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Treaty-based monitoring |
The Framework Convention for the Protection of Minorities – monitoring through
reports, country visits and Committee of Ministers resolutions
Article 24
and Article 26 of the
Framework Convention
for the Protection of Minorities designate the Committee of
Ministers and the Advisory Committee respectively to monitor compliance.
States parties must issue a report on how they are
implementing the convention one year after its entry into force. After this
first report, they must issue a report every five years. The Advisory
Committee adopts an opinion on the report and forwards it to the Committee
of Ministers, which in turn adopts a resolution containing recommendations
for the states concerned on the implementation of the Framework Convention.
The resolutions are made public, and provide the opportunity for other
states to comment and for national authorities and NGOs to follow up on
implementation. The Advisory Committee may also carry out visits to
individual countries, where it consults with both state and civil actors.
• Article 6 (protection against threats or acts of hostility) the committee has condemned the trafficking of children from minorities that reportedly takes place in a number of countries;
• Article
12 (equal access to education), the committee has expressed concern over
ill-treatment and bullying to children belonging to minorities, especially
Roma. It has also criticised unwarranted placement Roma children in schools
for the mentally disabled or in separate classes where standards are
inferior (See also D.H. and others vs the Czech Republic
judgment of 13 November 2007 of the European Court of Human Rights, a
landmark decision on the issue of separate schools for Roma).
Articles 36 and 37 of the
Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings
establish Greta and the Committee of the Parties as the two monitoring
bodies for this convention. Greta is composed of independent and highly
qualified experts and the Committee of the Parties is composed of representatives in the Committee of Ministers of the
parties to
the convention and of representatives of parties non-members of the Council
of Europe. |