Research and analysis tools

The following tables were designed by the International Bureau for Children’s Rights to help decision-makers, researchers and child rights activists to analyse and compare data on the situation of children’s rights all over the world. The IBCR put these valuable tools at the disposition of all persons, free-of-charge, and encourages its wide dissemination and use in order to promote and protect the rights of the child worldwide…

The first series of tables present the state of ratification for each country, with 34 key international treaties having an important impact on the protection and promotion of children’s rights.

Direct links to the list of signatories of each treaty can be found at the top of each column, while the complete text of each treaty can be found in the hyperlinks below the table. The tables are grouped in five separate documents corresponding to the following regions: the Americas, the Asia-Pacific Region, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa and the Sub-Saharan Africa. For each country, the year and type of the action undertaken by the State are indicated, and a specific color is assigned correspondingly: Red when no action is undertaken by the state, yellow when the convention is only signed and green for the ratification, accession or succession. This will allow a quick overview of the actions undertaken related to international treaties by different countries within the region.

These tables become useful not only for a quick reference on the state of ratification for each country, but also for advocacy at the regional level, as it gives an overview of which treaty is ratified by almost every State in a given region. The tables are updated every six months to provide accurate information.

State of Ratification of International Conventions and Treaties relative to the Promotion and Protection of Children’s rights in:

The Americas

The Asia-Pacific Region

Europe and Central Asia

Middle East and North Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

 The second series of tables present the main development indicators related to children, allowing for a comparison between countries of a same region.

Seven tables are available and correspond to different regions in the world. The tables are updated once a year, referring mostly to UNICEF’s flagship publication, The State of the World's Children. Green, yellow and red colors are assigned to each state to allow a quick assessment of the performance of each country when compared with the regional average.

Indicators to the rights of the child in:

South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific

Central and Eastern Europe/ Commonwealth of Independent States

Eastern and Southern Africa

Industrialised countries

Latin America and Carribean

Middle East and North Africa

Western and Central Africa

The third series of tables present the history of reporting to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, with direct links to all state and alternative reports as well as Concluding Observations.

This table will be particularly useful for researchers and policy-makers, as a one-stop point to find quickly the hyperlinks to most reports in relation to the Committee on the
Rights of the Child. The information is compiled in five tables corresponding to different regions of the world and they are updated every six months.

Reports Submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, on the Status of Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional Protocols in:

Africa

Americas

Asia

Europe

Middle East and North Africa


The fourth table presents all major international legal instruments which have an impact on children’s rights in the world, including non-binding documents, and includes direct links to conventions and treaties texts.

There is also a column showing the number of signatories and ratifications for each of these treaties, as well as the state of ratification of Canada for each of them.

International Legal Instruments on Children's Rights

The following table demonstrates all key reports which have been published by the United Nations (UN) regarding the situation of children in the context of armed conflict since 2000.

The table is divided into three parts:

The first part of the table, located at the top of the first page, contains a set of hyperlinks providing access to the UN Secretary-General’s annual reports on the implementation of the Security Council’s resolutions on children and armed conflict. Below these, on the following line, are links to the reports of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict submitted to the General Assembly since 2000.

The second part of the table identifies 19 states where one or more party/ies to an armed conflict has/have recruited or used children in the context of an armed conflict (the parties are listed in the annexes of the above-mentioned Secretary-General’s annual report). The table is colour coded to distinguish between situations which were placed on the Security Council’s formal agenda, where gross ­­violations of children’s rights occurred (indicated in red), and other situations of similar concern, which were not, however, on the Security Council’s agenda (indicated in yellow).

For each of the 19 states you will find another set of hyperlinks, where available, for the following reports: a) country-specific reports by the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict; b) the Conclusions of the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict; c) periodic reports submitted by State parties on the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict; and d) the Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in relation to these periodic reports.

The document serves as a point of reference to orient its users on the existing UN reports on the question of children and armed conflict. The table not only highlights parties which have been violating children’s rights during an armed conflict but also indicates those parties which have continually violated children’s rights over the years. This information will be useful to practitioners and child’s rights advocates for their research and work.