The Convention on the Rights of the Child

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in November, 1989, bringing to a close ten years of debate and discussion over the merits of the project as well as the content of its main provisions. Although some representatives expressed misgivings about the content of several articles of the convention, it was adopted by a broad consensus among the member states of the United Nations. In fact, in less than one year, by September, 1990, the convention had been ratified by more than twenty countries, the threshold figure established by Article 49 of the convention, and it entered into force. This set in motion the process for the election of the ten-member Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the body that has been charged with implementing the convention, in February, 1991, and it is scheduled to begin functioning in the fall of 1991. As recently as March, 1991, the United Nations Secretary-General reported to the states parties that 71 states had either ratified or acceded to the convention and that almost 60 other states had signed it. By June, 1991, the ratification of the convention by Belgium brought the total of states parties to over 90.