On January 12, 2004, a Coalition of 10 NGO groups submitted the following critique of Japan's Second Periodic Report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.  Japan's report is one that each signatory country must submit once every five years. 

When reading this, note that this report by Japan was due in 2001, yet submitted in 2003. (Many many reports appear to be late like this, not just Japan's.)   There was a preliminary review in October of 2003, and the Committee will officially consider the report during their January 12-31, 2004 meeting.  According to the schedule in this press release, the will consider Japan's report on  Wednesday, 28 January from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and 3-6 p.m.

Coalition Critique.  (HTML)  (WORD) (PDF)

Home Page of the Committee on the Rights of the Child

Bilingual Brief on United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child  (WORD) (PDF)

Japan's Reservations and Declarations at Signing

Source: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/treaty15_asp.htm

Reservation:

"In applying paragraph (c) of article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Japan reserves the right not to be bound by the provision in its second sentence, that is, `every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child's best interest not to do so', considering the fact that in Japan as regards persons deprived of liberty, those who are below twenty years of age are to be generally separated from those who are of twenty years of age and over under its national law."

Declarations:

1. The Government of Japan declares that paragraph 1 of article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child be interpreted not to apply to a case where a child is separated from his or her parents as a result of deportation in accordance with its immigration law.

2. 2.The Government of Japan declares further that the obligation to deal with applications to enter or leave a State Party for the purpose of family re-unification `in a positive, humane and expeditious manner' provided for in paragraph 1 of article 10 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child be interpreted not to affect the outcome of such applications."
   

3. 3.Other Japan Based Organizations
   

Network for the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Japanese only)

Save The Children Japan (Japanese only)

Organization for Writing an NGO Report on Japan's 2nd Periodic CoRC Report (Japanese Only)

Other Background

List of ALL UN documents about Japan (including but not limited to the CoRC treaty)

Guide to submitting NGO Comments (local copy)

Participation guidelines for NGOs and other partners. (local copy)

More Background from the NGO Group (interface between NGOs and the UNHCHR on CoRC

NGO Written Submissions  (similar to above document)

Pre-Sessional Working Group

Keep following the links at the bottom of these pages.  There are 5 or 6 in total.