132 Mezmur/18th birthday of the African Children’s Rights Charter Charter is jurisdictional in nature, and deprives the African Children’s Committee from exercising its mandate in full. Even though the question of who has the mandate to decide on the validity or otherwise of reservations entered into human rights treaties is still not settled,35 there are few examples that suggest that the African Committee should be able to exercise such a mandate in relation to the Charter.36 In relation to Egypt’s reservations under articles 44 and 45, it is questionable if reservations on procedural/jurisdiction related provisions of a human rights instrument are generally permitted.37 In addition, an argument can also be made that, as the practice in the UN human rights treaty making process establishes, where States would like to make a communication procedure optional, such a procedure is often introduced through an ‘Optional Protocol’ which would be a separate treaty from the ‘mother’ instrument.38 However, in the case of the African Children’s Rights Charter, individual complaints and the mandate to undertake investigative missions is in-built in the Charter. It can also be contended that the object and purpose of the African Children’s Rights Charter, which in general is to promote and protect the best interests of children in all actions in Africa, as provided for in Article 4 of the Charter, is directly linked to its individual communications process and investigations procedure, which, in the absence of effective domestic remedy, serve as a recourse.39 In a number of occasions, the Executive Council of the AU has asked State parties that have entered reservations on the application of the provisions of the Charter to consider the withdrawal of such reservations. This was done, for instance in 2014,40 and in 2016.41 In a marked departure from these and other related previous decisions, 35 See, in general, I Ziemele and L Liede ‘Reservations to human rights treaties: from Draft Guideline 3.1.12 to Guideline 3.1.5.6’ (2013) 24 The European Journal of International Law 1135; L Helfer ‘Not fully committed?: reservations, risk, and treaty design’ (2006) 31 Yale Journal of International Law 367. 36 See, for instance, General Comment No 24 of the United Nations Human Right Committee which considered itself to have the mandate to review the reservations entered into the ICCPR. See too the case of Loizidou v Turkey, ECHR (1995) Series A, No 310 and the case of Belilos v Switzerland, ECHR (1988) Series A, No 132. 37 In the case between Loizidou v Turkey, the European Court of Human Right held that States may not make a reservation in relation to an Article of the Convention that does not deal directly with substantive rights and freedoms, but instead with procedural or formal matters. 38 See, for instance, the CRC, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, all of which provide for an optional protocol that establishes the individual complaints as well as investigation/inquiries mechanisms under each treaty. 39 As General Comment 24 of the Human Rights Committee noted, reservations that purport to evade an essential element, such as monitoring implementation of human right instrument in the design of that instrument, which is also directed to securing the enjoyment of the rights, are incompatible with its object and purpose of that treaty. For the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment 24, see UN Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/ Add. 6 (1994), available at http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/ Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2fC%2f21%2fRev.1%2fAdd.6&Lang=en. 40 EX.CL/Dec.843(XXV) Decision on the Report of the African Committee of experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child – Doc. EX.CL/858(XXV), para 3.