Background

 

The adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights served to highlight the fundamental importance for victims of corporate human rights abuses to have effective access to remedy, whether it is State-based or non-State based, as well as to promote the removal of practical and legal obstacles to remedy. However, despite some progress achieved, much remains to be done to ensure that access to remedy remains consistent, including for stakeholders from vulnerable groups, such as children. Indeed, in its 2017 report to the General Assembly, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights refers to the centrality of rights holders in access to effective remedies, highlighting that States should take appropriate affirmative action to provide access to effective remedies to marginalized or vulnerable groups, and that businesses should consider adopting special measures to enable vulnerable people to have effective access to operational-level grievance mechanisms.

In this context, the Committee on the Rights of the Child is currently preparing General Comment 27 on children’s rights to access to justice and effective remedies, in an effort to clarify concepts and terminology in relation to children’s right to effective remedy, to provide guidance on empowering all children as rights-holders, and to highlight the need for accessibility to efficient and orderly complaints mechanisms and procedures. This provides an opportunity to expand the focus of General Comment 16 on State obligations regarding the impact of the business sector on children’s rights, including in relation to State-based and non-State based mechanisms..​

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Objectives

The session has a three-fold objective: ​

• To demystify the concept of access to remedy, and to clarify what is needed to ensure that children are considered as relevant stakeholders in the context of business activities, particularly when there have been adverse impacts to their rights;

• To explain the concept of remedy and the different avenues considered by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to ensure that affected stakeholders obtain reparation, in addition to looking at recent practices and experiences with remedy within the Asia-Pacific region to inform the audience in that regard, including in relation to child rights or from a child rights’ perspective.

• To inform UNICEF’s submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in light of the work to be undertaken in the preparation of General Comment no. 27 on Children’s Rights to Access to Justice and Effective Remedies.

 

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