시민적 및 정치적 권리에 관한 국제규약상 아동의 권리와 한국의 실행

Abstract

Article 24 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR) defines special protection required for children for their minor status. The proposal to specify such special protection for children in the Covenant stems from the recognition that needs of children differ from those of adults. This is evaluated to a significant achievement, given how international institutions so far have had tendency to limitedly recognize civil and political rights of children. This study analyzes the meaning of each paragraph of Article 24 of the Covenant by reviewing the draft writing process, general comments of the Human Rights Committee(HRC) and State party reports. Also, this study examines HRC’s Concluding Observations on South Korea’s implementation of Article 24 of the Covenant, focusing on its evaluations and recommendations. In addition, the study reviews South Korea’s status of fulfillment of the Concluding Observations on State party reports. With respect to birth registration of foreign children, South Korea has already been recommended to introduce the Universal Birth Registration System not only by the HCR but the Committee on the Rights and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, among others. As there is no reasonable ground to discriminate against foreign children in favor of Korean children in granting the right to birth registration, it is necessary to amend the current system to ensure every child born in South Korea to be registered into the birth system. Another child issue that has been actively discussed recently in South Korea is lowering the age of criminal responsibility. This requires an even more measured approach, which takes into consideration both the intent of defining special protection for children in Paragraph 1 of Article 24 of the Covenant, and the Concluding Observations on State party reports by the HRC on the age of criminal responsibility of State parties.