Concluding Remarks and Summary

Abstract

Children, it will be recalled, are entitled under customary international law as well as under international humanitarian and human rights law to special protections, assistance and care. However the selected weaknesses of the OP3-CRC, as here previously described,1 this author contends, significantly undermine the special status of children under international law. The OP3-CRC communications procedure, as current formulated, is on the view here then, in some ways, as much a mechanism for screening out meritorious complaints including collective communications as it is a vehicle for providing individual or small groups of children redress in certain limited cases and circumstances. In this way; the OP3- CRC, though a communications protocol, effectively undercuts children’s right to participate in what is supposed to be a child-dedicated international human rights instrument of last resort.