A/HRC/14/34 III. Recent developments 7. In the time since the report of the Secretary-General to the fourth session of the Council in March 2007, there have been a significant number of developments in the field of human rights in the administration of justice, including juvenile justice. As requested by the Council, this chapter of the report sets out the most important of those developments, notably in the areas of juvenile justice and conditions for women and children in detention. A. Developments in international law 8. In respect of international treaties, a key development was the adoption by the General Assembly in resolution 63/117 of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on 10 December 2008. Although 32 States parties to the Covenant have signed the Optional Protocol, there have been no ratifications to date and the instrument is thus yet to come into force. Once in force, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights will have competence to receive and consider communications from (or on behalf of) individuals or groups of individuals claiming to be victims of a violation by a State party of any of the economic, social and cultural rights laid down in the Covenant. The Optional Protocol will thus provide a further mechanism for ensuring that the human rights of all (including, for example, detainees’ right to food) are respected, protected and fulfilled. 9. The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 2006, requires two further ratifications to enter into force.6 Once in force, States parties to the Convention will be required, inter alia, to ensure that enforced disappearance constitutes an offence under the national criminal law, and to take the necessary measures to hold criminally responsible all those responsible for the crime, including superiors. The Convention recognizes the continuing nature of the crime of enforced disappearance. Under article 9 of the Convention, States parties are obliged to establish competence to exercise jurisdiction over the offence of enforced disappearance not only in any territory under their jurisdiction, but also when the alleged offender or victim is one of their nationals. When the alleged offender is present in any territory under the State party’s jurisdiction, the State has an obligation to either extradite or surrender the individual to another State or to an international criminal tribunal whose jurisdiction it has recognized. 10. The 50th ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture in 2009 allowed the membership of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture to be expanded. This enables the Subcommittee to broaden its range of activities, which include making unannounced visits to places of detention and providing technical advice to States on the establishment of national independent preventive bodies. 11. The international community has also taken the opportunity of the anniversaries of a number of human rights instruments to reflect on the links between human rights and the administration of justice. For the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 2008, the High Commissioner for Human Rights designated a “Dignity and Justice for Detainees Week”, calling on all partners to pay special attention to the civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights of persons deprived of their liberty in prisons and other places of detention. A number of activities were undertaken in country offices of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, some of which are 6 GE.10-13137 On 7 March 2010, 18 of the required 20 ratifications had been deposited. Article 39 of the Convention, General Assembly resolution 61/177. 5