CRC, 8 February 2022, F. B. and Others v. France, Comm. nos. 77/2019, 79/2019 and 109/2019

The existence under the CRC of a positive obligation for France to repatriate the remaining French children being held in the northeast Syrian detention camps

Abstract

On 8 February 2022, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted its views in a highly-anticipated case on France’s failure to repatriate the minor children of French foreign fighters from detention camps in Northeast Syria. In casu the Committee notably finds it proven that the prolonged detention of the children in the camps under the increasingly dire living conditions poses a threat to the children’s lives (Art. 6(1) CRC) and amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (Art. 37(a) CRC). Therefore, the Committee concludes that France is obliged to provide effective reparation for the violations suffered and calls upon the French government to take positive and urgent measures to carry out the repatriation of the children concerned.