2011　“Optional Protocol on Reporting Procedures”

On December 19, 2011, the “Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Protocol III)” was adopted by the UN General Assembly. The Protocol provides for an individual reporting system to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. The individual reporting system is a system that allows individuals to report directly to a treaty body (in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, this is the Committee on the Rights of the Child) when they have suffered a human rights violation and domestic remedies have failed to provide relief. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a system that allows individuals to directly report human rights violations to the Convention body. The treaty body deliberates on the report and issues an “Opinion.” The Opinions are not legally binding, but the aim of the Opinions is that public opinion will encourage the country in which the report was made to review its legislation and correct the situation where human rights violations occur. The individual reporting system is now considered an essential part of the international human rights framework. At the time the protocol was adopted, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was the only one of the nine UN human rights treaties that did not have such a system.

As of 2022, the Protocol will have 50 States Parties. Japan was a co-sponsor of the Protocol when it was proposed, but has not signed or ratified the Protocol as of 2022. The Government of Japan has expressed its view that it will give serious consideration to the individual reporting systems of the various human rights treaties, noting that these systems will enhance the effectiveness of the treaties, but that there are still issues to be considered, including the relationship with Japan's judicial system and legislative policy and the actual implementation system of the individual reporting system.