Launch of a new URG-UNICEF policy report – ‘Realising Rights, Changing Lives’

The adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 marked a crucial moment for the protection and promotion of children’s rights. For the first time, children were recognised as individual rights-holders rather than dependents on the ‘good will’ of adults. Today, the Convention has received the highest number of ratifications of any of the core international human rights treaties. Yet the promulgation and ratification of treaties is only the first step in ensuring that all children, everywhere, can fully enjoy their rights. While the international community has, over recent years, placed increased emphasis on the on-the-ground implementation by States of their international human rights obligations and commitments, an important gap remains between the words in the Convention and the lived reality of millions of children around the world.

The report ‘Realising Rights, Changing Lives’ looks at how the human rights mechanisms — Treaty Bodies, the Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) – can be leveraged to support translating legal instruments into realities on the ground.

The report breaks new ground in two important ways. First, it represents a first comprehensive attempt to measure the on-the-ground delivery and impact of the international human rights system on the realisation of children’s rights. Second, it seeks to identify and share good practice on the part of United Nations entities for effective engagement with the reporting–implementation–reporting cycle of the United Nations human rights mechanisms, and to pinpoint the ‘success factors’ that appear to determine whether or not such engagement generates measurable improvements in the enjoyment of human rights and particularly child rights.

The report was presented during an online launch event on 8th December 2020.

A recording of the event can be found here.