procedure to follow with different steps: the official ratification by the parliament or the executive; the originals have to be submitted to the AU Legal Department, the Charter shall enter into force for the Country who had ratified within 30 days and only after that, the AUMS will be considered as a State Party. Then in order to make the Charter effective the State Party, according to his treaty law can make it immediately applicable or will have to domesticate his legislation in order to include the Charter. The ideal will be to make studies of compatibility and relevance before ratifying any International Convention. During his presentation, Mr Sekone also explained the option for a State Party to make reservations on any provision of the Charter, but also mitigate this possibility by explaining that the ACERWC might interpret the Charter differently. As a matter of fact, the following States Parties have made reservations to the Charter: Botswana, Egypt, Mauritania and Sudan. Mr Sekone gave us the example of the Government of Egypt when the ACERWC received two communications as per his mandate mentioned in article 44 of the Charter. As this State Party made a reservation on the mandate of the ACERWC to receive communication; the question here was to know whether the reservation introduced by the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt is compatible with the object and purpose of the Charter itself. In order to reply, Mr Sekone highlighted the principle mentioned in article 19 (c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 which provides that reservations incompatible with the object and purpose of a treaty are invalid. A reservation that rejects the competence of the ACERWC to receive and consider communications would then be contrary to the object and purpose of the Charter. For this reason, the Committee considered that Egypt's reservation to article 44 is incompatible with the object and purpose of the Charter which is in "all actions" to advocate and protect "the best interests of the child" must be "the primary consideration" (Article 4 of the Charter). Finally, Mr Sekone indicated the objectives of submitting reports to the ACERWC; not only once but as a continuing commitment on the realization of children’s rights issues. He gave the example of Tunisia and Mauritius who are doing very well in matters of education. Mr Sekone presented the challenges for the submission of reports as some countries have not submitted any reports, or for others there are irregular reports or combined reports and some reports are not aligned with the reporting guidelines. Discussions Following the two presentations, participants raised questions on whether or not the ACERWC gives approval on reservations, what assistance is available in relation to reporting to ACERWC, whether or not there are mechanisms in which the ACERWC engages with the other African human rights organs as well as the UNCRC. Moreover, participants raised questions in relation to the formal procedure of ratification, when a 7|Page