Article 11 requires parties to ensure that those complaining under the Optional Protocol are not subjected to ill-treatment or intimidation.
Children will be able to submit complaints under the "Optional Protocol to the Convention of the Rights of the Child on a Communication Procedure" (OP3 CRC), which was ratified by Thailand in September 2012.
The process was initiated in May 2012 by grassroots campaign group Disabled People Against Cuts (Dpac) under article 6 of the optional protocol within the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (UNCRPD).
Even if Khadr were guilty of the five war crimes he confessed to, he was under 18 at the time he allegedly committed them and therefore entitled to "special protection" under the terms of the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which governs the involvement of children in armed conflict.
While the death penalty remains legal under international law in limited circumstances, there is, as the Optional Protocol notes, a strong suggestion in international law that the total abolition of the death penalty is desirable.
It concludes that unless greater efforts are made to highlight awareness of the Optional Protocol and build trust in the rulings of the Committee, the complaints mechanism will remain under-utilized.
The two agreements Mr. Clinton signed are formally known as the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict and the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.
The United States gave notice of its withdrawal from the Optional Protocol on March 7 , 2005
The group began pursuing an inquiry using Article 6 of the Optional Protocol within the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at the beginning of 2012.
Ratification of the optional protocol, as well as similar regional instruments in Europe and in the Americas, thus draws a firm line under the use of the death penalty.
China is currently "studying the problem of accession to the Optional Protocol".
