National Human Rights Commission of Korea Annual Report 2020 The Commission concluded that the proposed fifth periodic report needs some corrections and refinement, considering that the purpose of the report and the purpose of review by the UN Human Rights Committee are to identify issues and challenges in implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in the state party, and to provide a venue for constructive dialogue in order to further advance the safeguard and realization of rights of the international covenant. The Commission saw a need to lay out in the draft fifth periodic report the challenges that the state party has faced in taking actions and implementing policies to fulfill its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and what efforts were made to cope with the challenges. Also, despite the fact that five years have passed since the concluding observations on the fourth periodic report was adopted, the fifth report failed to present detailed plans in some areas. Thus, the Commission called for more specific future implementation plans. D. Opinion Regarding the Proposed Partial Revision to Civil Act Amid a series of serious child abuse cases involving persons with parental rights, the Commission on August 21 expressed opinion to the Chairman of the National Assembly and the Minister of Justice that it would be desirable to make amendments to the Civil Act to be more conducive to protecting children rights, and suggested deleting Article 915, which provides for the right of persons with parental rights to punish their children, and codifying a provision prohibiting all forms of corporal punishment against own children. Under Article 915 of the Civil Act, which provides that a person of parental authority may, in order to protect or educate his or her child, enforce necessary punishment against the child, corporal punishment intended for educational purposes are not recognized as child abuse. This, in turn, has caused offenders to abuse the provision in their own legal defense. The Commission concluded that Article 915 of the Civil Act should be deleted as it contradicts with the intent of the new Child Welfare Act and the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Child Abuse Crime, and can be used by persons with parental rights as a means of justifying their corporal punishment in child abuse cases. Also, considering that the ambiguity between ‘punishment’ and ‘discipline’ has made prevention of and response against child abuse cases difficult, it argued that the deletion of ‘necessary punishment’ from Article 915 48