Joint general comment No. 3 (2017) of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and No. 22 (2017) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the general principles regarding the human rights ... 2017, para. 31
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In order to implement the best interests principle in migration-related procedures or decisions that could affect children, the Committees stress the need to conduct systematically best-interests assessments and determination procedures as part of, or to inform, migration-related and other decisions that affect migrant children. As the Committee on the Rights of the Child explains in its general comment No. 14, the child’s best interests should be assessed and determined when a decision is to be made. A “best-interests assessment” involves evaluating and balancing all the elements necessary to make a decision in the specific situation for a specific individual child or group of children. A “best-interests determination” is a formal process with strict procedural safeguards designed to determine the child’s best interests on the basis of the best-interests assessment. In addition, assessing the child’s best interests is a unique activity that should be undertaken in each individual case and in the light of the specific circumstances of each child or group of children, including age, sex, level of maturity, whether the child or children belong to a minority group and the social and cultural context in which the child or children find themselves.