The obligation to monitor rights realisation and devise implementation strategies and programmes Monitoring is always required under international human rights treaties.95 The CESCR and CRC on several occasions have called on States Parties to regularly evaluate budget allocations made for the implementation of their respective rights in order to assess whether the maximum available resources are being used to progressively achieve these rights’ complete realisation.96 This obligation is effective immediately, and is not in any way eliminated by resource constraints.97 The guidelines that treaty bodies have issued to help states prepare their reports under UN human rights treaties specify that they should provide information on budget allocations and trends ‘as percentages of national or regional budgets and GDP and disaggregated by sex and age for the implementation of the State’s human rights obligations and the results of any relevant budget impact assessments’.98 Thus, reporting guidelines under the CRC ask States Parties to indicate whether the budget allocated for the convention implementation can be clearly identified and monitored as it relates to the comprehensive national strategy for children and corresponding plan(s).99 Consequently, when reviewing some states’ reports, the CRC recommends that they implement tracking systems for budget-wide children’s resources allocation and use.100 The CESCR has recommended several states to ‘regularly assess whether the maximum available resources have been used for the progressive realisation of the rights recognised in the Covenant, taking into account the Committee’s declaration of September 2007 on the obligation to act “to the maximum of its available resources”.’101 The CRC has emphasised that using the maximum available resources requires making children visible in budgets. According to the Committee, ‘no State can tell whether it is fulfilling children’s economic, social and cultural rights “to the maximum extent of… available resources”, as it is required to do under article 4, unless it can identify the proportion of national and other budgets allocated to the social sector and, within that, to children, both directly and indirectly’.102 95 See, eg, ICCPR Art 40. 96 See, eg, Concluding Observations Gambia E/C.12/GMB/CO/1 (2015); Concluding Observations Armenia E/C.12/ ARM/CO/2-3 (2014); Concluding Observations UK CRC/GBR/CO/4 (2008); and Concluding Observations Thailand CRC/C/THA/CO/3-4 (2012). 97 CESCR, General Comment No 3, para 11. See also CESCR, General Comment No 8: the relationship between economic sanctions and respect for economic, social and cultural rights’ (1997) UN Doc E/C.12/1997/8, para 13. 98 UN, ‘Compilation of guidelines on the form and context of reports to be submitted by States Parties to the international human rights treaties’ (2009) HRI/GEN/2/Rev.6, para 43. 99 CRC, ‘Treaty-specific guidelines regarding the form and content of periodic reports to be submitted by States Parties under article 44, paragraph 1 (b), of the Convention on the Rights of the Child’ (2015) UN Doc CRC/C/58/Rev.3 (CRC Reporting guidelines), para 19. 100 See, eg, Concluding Observations Guatemala CRC/C/GTM/CO/3-4 (2010). 101 CESCR, Concluding Observations Armenia UN Doc E/C.12/ARM/CO/2-3, para 9. It made a similar recommendation to Gambia in its Concluding Observations to that country in 2015, UN Doc E/C.12/GMB/CO/1. 102 CRC, General Comment No 5 (2003) on General measures of implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Arts 4, 42 and 44, para 6) UN Doc CRC/GC/2003/5, para 51. 40 The Obligation to Mobilise Resources: Bridging Human Rights, Sustainable Development Goals, and Economic and Fiscal Policies   December 2017