The United Nations General Assembly has today (19 December 2011) adopted a third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This will enable children living in member states that ratify the Optional Protocol to bring children's rights complaints to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva (after national remedies have been exhausted*). CRAE's national co-ordinator, Carolyne Willow, says:

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was until now the only major treaty without a complaints mechanism. It was simply unjust to deny children this additional layer of human rights protection. Now the UK Government must be among the first to ratify the Optional Protocol, just as it has accepted similar mechanisms to protect the rights of women and girls and disabled people.

The new Optional Protocol will come into force three months after 10 UN member states have agreed to be legally bound by it. Download it here.

*Children, or others acting on their behalf, can seek a remedy from the Committee on the Rights of the Child even if a national remedy exists, where there would be unreasonable delay or the available remedy is unlikely to be effective.