A/66/256 primary duty-bearers for the protection of children, should work in partnership with the United Nations to ensure that time-bound and effective measures, including action plans, are put in place by all parties. E. Targeted and graduated measures 59. Efforts to strengthen the links between the work of the Security Council on children and armed conflict and its sanctions regime is an area of ongoing work. Targeted and graduated sanctions should be applied against persistent perpetrators as a measure of last resort, when all other means have failed to end impunity for crimes committed against children. In its most recent resolution on children and armed conflict (resolution 1998 (2011)), the Security Council reaffirmed its readiness, expressed in previous resolutions and presidential statements, to adopt targeted and graduated measures against persistent perpetrators of grave violations against children, and increasingly to integrate violations against children into its sanctions regimes. 60. In response, in May of this year, the Special Representative briefed the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 751 (1992) and 1907 (2009) concerning Somalia and Eritrea, proposing the addition of grave violations against children as designation criteria for sanctions. The Security Council, by its resolution 2002 (2011), expanded the sanctions regime in Somalia to include grave violations against children in armed conflict in its designation criteria. Closer collaboration between the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 751 (1992) and 1907 (2009) concerning Somalia and Eritrea and the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict will enhance coherence in the work of the Council and strengthen its actions against impunity. Going forward, it will be critical to expand this practice to other sanctions committees which address persistent perpetrators of grave violations against children. F. Role of Governments in protecting children affected by conflict 61. Governments bear the primary responsibility for the protection of children and, more widely, of civilians. A number of steps must be taken to build a protective environment for children, before, during and after conflict. Foremost is the establishment of a national legal framework enshrining international norms that upholds the rights of children and protects them from the consequences of conflict. In this regard, the ratification and subsequent implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, inter alia through translation into national legislation, followed by the necessary administrative, budgetary and social policy adjustments, is a key foundational step towards the protection of children. Further child-specific legal instruments, such as child protection codes or acts, which include a gamut of measures from juvenile justice to punitive measures against violations and abuses of child rights, have provided an additional layer of legal protection in States affected by conflict. 62. Where societies are emerging from conflict, transitional justice mechanisms should be put in place by national authorities to ensure that wartime crimes against children are accounted for. Transitional justice mechanisms based on judicial processes may be complemented by non-judicial accountability mechanisms. These 14 11-44370