Slovak diplomat Drahoslav Štefánek has been unanimously elected as the chair of the United Nations’ Working Group for an Optional Protocol to the Convention on
the Rights of the Child, the SITA newswire reported.
Štefánek prepared the first blueprint of the protocol and submitted it in August. The second session of the working group was opened on Monday, December 6, in Geneva by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, the press department of the Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry informed the SITA newswire.
Discussion of the initial blueprint will run until December 10 and a second round of talks will take place in the first quarter of 2011. The protocol has been designed to enable submission of complaints regarding violations of rights anchored in the Convention on the Rights of the Child to the United Nations’ Committee on the Right of the Child.
The working group was tasked to prepare the new international agreement based on the resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council in March, tabled by a group of countries led by Slovakia. If the working group finalises the text of the protocol, the UN Human Rights Council could approve it in June 2011 for the General Assembly of
the United Nations to consider in the autumn of 2011.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
