Part V of VI from 'Action Versus Conventions' [direct copy]

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United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC): Reporting process


October 24, 2013, Great Britain, UK


Every state that has ratified the convention is required to report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) on how it is fulfilling its obligations. These periodic reviews are expected to happen every 5 years.

The UN committee considers all evidence submitted to it by the state party. It also gathers evidence from independent human rights institutions (including the 4 UK children's commissioners and ombudsmen), non-governmental organisations and children and young people.

Non-governmental organisations are also encouraged to submit their own reports to the UN committee about the implementation of the convention in a particular country. The UNCRC is the only international human rights treaty that expressly gives non-governmental organisations (NGOs) a role in monitoring its implementation.

The UN committee produces concluding observations on the state party it has assessed. These set out the UN committee's assessment of progress in implementing the convention and any areas of concern. The state party is not expected to respond formally to the concluding observations, but is expected to address the issues in its next periodic report to the UN committee. The concluding observations for the UK are available to download 'UNCRC - Third and fourth concluding observations 2008'.

The UK first reported to the UNCRC on 15 March 1994. Since then it has produced a further 3 periodic reports.

The UK will be submitting its next (fifth) periodic report in January 2014. A draft version of this report is available to download on page 6 - Call for views.

Overseas territories and crown dependencies

British overseas territories are not part of the United Kingdom but come under its sovereignty. These territories include:

• Anguilla
• Bermuda
• the British Virgin Islands
• the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands
• the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands
• Montserrat
• St Helena and its dependencies (Ascension and Tristan da Cunha)
• the Pitcairn Islands
• Turks and Caicos Islands

They ratified the UNCRC from 1997. Crown dependencies fall under the sovereignty of the British Crown but have a different constitutional relationship with the UK than overseas territories. The Isle of Man is the only crown dependency to ratify the UNCRC so far. The last reports submitted by the crown dependencies and overseas territories were examined at the same time as the main UK report.

More information

Visit the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's website for more information on the convention, the processes involved and for reports from other countries.


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