedure, Human Rights Council Working Group on an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Second session, 13 January 2011, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/WG.7/2/4. 3 For our analysis of the first draft, see http://www.jus.uio.no/smr/english/people/aca/malcolml/crc-op-commentary- firstdraft.pdf