A/HRC/21/31 that the political will of States to bring international instruments to life and make their implementation a reality was a key element in promoting and protecting the rights of the child. 15. According to Constance de la Vega, Professor and Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of San Francisco, the two most inhuman sentences that were still imposed on juvenile offenders were the death penalty and life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. International standards clearly prohibited these sentences for children. A great deal of progress had been made on eradicating the death penalty and in practice only one country, the Islamic Republic of Iran, reportedly executed juvenile offenders in 2010 and 2011, down from three countries in 2009. 16. Ms. de la Vega pointed out that while 13 countries had laws allowing the sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release to be imposed on juvenile offenders, this was practiced only in the United States, where over 2,500 juvenile offenders were serving life imprisonment without parole for crimes committed when they were under 18. In addition to the death penalty and life imprisonment without the possibility of release, juvenile offenders faced the possibility of being sentenced to corporal punishment in at least 42 countries. These practices include caning, flogging, stoning and amputation. The Committee on the Rights of the Child repeatedly emphasized that those sentences violated international law, and had expressed concern about such sentencing of children. Several States were considering draft legislation that would prohibit sentencing children to corporal punishment, while some had adopted such legislation recently. For instance, Pakistan adopted in 2000 the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, which prohibited corporal punishment in the penal system. Ms. de la Vega urged the Council to continue to address those issues both through the thematic procedures and country procedures, including the universal periodic review. She hoped that with such continued attention the almost universal compliance with the specific prohibitions against extreme sentencing of juveniles would become universal. 17. Renate Winter, a judge at the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, said that bringing a child into contact with the juvenile system had consequences and it was important to decide whether that contact was indeed needed. The most important issue for the justice system dealing with a child was that of proportionality and how it was balanced with appropriate responses to an act of the child. She indicated that alternative measures to deal with conflict were needed and that many times restorative justice rested on a triangle composed of the victim, the offender and the community. Restorative juvenile justice could be used in all phases of a child’s contact with the judicial system: before, during and after. Although many said that the development of alternative measures had serious financial implications, some alternative measures, such as receiving a warning by the police, community service or giving the child a particular responsibility, had no financial costs. What was needed to implement juvenile justice systems were alternatives to court proceedings, sentencing and punishment, as well as training and capacity-building for all those involved in the justice system. B. Plenary discussion 18. During the interactive discussion, the following delegations spoke: European Union, Australia, Qatar, Thailand, Pakistan (on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation), Paraguay, Mauritania (on behalf of the Arab Group), Guatemala, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Austria, Sri Lanka, Uruguay (on behalf of the Latin American and Caribbean Group), Hungary, Poland, Ireland, France, India, Honduras, Namibia, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia. The following NGOs also 6