Council of Europe

Children's rights at stake. Who cares?

3-4 July 2012: The Council of Europe has invited leading experts to discuss how to make full use of existing Council of Europe and United Nations monitoring mechanisms for the benefit of children's rights in Europe. Representatives from a number of Council of Europe monitoring bodies, including the European Court of Human Rights, the European Committee of Social Rights and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture will discuss with experts from UN agencies, the EU and civil society how to improve children's access to the rights guaranteed by key human rights treaties.

Participants will assess the difficulties that children experience in accessing international justice and will identify the measures needed to

- strengthen access of children and their representatives to international bodies monitoring compliance of States with human rights ;

- strengthen the impact of the findings, conclusions, and decisions of monitoring bodies with a view to achieve greater respect for children's rights at national level;

- take into account the special needs of children in detention and children from minority groups and migrant children;

- include children's views and experiences in their work

The result of this exchange should help the various monitoring bodies to take concrete steps to increase their impact in the effective protection of children's rights.

Link to concept note