General Comment 10, Children's Rights in Juvenile Justice - Prevention in Schools
General Comment 10, Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, CRC/C/GC/10 (April 25, 2007).
“General Comments” are written by United Nations Committees that are in charge of monitoring how well a government is doing at protecting the rights described in particular treaties. General Comments give more specific detail about how the rights included in the treaties should be implemented. General comments are not legally binding documents, but they do provide moral accountability and practical guidance for governments on how to guarantee human rights.
General Comment 10, written by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, reinforces and elaborates on both the Riyadh guidelines for the prevention of juvenile delinquency and the Beijing rules for the administration of juvenile justice. Specific to education and school discipline policies, the Comment emphasizes prevention efforts to keep children out of conflict with the law and the promotion and use of “alternative” measures in the case of administration of juvenile justice. The Committee states that “prevention programmes should focus on support for particularly vulnerable families, involvement of schools in teaching basic values (including information about the rights and responsibilities of children and parents under the law), and extending special care and attention to young persons at risk” (General Comment 10, sec IV.A. para 7).
It asserts that the best interests of the child, as recognized in Article 3 of the Convention, should continue to be protected in the administration of juvenile justice. It explains that the traditional goals of criminal justice, repression or retribution, should give way to rehabilitation and restorative justice objectives in dealing with child offenders. Underscoring the Convention’s fundamentals, the Comment emphasizes treating children in a way that is consistent with their sense of dignity and worth.