UN TREATY BODIES 1 such laws are strictly implemented.174 While the CAT has never addressed the issue of corporal punishment of children by their parents in detail, a number of individual Committee members recently indicated that they consider this to fall within the scope of the UNCAT.175 It is as yet unclear whether this position will be adopted by the Committee as a whole, or whether detailed comment on the issue of corporal punishment in the private sphere will remain the exclusive domain of the CRC. – The Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) While the HRC, the CAT, and the CRC all address corporal punishment in public institutions, the provisions of the UNCRC give the Committee on the Rights of the Child greater scope than the CAT and HRC to address the issue of corporal punishment in the home. Article 37(a) UNCRC provides, in part, that “No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” This is complemented by Article 19(1), which provides: “States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.” In its General Comment on the right of the child to protection from corporal punishment and other cruel and degrading forms of punishment, the CRC was emphatic that “There is no ambiguity: ‘all forms of physical or mental violence’ does not leave room for any level of legalized violence against children. Corporal punishment and other cruel or degrading forms of punishment are forms of violence and States must take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to eliminate them.”176 1.3.3 Conditions of detention Both the HRC and the CAT recognise that conditions of detention may themselves constitute ill-treatment or, in extreme cases, torture. However, the wider CAT, Concluding Observations on South Africa, UN Doc. CAT/C/ZAF/CO/1, 2006, §25. See the questions of Mr. Mavrommatis and Ms Belmir to the Netherlands, Summary record of the 763rd meeting, UN Doc. CAT/C/SR.763, 2007, §§14, 40; of Ms Belmir and Mr. Mariño Menéndez to Luxembourg, Summary record of the 759th meeting, UN Doc. CAT/C/SR.759, 2007, §§39–40. 176 CRC, General Comment No. 8, UN doc. CRC/C/GC/8, 2006, §18. The CRC considers that this is “an immediate and unqualified obligation of States parties” (Ibid. §22), 174 175 38